Australia Day – Why January 26?

There are two fake news stories that have now been told often enough that they have slipped into Australian mythology, yet, remain but myths.

The first is that Australia Day is celebrated each year on January 26 because it was the day Arthur Phillip arrived and claimed New South Wales for Britain.

The second myth is that the British actually ‘invaded’ Australia, taking Aboriginal land, killing Aborigines and reducing them to some sort of servitude.

The celebration on Australia Day has absolutely nothing to do with Arthur Phillip and there certainly was no invasion as Sydney became a successfully integrated society within three years.

In the new book, What a Capital Idea – Australia 1770-1901, both of these myths are shown to be falsehoods by simply reporting on what actually happened from firsthand accounts from diary notes of 1788-1830, King George III Letters Patent of 1786, British legislation from 1786-1830, newspaper reports and proclamations by the Governors of New South Wales. There has never been a more accurate account of Australia’s history in print.

When Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay on January 18, 1788, he immediately went ashore to meet the local people. He got on exceptionally well with them like no other ‘foreigner’ ever had. Phillip and the locals walked together around the Bay looking for somewhere to bring in his big canoe and set up a colony. They all decided that the shore was too shallow or marshy. I think it was the Aborigines who suggested he go a bit further north and have a look at Port Jackson; not that the Aborigines called it Port Jackson. Anyway, he bid them all farewell and returned to his ship, the Supply, in the evening. Over the next two days, the rest of the fleet arrived.

Phillip took a pinnace (row boat with a sail for some 8 people) and went up to Port Jackson on January 22, 1788. He pulled into a cove, he later called Sydney Cove. Again, local people came down out of the trees to meet him. The afternoon lingered on with Phillip and the local chief chatting away – mostly in sign language, I imagine, and Phillip, his companions, and the Aborigines, all sat down to dinner together on the beach for the next two nights.

Phillip went back to Botany Bay two days later on January 24, got the Supply, and came back around to Sydney Cove in the afternoon of January 26. Phillip and his officers and marines came ashore, put a flag in the ground to mark the spot where the rest of the convoy was to put ashore, broke out the wine and toasted the King’s health as they watched the sunset.

January 26 1788, was a non-event in the arrival of the British and the taking possession of New South Wales, under international law. There were no troops running up the beaches and there was no ‘invasion’. The big days were actually February 6 and 7, 1788. But let me continue on with the ‘truth tellin’.

After a week of clearing land and erecting tents, the last of the transportees came ashore on February 6. Phillip told everybody they could have a party. And, they could all have wine and rum for their celebration. The band played. People danced and sang into the night. I can imagine that as the Aborigines watched the revelry one of them saying, “Now That’s a corroboree!”

“On February 7, Phillip had all the transportees sit on the ground, which was probably still wet, and the marines and the officers dress up in uniform. Marines marched and the band played. Aborigines watched on. Then Captain David Collins, the new Judge Advocate and Secretary of the Colony, read the King’s Commission and Letters Patent declaring Author Phillip to be the Captain-General, Vice Admiral, and Governor-in-Chief of the Colony of New South Wales. With the official stuff done, Phillip invited all the offices and hangers on to gather for more drinks under a large canopy erected for a celebration. And so, the new colony began.

This was the official beginning of the Colony of New South Wales but it has nothing to do with Australia Day of January 26.

January 26 is the day chosen as Australia Day because on January 26, 1949, the Nationality and Citizenship Act of 1948 commenced as law.  

From this date, it was possible to become an Australian citizen. Before that, we were British subjects. Everybody who is born here, regardless of racial heritage, is automatically an Australian citizen. So, January 26 is a celebration because it is our Australian’s Day. We celebrate because we are proud we are Australian.

I desperately wish some friends in the media would tell this truth and stop the myth about January 26, 1788 and Arthur Phillip’s arrival.

The other myth is that the British ‘invaded’ Australia. The truth is that there wasn’t a conquest. There was no 250,000 troops storming up the beaches, burning villages and enslaving the natives. Indeed, the colony was quite vulnerable. The third-rate regiment of 700 marines sent out with Phillip would have easily been extinguished (killed) by night raiding cadres of Aboriginal marauders, if the Aborigines had wished to kill off the new residents. This myth of conflict and invasion is without truth. It is what we used to call a ‘lie’.

The Aborigines of the time didn’t think of the British coming to Australia as an ‘invasion’. Within a year Aborigines were living in the colony and even had jobs. Some went on to own farms.

In March, 1793, the Spanish explorer, Malaspina, called into the colony and recorded in his diaries that “… both [Aboriginal] boys and girls [were] received and cared for with great attention in the houses of the principle persons of the colony. Both men and women … have been admitted to the dining room in our presence, and have enjoyed delicacies from the same table… Sometimes we saw Aborigines dancing and singing in the principle streets …

By this time, the two races had become quite at ease with each other in the colony with settlers invited to attend corroborees and Aborigines invited into the home of the settlers.

The Sydney colony was a successful integrated society. And within 2 years, Arthur Phillip was made a member of the local tribe and given the name Wolawaree. Today, as an elder of his tribe, he would be commonly known simply as Uncle Wally.

In the Mabo decision be the High Court of Australia in 1992, the Court declared that Australia was legally owned by Britain. The Court quotes Judge Isaac, who, in 1913, stated that it was unquestionable that -“when Governor Phillip received his first Commission from King George III. on 12th October 1786, the whole of the lands of Australia were already in law the property of the King of England”

Britain was the most sophisticated and developed nation of earth. It could have taken Australia by conquest, or by treaty, or paid regular stipends (as we do now) to tribal chiefs. Britain was a Christian country, holding to Christian values that became embedded into British law, and, it was experiencing a period of Enlightenment in the 1700s with new and liberal ideas influencing the thinking of its leaders. Rather than invade Australia and subjugate the natives, or write treaties to stop the waring among the tribes, the British jumped over both these options and granted all the inhabitants of Australia to be British subject – equal under the law with all other British subjects.

Again, in the Mabo decision, Judge Blackstone is quoted as saying that English law would become the law of a country outside England either upon first settlement by English colonists of a country or by the exercise of the Sovereign’s legislative power over a conquered or ceded country. British law arriving in Australia didn’t just bring parameters, it brought rights, protections and freedoms to all British subjects, and Aborigines were glad it did. The coming of the British became a time of celebration.

Australia Day of January 26, marks an advancement of our nation as we became citizens under a fair and liberal democracy where all have equal rights, protections and benefits. It’s a ‘Day of Celebration’ to express pride in our country. t is a day to raise the flag, and the glass, and toast our country for all that we have and are yet to achieve.

What a Capital idea – Australia 1770-1901 … https://reynoldlearning.com/australian-history/