Part I

Let’s Get This Country Started

‘Now that we’re in Australia, who’s up for a long weekend?’

In this part . . .

Australia is a country with the most unlikely set of origins anywhere in the modern world. Indigenous Australians and newly arriving British settlers were very far from being a natural match for each other, but it gets weirder still. Most of the arriving colonists were convicts — that is, criminal outcasts — from Britain. It made for a highly problematic mix, and not one that spelt much in the way of recognition, respect or rights for the indigenous people.

You’d expect a colony developing out of convicted criminals, soldiers and officials to be on a fast-track to a hellish kind of society, but something unexpected happened. Without anyone in authority deciding or designing it, the new colony became a place to start again. By the time British authorities got around to noticing the widespread laxness in their convict colony, it was too late — the ex-cons had already established themselves as major players in Australian life.

In this part, I cover the first arrivals in Australia, the visitors they received, and the first 30 years of European settlement.