The First Fleet was a convict armada. Eleven ships, 1,400 prisoners, dragged across the world to start a penal colony at Sydney Cove. Australia, founded by criminals. We learn this in primary school. It is the founding fact of European Australia. The boats were full of pickpockets and bread-thieves and political prisoners, and that is what made the country what it is.
Of the roughly 1,420 people who arrived at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, around 750 were convicts (about 580 men and 190 women, with some uncertainty in the records). The remainder, more than 600 people, were marines (around 250), naval crew, officers, civil officials, and the wives and children who came with them. About a quarter of the First Fleet were free, several were paid professionals, and at least one (the colony's surgeon, John White) was on a salaried contract. Calling it a 'convict fleet' captures who the colony was set up to manage, not who actually crewed and ran it. The convict-founded Australia framing is partly true and very useful as national mythology, but it under-counts the marines who guarded them, the officers who governed them, the sailors who got them here, and the small number of free families that came along. Australia was founded by a mixed group, of whom about half were prisoners. The other half had to live there too.
Reception
Sources
- State Library NSW: First Fleet REFERENCE
- Australian National Maritime Museum: First Fleet REFERENCE