European Settlement in autralia

Australia's first group of European migrants arrived in January 1788. They came on a fleet consisting of two warships, three supply ships and six ships which carried the main group, almost 800 convicts. Governor Arthur Phillip was in command. When the fleet reached the planned destination of Botany Bay, Governor Phillip was disappointed to find that it was not suitable for settlement. So the fleet continued a few kilometers up the coast to an inlet Cook had named Port Jackson. Here Phillip found what he described as 'the finest harbour in the world'. On its shore, at a place he named Sydney Cove, Phillip established the first European settlement in Australia.  

The main reason for a British settlement in Australia was to provide a place of punishment where convicts could be sent. Phillip's task was to establish such a settlement and make it self-supporting as soon as possible, so that the British government would not have to pay large amounts of money to keep it going. This was an enormously difficult job for several reasons:

The people who were to build the settlement were convicts. Generally they were not good workers and very few of them had any knowledge of farming or carpentry - the two skills most needed in the new colony. Unlike Aborigines, who lived well off the land, the new settlers did not understand the Australian environment. Nor, in the early years, did they have much success in finding fertile land or growing enough food to feed the whole settlement. The new convict settlement at Sydney Cove was very isolated. The nearest European settlements were in the Dutch East Indies and at the Cape of Good Hope. It would take up to 18 months to get news to Britain and back.