Ah colonialism. Who doesn’t remember those heady days when British warships ruled the waves and English society was the most impressive and imitated throughout the world? One of the best benefits of colonialism was being able to spread your people and culture around the world, even if the people you’re spreading are from the bottom of the societal barrel. It’s this that brings us to the importance of January 26th to one very specific group of people, Australians. When we decided to ship all of our convicts around the world to clean up British society, we didn’t know when they would land. It just happens that they landed today, January 26th, in 1788.
While Australia might be a beautiful country with a powerful economy and a coastline that draws jealousy from all around the world, it should be known that things were much different in 1788. When Arthur Phillip and his 11 ships landed in the British colony of New South Wales, they had no idea what to expect from a land they had never been to that was populated by flora and fauna unlike any they had encountered before. Of the 1,000 people who landed in Australia after the 8 month voyage that took them around Africa, over 700 were convicts. However few of them were violent or murderous convicts; back in the day you could be thrown in jail for something as simple as defaulting on debts or trying to escape indentured servitude!
Either way, the criminals and marines that were sent to watch over them had a very hard time. The soil in Australia was poor for growing and no one even knew how to farm (remember, they were criminals)! Add to the situation the obvious fact that everything in Australia is violent and perfect for killing people and you have the making of a very sad story. However this wasn’t to be the case and the British convicts (now Australians) pulled themselves up and began claiming the land for themselves; turning it into the beautiful country it is today. Australians will forever celebrate January 26th as Australia Day (because that’s when it was founded) and we British will forever celebrate January 26th as the day we got rid of all those awful criminals. Everyone wins!
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
from Edmund Scarborough’s Historical Website http://ift.tt/1zjTOXX
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