1791 - Elizabeth Pulley and an uneven fourth year
We left Elizabeth and Anthony at the end of last year with the exciting arrival of the Dutch snow, Waaksamheyd, and it's cargo of flour, rice and salt.
Although the Waaksamheyd’s
load of provisions was not quite what it should have been, it supplemented the
colony’s better than expected yield of wheat and barley in January, and the
colony was able to remain on full rations.
Then in mid January Henry Edward Dodd, the superintendent of convicts at Rose
Hill, died. This was a bitter blow to
Phillip who had considered Dodd to be ‘the only person in this settlement equal
to that charge’ (i.e. directing the convict’s labour). According to Judge-Advocate Collins his
funeral service was attended by all the free people and convicts at Rose Hill,
which would probably have included Elizabeth, Anthony and Robert.
Drought, lack of provisions and
Anthony ‘buys’ some shoes
The summer was severe. There had
been no real rain since the previous June and by January the drought was
causing difficulties. In February the
temperature soared to over one hundred degrees farenheight (c. 38°C). There was a bat infestation at Sydney Cove/Warrane and at Rose Hill birds and bats
were seen to drop out of trees, or in mid-flight, dying in the heat. The scrub fires lit by the local Dharug people made the heat
oppressive. The smaller streams around
Rose Hill and Sydney Cove/Warrane
dried up, although the brook and spring at Rose Hill maintained enough water to
supply the settlement there.
Once again the local Indigenous people were starving and began to attack settlers for food. The settlement retaliated and a local Indigenous man, who was well-known, was shot and later died.
The convicts were looking tired and half-starved. Their stealing of provisions and the ripening Indian corn and vegetables, especially at Rose Hill, became more frequent. By March when Anthony was charged with possession of stolen shoes, the severity of punishment had increased to iron collars of seven pounds, linked together with chains. Fortunately Anthony only received twenty-five lashes as he claimed to have bought the shoes from a friend and theft could not be proven.
April saw a return to reduced rations and Phillip was determined to encourage as many people as he could to become self-supporting in an attempt to ease the reliance on public stores. Already in March he had placed three more civilians on their own farms near Rose Hill, just north of the brook, and in April two ex-seamen were settled nearby.
Land grants begin in earnest
When the first ships of the Third Fleet appeared Phillip went out to
Rose Hill in person to hurry the process along.
As the Third Fleet convicts and soldiers of the NSW corps were being
landed from their transports in Sydney Cove/Warrane,
Phillip was granting tracks of land to convicts whose sentences had expired at
Rose Hill, now renamed Parramatta[1]. He placed them in two areas west and
north-east of the settlement, (re)named Prospect Hill and The Ponds. One lot of grants were given in June/July,
and a second in August/September.
In a way the granting of land was also a delaying tactic as most of the ex-convicts, like the marines, seamen and officers, wanted to return to England. However England did not want the ex-convicts back and pressured Phillip to discourage them. Those who were now ‘free’ felt they were no longer compelled to work and were beginning to cause problems.
So Phillip gave the ex-convicts a choice, either continue to labour for the government for provisions as they had been doing, or become settlers. As settlers they were to work on their own land while receiving provisions and free medical assistance for the first twelve to eighteen months. If they still wanted to return to England after that time they would get no assistance from the government and would have to negotiate their return passage directly with the ships masters. [2] In addition, if they chose not to work on the land they had been given they would lose it.
Mary is born
John Summers, a friend and workmate of Anthony, was offered and
accepted a grant of land at The Ponds.
Anthony, whose sentence was not yet completed, continued to labour as a
bricklayer at Parramatta where Elizabeth gave birth to their second child. Mary Rope was baptised at Parramatta on 31st
July. It was also during this month that
relations between the local Dharug
and other clans and the settlers began to unravel again.
Indigenous-British relations
Interaction between the Aboriginal groups and the British had, by this
time, settled down into a cycle of peaceful co-existence followed by individual
and small group conflict. Most of the
conflict was caused by the encroachment of settlers on Aboriginal land and food
sources and by the convicts continually stealing their equipment. Indigenous retaliation would usually involve attacking
lone convicts in the woods or taking the settler's food and stores. They had also realised that by coming into
the settlements and befriending those in authority it would lead to a sharing
of food and provisions. So Aboriginal people
became frequent visitors to the towns, treating them as an extension of their home,
which, as there had been no Treaty or formal agreement between the two cultures,
it was.
At Parramatta a trade of fish for bread and salted meat had been proceeding quite peacefully for some months. The trade was led by Ballederry, who was well-known and liked by the settlers. Ballederry sometimes stayed over with Governor Phillip and, along with Colbee, had accompanied some officers on an expedition northwest of Parramatta in April.[3] However during June some convicts destroyed Ballederry’s canoe. Although three of the culprits were caught and punished, Ballederry retaliated a few days later by spearing a convict which, of course, was his cultural norm. As this sort of payback was not acceptable to the English orders went out to arrest or kill him.[4]
Ballederry was now a wanted man and he went into hiding. The peaceful trade between the two cultures at Parramatta ceased. Every now and again during the rest of the year Ballederry would send word asking if the Governor was still angry with him. Then in December he became ill with fever. The surgeon examined him, Phillip invited him to go to the hospital for treatment, and their former friendship was resumed.[5]
In spite of singular incidents like these settler-Indigenous interaction seemed to continue as an uneasy truce. For example, at Sydney Cove/Warrane in August a large group of First Peoples called in and stayed overnight on the way to and from a ceremony at Botany Bay/Kamay. In the same month Bennelong’s wife arrived to birth her baby. Others would come in and stay overnight, or for food, or to visit the hospital for assistance. There are also records of some deciding to accompany their English friends to Norfolk Island during this period, and of English being lost in the woods and being escorted back by some of the local Indigenous people.
At Parramatta the unease was fuelled by the establishment of the satellite farms. In July a large group of the Aboriginal clans had appeared at Prospect Hill and after being fired on set fire to a hut. Phillip responded by sending a small troop of soldiers to guard this outlying post, and another to the Ponds. His original idea had been to establish equal blocks of crown land in between each settler, but now he could see it was a mistake. He began to offer the crown land to other convicts and encouraged them to clear it as quickly as possible.
Perhaps Elizabeth and Anthony, whose term was near its end, were among those who profited by this decision for by the end of the year the family was settled at the Ponds. Yet Anthony was still not considered ‘free’ and probably continued to work as a bricklayer in town. If so in October he would have gathered with all the other convicts as part of the general muster to welcome Barrington, the new superintendent. He would also have been later visited by him at the brickworks. During leisure hours Anthony, as were others in a similar situation, was under instruction to cultivate his own land and by December they had one acre under cultivation, probably of maize or corn.
expeditions
Meanwhile the push to find alternative settlement sites continued,
further motivated by the long drought, which meant that the identification of
alternative fresh water sources was a priority[6] .
Expeditions recommenced from Parramatta.
One expedition revisited northwest, confirming that the Nepean and
Hawkesbury/Dyarubbin was the one
river and finally breaking through to the mountains in the west.
Another expedition moved south from Parramatta, and along the Georges River which was shared by many clans north, south, east and west along the river. Bays to the south of Sydney Cove/Warrane, in Dharawal-Dhurga country and which were (re)named Jervis Bay and Matilda Bay, were discovered by some of ships of the Third Fleet. These ships were whalers and as soon as their human cargo had landed they made good use of the bays as anchorage points from which to track and fish the whales. Their hunts were not as successful as they had hoped, but Phillip saw the potential for a future industry and wrote to England with the news.
abscondments continue
At the end of March a group of convicts, some of whose terms had
expired, had absconded at night in a boat well-stocked with food, provisions
and tools. It was led by the Governor’s
fisherman and had been planned over many months.[7] The Governor immediately placed size limits
on the boats being built and carefully monitored all night work.
Then in November a group of twenty male Irish convicts and one female, who had arrived on the Third Fleet, absconded from Parramatta into the woods heading for China. Gradually they were found lost and starving and were brought back, only to abscond again almost immediately. Phillip once again gathered all the new arrivals together and warned them they would be shot in future and would suffer instant death for robbing the stores, as he had heard of their plot to do so. Yet by December thirty-eight convict men were missing in the woods and plundering the stores at night. There was even a report of two men assaulting another man on the newly completed Parramatta Road. And the stealing of boats continued spasmodically.
departure of Third Fleet ships
During the last months of the year the Third Fleet began to depart with
those ex-convicts, officers and marines who had elected to return to
England. The departees included Major
Ross, and Lt. Clark who had both returned from their duty in Norfolk Island,
and Captain Watkins Tench, whose journal is an invaluable resource. All had arrived with the First Fleet and,
like many others who still had to remain, were suffering the effects of the
long absence from home and the deprivations experienced since arrival.
Not many were sorry to see Ross go. As Judge-Advocate Collins wrote, ‘It is the Prayer of every one in this Colony, that he may not stay two Days in it, when he returns’ (ie. from Norfolk). Nevertheless Ross still managed to engage in a duel during the week before departure. Lt. Clark, Elizabeth’s ‘foe’ on the Friendship, had acquired a lover, Mary Branham, with whom he had a daughter, Ann Alicia, while at Norfolk Island. Mary, Ann and another of Mary’s children arrived in Sydney with him and apparently accompanied him back to England.[8]
life goes on
The Third Fleet’s departure left a gap.
The Fleet’s arrival from July to October had offered many
diversions. People living at Sydney Cove/Warrane would go to the shore to greet
the ships and to inquire after friends and news from home. Others would sort through the luxury goods
the ship masters had brought with them for sale at the usual inflated prices. A
few from the Aboriginal community would wander down to watch.
Newcomers, such as Mr. and Mrs McArthur, Superintendent Barrington, Rev. James Bain, chaplain of the NSW corps, as well as officer’s wives, would be entertained at dinners, picnics and excursions along the river, or at Parramatta. By mid December all the ships had gone, including the Supply from the First Fleet and, as Judge-Advocate Collins wrote, everything settled ‘back to a dull uniformity’.
Rations had been reduced again in December making it a lean Christmas. So a gift of a pound of flour was given to each woman, which Elizabeth would no doubt have appreciated. The season was also celebrated with a divine service at Parramatta, probably where a temporary shelter had been built for that purpose, and the robbing of the marine store of twenty-two gallons of spirits at night[9] .
Then on the last day of the year convicts gathered in front of Government House Parramatta to protest the reduction in rationing and the daily, rather than weekly, distribution of food.[10] The protest was led by the newly arrived convicts from Irish gaols.[11] As Judge-Advocate Collins wrote, there was a ‘spirit of resistance and villainy lately imported by the newcomers’.
[1]
Phillip had renamed Rose Hill, Parramatta
as part of the Kings Birthday celebrations on 4th June. Parramatta
was the name the local Aboriginal people gave to the area, thought to mean ‘the
place where eels lie down’ or ‘the head of the river’.
[2]
England did finally support Phillip’s requests and allowed ex-convicts to
return.
[3]
The expedition was an unsuccessful attempt to find the junction of the
Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers (originally called Dyarubbin). Colbee and Ballederry were not comfortable outside their own locale as they knew they were trespassing uninvited and could not wait to return
home. Although they openly greeted the Bu-ru-be-ton-gal people, who lived
around the Hawkesbury/Dyarubbin river
and seemed friendly, both groups spoke different dialects and were nervous of
each other. Privately Ballederry described them as ‘enemies’
and in one instance burnt one of their shelters.
[4] The unevenness of British attitudes
towards and punishment of British and First Peoples regarding such
infringements has to be noted. British who retaliated and killed the
local Indigenous people were not always punished or hunted down.
[5] In
spite of Phillip’s friendship with and respect for, many of the First Peoples,
he was under pressure from England to procure ‘specimens’. In a letter which accompanied the many
specimens of flora and fauna he sent home in December he wrote of the
difficulty of procuring Aboriginal heads as ‘the Natives burn their dead: no
European has yet seen the ceremony’. He
was hopeful, however, that Bennilong,
who Phillip described as very intelligent, would accompany him in person when
he eventually returned home. The practice of collecting human trophies was rife
at the time. From a 21st
century perspective it is, or should be, repugnant. According to Aboriginal remains repatriation the practiced continued until the late 1940's with 1990 marking the "year of the first ever repatriation from the UK".
[6]
The tank stream in Sydney Cove/Warrane
had gradually silted and the water level was very low. During 1791 effort was put into clearing,
widening and deepening it. Palings on
the bank were erected to keep out the stock and in November stonemasons were
ordered to cut tanks out of the rock for reservoirs.
[7]
Some were actually seen by one of the officers one year later at the Cape of
Good Hope from where they returned to England to face the courts for their
abscondment.
[8] So
much for the ‘damned whores’ and desperately missing his beloved wife, Alicia,
and son. He did, interestingly, name the
baby Ann Alicia after his wife.
[9]
Spirits, such as Rum and Porter, were in limited supply for everyone and had
always caused problems among the convicts and marines. A fresh supply had arrived with the Third
Fleet but Phillip had stopped it being landed until guards could be put into
place to secure it once on shore.
[10]
Convicts had been bartering their weekly ration for spirits. By mid-week they were starving, and began to
steal. So Phillip decided to try and
reduce, or control, the problem with daily hand-outs instead.
[11]
As usual the newly arrived convicts did not think they should have to work for
food; preferring to abscond and/or steal.
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