Before European settlement, the area of present-day metropolitan Sydney was inhabited by an estimated 3,000 Aborigines of the Cadigal (also known as Eora), Dharawal, Dharug, Gandangara, and Guringai tribes. These Aboriginal tribes led a much more settled life than the inland tribes and relied heavily on food from marine sources. Little more is known of these people and their lifestyle and culture because they were essentially wiped out within a few years after the first British colonists arrived in 1788. The Aborigines were decimated by European diseases and, to a lesser extent, killed in attacks by British settlers. They also were dispossessed of their lands. The colonists introduced an epidemic of what was probably smallpox that killed about half of the area's Aboriginal population in 1789. Encounters between Aborigines and colonists were mostly peaceful at first, but by 1790 the two sides were engaged in a series of armed conflicts known as the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars. By the end of the century, the few remaining Aborigines in the area were reduced to being urban-fringe dwellers.
British explorer Captain James Cook noted the entrance to Port Jackson on his voyage of discovery in 1770 but did not enter. He landed at Botany Bay and claimed possession of the southeastern part of the Australian continent for the United Kingdom, later naming the territory New South Wales. It was largely on the basis of Cook's reports and those of others on his ship, the Endeavour, that the British government decided in 1786 to establish a settlement at Botany Bay. The intention was to set up a penal colony to help relieve overcrowding in the British gaols (jails). That year British home secretary Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, appointed retired naval captain Arthur Phillip to be the first governor of New South Wales. Phillip supervised the preparation of the 11 ships of the First Fleet that set sail for Australia in May 1787, and he commanded one of the ships on the journey. The fleet arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 with more than 1,450 people, including 736 convicts, most of whom were serving time for minor offenses such as theft. The first settlers also included 20 civil officials and more than 200 marines and their dependents, while most of the 443 seamen later sailed on to other destinations. After a brief exploratory expedition north from Botany Bay, Phillip chose Port Jackson as a preferable site. On January 26 he raised the British flag there and set up camp at Sydney Cove, which he named after Viscount Sydney, and the penal colony became known as Sydney.
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Sydney Information info
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