Sydney - History

History

Radio carbon dating suggests that the Sydney region has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years.

The traditional indigenous inhabitants of Sydney Cove are the Cadigal people, whose land once stretched from south of Port Jackson to Petersham. While estimates of the population numbers before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 remain contentious, approximately 4,000–8,000 Aboriginal people lived in the Sydney region before contact with British settlers. The British called the indigenous people the "Eora", because being asked where they came from, these people would answer: "Eora", meaning "here", or "from this place" in their language. There were three language groups in the Sydney region, which were divided into dialects spoken by smaller clans. The principal languages were Darug (the Cadigal, original inhabitants of the City of Sydney, spoke a coastal dialect of Darug), Dharawal and Guringai. Each clan had a territory, the location of each territory determined the resources available. Although urbanisation has destroyed much evidence of these settlements such as shell middens, a number of Sydney rock engravings, carvings and rock art remain visible in the Hawkesbury sandstone of the Sydney basin.

In 1770, British sea captain Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. It is here that Cook made first contact with an Aboriginal community known as the Gweagal. Under instruction from the British government, a convict settlement was founded by Arthur Phillip, who arrived at Botany Bay with a fleet of 11 ships on 18 January 1788. This site was soon determined to be unsuitable for habitation, owing to poor soil and a lack of reliable fresh water. Phillip subsequently founded the colony one inlet further north along the coast, at Sydney Cove on Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. The official proclamation of the founding and naming of Sydney took place nearly two weeks later on 7 February 1788. The original name was intended to be Albion, but Phillip named the settlement after the British Home Secretary, Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney, in recognition of Sydney's role in issuing the charter authorising Phillip to establish the colony.

In April 1789, a catastrophic epidemic disease now thought to be smallpox spread through the Eora people and surrounding groups, with the result that local Aborigines died in their thousands, and bodies could often be seen bobbing in the water in Sydney Harbour. The cause of the epidemic has always been a matter of speculation and controversy, introduction by the British being among the most likely explanations. In any event, the results were catastrophic for the Eora people and their kin and by the early 1800s the Aboriginal population of the Sydney basin "had been reduced to only 10 percent of the 1788 estimate", or an estimated 500 to 1000 Aboriginal people between Broken Bay and Botany Bay.

There was some violent resistance to British settlement, notably by the warrior Pemulwuy in the area around Botany Bay, and conflicts were common in the area surrounding the Hawkesbury River. By 1820 there were only a few hundred Aborigines and Governor Macquarie had begun initiatives to 'civilise, Christianise and educate' the Aborigines by removing them from their clans. Macquarie's tenure as Governor of New South Wales was a period when Sydney was improved from its basic beginnings. Roads, bridges, wharves and public buildings were constructed by British and Irish convicts, and by 1822 the town had banks, markets, well-established thoroughfares and an organised constabulary.

The 1830s and 1840s were periods of urban development including the development of the first suburbs, as the town grew rapidly when ships began arriving from Britain and Ireland with immigrants looking to start a new life in a new country. On 20 July 1842 the municipal council of Sydney was incorporated and the town was declared the first city in Australia, with John Hosking the first elected mayor. The first of several Australian gold rushes started in 1851, and the port of Sydney has since seen many waves of people arriving from around the world.

Rapid suburban development began in the last quarter of the 19th century with the advent of steam-powered tramways and railways. With industrialisation Sydney expanded rapidly and, by the early 20th century, it had a population of more than a million. In 1929, the novelist Arthur Henry Adams called it the "Siren City of the South" and the "Athens of Australia". The Great Depression hit Sydney badly. One of the highlights of the Depression era, however, was the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. There has traditionally been a rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne since the gold rushes of the 1850s made the capital of Victoria Australia's largest and richest city. Sydney overtook Melbourne in population in the early years of the 20th century, and continues to be the largest city in Australia. During the 1970s and 1980s, Sydney's central business district (CBD), with a great number of financial institutions including the headquarters of the Reserve Bank, surpassed Melbourne as the nation's financial capital. Throughout the 20th century, especially in the decades immediately following World War II, Sydney continued to expand as large numbers of European and later Asian immigrants took up residence in the metropolitan area.