Chris Pearce's Blog, page 31

History of rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, or R&B, is a style of music that came out of the jazz, blues and gospel music that was being played by African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the years, the term has commonly been used to describe whatever popular music this community was playing at the time.

Initially, black R&B bands took white songs by New York’s Tin Pan Alley writers and revved them up. This more upbeat, exciting type of music caught on in a big way, and for the first time, African Americans had their own style of commercial music.

It was often called jump blues, or blues and rhythm. As the swing era came to an end in the late 1930s, many big bands broke up into smaller units and formed “jump blues” bands, which played loud music with a strong dance beat, quickly becoming popular in the dance halls at the time. A typical band had a rhythm section provided by drums and a bass guitar and sometimes a piano. There would also be a couple of horn instruments. A featured soloist was often a saxophone player from a jazz background.

Early R&B bands were those of Count Basie, Louis Jordan and Lionel Hampton. Basie had a hit in 1937 with “One O’clock Jump”, while Jordan had a string of hits from the late 1930s through the 1940s.

By the mid 1940s, “R.M. Blues” by Roy Milton and “The Honeydripper” by Joe Liggins each sold one million copies. Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” was a landmark multi-million seller that topped the R&B charts for 18 weeks in 1946. Other hits included “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Roy Brown in 1947, “The Hucklebuck” by various artists, and “The Shufflebuck” by Jimmy Liggins in 1950.

It wasn’t only African Americans cashing in on the R&B craze. Greek American Johnny Otis had a string of R&B hits in the early 1950s. In 1951 he had ten songs that reached the top ten, including three number ones: “Cupid’s Boogie”, “Double Crossing Blues” and “Mistrustin’ Blues”. Otis produced the first recording of Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, later made even more famous by Elvis Presley.

It was in 1951 that disk jockey Alan Freed started calling the R&B music he played on his radio program, “The Moondog Rock Roll House Party”, rock and roll. In 1954, “Sh-Boom” by the Chords was the first R&B song to reach the pop charts top 10. Fats Domino replicated this feat in 1955 with “Ain’t That a Shame”. Freed had moved to New York by that time and was helping to make R&B numbers such as Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” popular among white teenagers.

The new music style continued to evolve and was gaining popularity rapidly. In 1956, an R&B tour of the US and Canada, “Top Stars of ‘56”, featured Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Al Hibbler and Frankie Lymon among others. In Annapolis, more than 50,000 people turned up to a concert with seating for 8,000. There was a traffic jam for seven hours. Although African Americans continued to dominate the style, Elvis Presley made it to number 1 on the R&B charts in 1957 with “Jailhouse Rock” and number 5 with “All Shook Up” in the same year.

Motown Records was founded in 1959, the first major record label with an African American owner, Berry Gordy. It went on to become hugely successful, commanding a large share of the market for soul music, as R&B had become known in the early 1960s. The “Motown Sound” was soul music with a pop music influence. Some famous artists under this label included Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, the Four Tops and many more. In 11 years from 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 songs reaching the top 10. Many R&B artists with other labels had huge success too, such as Sam Cooke, Chubby Checker, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin.

By the 1970s, R&B was used as a general term for soul and funk music. R&B resurfaced as contemporary R&B, describing the R&B style that rose to the fore after the end of the disco music era in the 1980s. It combines soul, funk and dance and, from 1986, hip hop. The style features a slick electronic sound with drum machine rhythm. Vocal arrangements are smooth and lush, and often use melisma, where a single syllable is sung as two notes.

Early artists of contemporary R&B in the first half of the 1980s included Michael Jackson and Prince. In the late 1980s, Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston had hits. Tina Turner made a comeback with a string of contemporary R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1990s, Boyz II Men led a number of boy bands that popularized classic soul harmonies. Some R&B was gaining a distinct hip hop sound by this time.

It was Mariah Carey, along with TLC and Boyz II Men, who brought R&B back to the mainstream in the mid 1990s. These three artists all released albums that sold over 10 million copies. Further offshoots of R&B occurred in the late 1990s and the 2000s by artists such as Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera.

Rhythm and blues has come a long way since American African musicians of the early to mid 20th century developed their own style of lively music based on some more conservative styles at the time. R&B had huge success in the 1950s and 1960s before making an even bigger comeback as contemporary R&B from the 1980s onwards.

Australian Aboriginal society before the arrival of the Europeans: Part 5 – Culture

Aboriginal culture varied between different areas. In all areas, they had a strong attachment to the land, which was an integral part of their beliefs. Their main belief was based on the Dreamtime. This extended back to the time of their creation and was linked right up to the present day. They worshipped a Rainbow Serpent as an ancestral being. Other ancestral beings were the Yowie and the Bunyip.

Their music goes back thousands of years. The most common instrument was a clapping stick, to which they would sing and chant various songs. The didgeridoo, often thought to be the world’s oldest wind instrument, was only played in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. This instrument is made of a thin piece of hollow wood from three to nine feet in length and makes a long droning noise. Its use goes back at least 1,500 years, based on cave painting datings. It was played at corroborees and other ceremonies.

Ritual ceremonies were an important part of Aboriginal life. People would often gather from miles around to attend them. Tribes from an area almost the size of Victoria would meet at the annual bunya nut feast in the Sunshine Coast range north of Brisbane.

The two best known types of ceremonies were the corroboree and the bora. A corroboree was a large gathering of people, with Dreamtime interaction through dancing and singing. Another large gathering was at a bora ceremony where young males aged around 12-15 years were initiated as part of tribal customs. The ceremony differed in various parts of the country and sometimes involved circumcision and scarification. Part of the ceremony had the boys walking along a sacred pathway between two previously constructed bora rings of earth embankments, perhaps fifty and twenty-five feet in diameter and a few hundred yards apart.

Aboriginal art goes back about 50,000 years to the time of their arrival in Australia. It includes painting rocks and caves, wood carving, sculpture, and clothing and ornaments worn on ceremonial occasions. Images of the Rainbow Serpent were frequently drawn on rocks. The belief was that the Rainbow Serpent lived in the painting and would take revenge on anyone not respecting the painting.

Unfortunately, the lifestyle and culture of the Australian Aborigine could not withstand European settlement and disintegrated quite quickly in many areas. Settlers cleared forests and grazed cattle on traditional hunting grounds. Aborigines fell victim to white man’s diseases. Survivors were often rounded up and sent to reserves where they had to rely on the whites to provide them with food, clothing and shelter.

Australian Aboriginal society before the arrival of the Europeans: Part 4 – Dwellings and canoes

Aboriginal dwellings varied quite widely, from lean-tos to large strongly built huts. The latter might be made of slender wattle boughs wedged firmly into the ground in two long rows bent over and interwoven to form an arch. This in turn was thatched with sheets of bark and large leaves. All was securely tied with vine. A large piece of bark was strapped onto the top, hanging over the open doorway like the sloping roof of a veranda.

The entire structure might measure twelve or fifteen feet in length and six or eight feet wide, big enough to accommodate ten people. Its height along the middle was about five feet. Although open at each end, the sides were impervious to the heaviest of storms. A small fire burned inside.

A cluster of five or six of these buildings served as a base for a family group, normally comprising related family units. Several clusters of huts would be dotted over a fairly large area, the family groups occupying them making up a tribe. In coastal areas, a tribe might also own two or three groups of humpies constructed along the foreshore at intervals of a few miles. These smaller residences were used at particular times of the year by various families when certain foods became less plentiful near the main huts.

Their canoes were made either from swamp mahogany or stringy-bark, the bark of the former being preferable as it did not split. The bark was removed from a suitable tree in large pieces, cleaned, and burned to make it more pliable. Each end was then bent up and tied with vine and strengthened with a wooden skewer, while the sides were made firm by wattle or more vine. A firestick was always carried on the floor of a canoe on a pile of earth or clay to cook fish as soon as they were caught. A large shell acted as a bailer. A ball of clay was used to plug any leaks sustained while on the water.

A small canoe might measure ten feet by four feet and carry five people, while a large one was fifteen feet or more in length and six feet wide, capable of holding up to ten persons. They were stronger and more seaworthy than their often fragile appearance indicated. The useful life of these robust contraptions was limited however, as they usually became waterlogged after a few months’ use.

Australian Aboriginal society before the arrival of the Europeans: Part 3 – Food

Aborigines ate a wide variety of food from their local environment. They hunted within their tribal area. Fish in creeks and rivers were caught by placing bushes and sticks across a narrow section of the waterway, leaving two or three small openings. These gaps would be covered with nets held by Aborigines at the turn of the tide. Freshwater fish were at times caught by throwing toxic plant matter into the water, causing the fish to rise to the surface. Fish were the only animals sometimes hunted after dark Both saltwater and freshwater eels were caught, the former with nets and the latter by plucking them out of shallow water in a drought or otherwise by blocking part of the creek and trapping them in nets.

Coastal Aborigines enjoyed molluscs such as oysters, mussels, periwinkles, cockles, whelks and snails; crustaceans including mud and sand crabs, prawns and lobsters; and four types of sea turtles. Most molluscs were cooked before eaten, although oysters were sometimes consumed raw. They sought large freshwater mussels by feeling around the sides of waterholes with their feet. Crabs were taken via a stick with a long hook. The Aborigines would poke these sticks into crab-holes on the bank of a creek at low tide, the crab clutching at the stick which the holder quickly pulled out. Crabs were carried in dillies part filled with twigs to deter them from fighting and breaking their claws. Later they were put on the fire to cook. Both men and women caught crabs.

Kangaroos and wallabies were caught in strong nets. A series of nets were often stretched between trees near a levee where a number might be feeding or resting. The hunters then stood in a circle, banging their waddies and shouting. Trapped by the creek on three sides and the men on part of the fourth, the only means of escape led the animals straight into the nets. A horseshoe of fire had the same effect as a levee, the Aborigines netting or spearing the marsupials as they tried to flee. Sometimes they were crept up on when drinking from a pond or lazing in the midday sun. On other occasions the men smothered their bodies in clay to reduce their scent, camouflaged themselves with leafy branches and stalked their prey. As an added precaution they always hunted into the wind, so there was less chance of the animals picking up their scent or hearing them. Preparation for eating involved singeing the fur and then placing the carcass on the fire upside down to preserve the juices. When nearly cooked, the insides were cleaned out.

Kangaroos had other uses apart from being a source of food. A large or old kangaroo had its skin removed with sharp stones or shells before being stretched, rubbed with ashes, cured, and decorated for use as a rug. Strips of skin were used for nets, and bones for making tools. Many other animals were caught, cooked and eaten, including bandicoots, pademelons, kangaroo rats, and possums. The skins of possums were sewn together to make large blankets for cool winter nights.

In some areas koalas were sacred due to the belief that to kill one would result in drought. This superstition didn’t apply in other areas. To catch a koala, an Aborigine would climb the tree causing the animal to retreat to the end of a limb. He would then shake the branch. The sluggish marsupial was no match for three or four men waiting for it when it fell to the ground.

Birds killed and eaten were usually the larger and less mobile species, including emus, pelicans, cormorants, turkeys, ducks, swans, geese, parrots, cockatoos and quails. Birds such as emus and parrots were often caught in nets flung over them as they drank at a waterhole. Swans and ducks were secured by draping a large net across a creek or the end of a lake near the birds or near to where they were known to come. Eggs of a wide variety of birds were found on the ground or taken from nests.

Honey was a delicacy. Wild bees produced two kinds: a sweet white honey found in hollow trees and a more plentiful, sourer, dark honey found in any tree. Another sweet substance relished by them was a drink made early in the morning in summer by dipping dew-covered honeysuckle in a container of water until the liquid was sweet.

Plant life provided additional food. Fernroot was common in many areas. Another edible root belonged to the freshwater rush, while yams had roots like sweet potatoes. These and other roots were roasted on a fire and usually eaten with meat, fish or bird, but occasionally by themselves. Beans, nuts and berries, if poisonous, were soaked in water before being pounded into cakes and cooked, eliminating their badness and making them edible. Wild fruit of various descriptions were also eaten.

The Aborigines often prepared and ate food as soon as they obtained it. However, the main meal was in the evening when everybody had returned to camp from their various hunting and gathering expeditions. When the meal was cooked they would assemble around the fire, laughing and joking among themselves as they devoured whiting, duck or some other type of meat, while watching the sun set.

Evenings were spent by the camp fire, exchanging stories of recent and not so recent hunts and fights, and reciting legends and fairytales often featuring animals or ghosts as the main characters.

Australian Aboriginal society before the arrival of the Europeans: Part 2 – Recreation

Children and adults alike demonstrated their agility and athleticism in an array of sports, games and recreational activities. They enjoyed racing one another through the bush or along a beach, while wrestling was popular. Hide-and-seek was played by the children. Climbing trees and rocks was another favorite pastime. In the Melbourne area, they played a game where a possum hide was kicked like a football. The game is said to have inspired Tom Wills, who invented Australian rules football in the 1850s.

More than a thousand miles away in the Brisbane area, a ball game was played using a ball of grass covered in kangaroo skin. Sides were picked and the ball was thrown into the air and caught, the object of each side being to keep the ball to themselves. The side which had more possession of the ball was declared the winner. Another ball game involved two teams of combatants armed with waddies, each team aiming to hit the ball through the defense of the other, a game not unlike hockey.

They participated in bowling games. One game was where a bark disc, about a foot in diameter, was bowled across the ground. Often boys, and sometimes men too, lined up on each side eight or nine yards from the disc and threw small spears at it as it rolled past. This game was good practice for hunting in the bush.

Both sexes engaged in swimming and water sports. In hot weather, they would spend several hours in the water. Aboriginal children were taught to swim as toddlers, something which has gained increasing acceptance in modern society only in the last few decades. Most Aborigines were consequently strong swimmers. Apart from swimming races, the Aborigines competed to see who could stay underwater the longest without surfacing for breath. Alternatively, they would dive for white stones. This entailed picking a spot where the water was about ten feet deep and throwing in the stones over a wide area. The one who retrieved the most stones was the winner.

Aboriginal girls had a fascination for dolls, copying their mothers in the art of caring for the young and unwittingly learning skills important to them in later life. Dolls were made from wood or bark, or sometimes from furry skins and occasionally from stone. A face might be painted on a doll and a necklace put around its neck.

Boys, when not engaged in more strenuous exercise, played with spinning tops made of stone. They had toy boomerangs which were hurled from the hand, looped through the air and returned to the thrower. A smaller object made of two pieces of wood tied crosswise, traveled through the air in the same manner as a boomerang.

Dancing and skipping were favorite pastimes. Children would simulate a corroboree dance or imitate the movements of animals. Often when Aborigines were lazing in the shade after a swim or a meal, one or two young men would jump to their feet and start to mimic a kangaroo, an emu or a man hunting. For the amusement of onlookers, these men would then throw balls of mud at each other until both were covered in it.

Skipping, for which they used a length of vine, was enjoyed by Aborigines of all ages. Some of them were most adept at skipping, jumping over the rope for an eternity without tripping. At other times, children would fill bark containers with pebbles, shaking them to provide the beat to a song. They played a game like cat’s cradle, where the Aborigines used string made from human hair or shreds of bark to make shapes resembling animals, trees and so on, by wrapping the string around their hands and feet.

Tribal fights were often organized. These were like a series of matches between individuals rather than all-in brawls or wars. A ring would be constructed of sticks and the first two combatants would enter this area. In turn, they threw spears at each other from a distance and would try and defend themselves with shields. When a contestant was down, his friends would rush in to assist him, and the other man was the winner. Fights between a number of other contestants would follow. Sometimes there were old scores to settle. A hunt often followed a fight. When a general battle between rival groups lasted several days, it was necessary to halt hostilities temporarily while food was obtained.

Australian Aboriginal society before the arrival of the Europeans: Part 1 – Tribes and families

Australian Aborigines migrated from south-east Asia over a period from about 50,000 years ago until the last Ice Age some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. They were then isolated from the rest of the world and developed a unique culture.

Between 300,000 and 750,000 Aborigines lived in Australia at the time of the first white settlement in 1788. There were some 260 languages spoken across the continent, with many consisting of two or three dialects.

They lived in about 600 tribes of 500 or more members. Each tribe was further divided into groups or extended families typically of around 50-60 people, which were made up of about 10-12 separate families.

Aboriginal society had a complex social structure with many strict rules and customs. It was an egalitarian society where everything was shared among its members. If one person had meat, fish, shelter, a canoe or some other commodity, then it was shared, not only with members of the immediate family but among other families, other groups and with strangers.

An Aboriginal family unit consisted of a married man and woman and their children. Most men had one wife but in some instances polygamy was practiced. It was unacceptable for a woman not to be married and hence not cared for.

At birth or when very young, a girl would be assigned to a male. Soon after puberty she would move to the group in which the male lived, entering into the prearranged marriage. Although there was no wedding ceremony, elders always knew who was to be assigned to whom and would sanction the union.

The allocation of marriage partners was based on a highly complex and well-organized lineage system whereby a tribe was divided into two parts, or moieties, usually based on the male line. The male partner had to come from one moiety and the female from the other.

Widows, unless elderly, were remarried after a six-month mourning period and sometimes had a say in who their new partner would be. Divorce was unheard of. Strict rules regarding marriage meant that no child was ever orphaned or looked after by only one parent. Aunts and uncles were regarded by children as second mothers and fathers, while a cousin was considered a real brother or sister.

A feeling of security, pride and confidence was instilled in every child. All Aboriginal children were useful members of society and were fit and happy. They assisted the women to gather plant food, collect firewood and babysit younger siblings.

Babies were thought to be spirits who chose their own mothers. Childbirth was performed naturally, with little preparation and rapid recovery. Labor was easy. The mother gave birth unattended and in the squatting position.

The baby was placed in a coolamon, a basin-shaped wooden dish equivalent to a bassinette, the mother resuming her activities within hours of giving birth. The skin of a newborn baby was light in color and in summer a mixture of ash and oil was used as protection against sunburn.

As a mother went about her daily chores, the baby was either in its coolamon nearby or in her free arm. The rounded shape of the coolamon enabled a mother to gently rock her baby to sleep. A bed of sand served as a mattress and in cold weather kangaroo-skin rugs acted as blankets. A baby was breast fed up to the age of two or three years.

Places to see in Australia

Australia is a vast country with a large number of places worth seeing. These range from world class cities with sights and activities for everyone, to national parks and beaches among the most beautiful in the world. I have selected five places that shouldn’t be missed on a trip to Australia.

Gold Coast

The world famous Gold Coast is in south-east Queensland, about an hour’s drive south of Brisbane, the state’s capital city. Halfway up Australia’s east coast, the subtropical climate means you can soak up the sun, surf and sand at any time of year.

Popular theme parks include Dreamworld, Movieworld, Seaworld, Wet’n’Wild, and Currumbin Sanctuary. I have been to them all and can recommend a visit to each one. Ripley’s Believe It or Not in the middle of Surfers Paradise is well worth a visit. It’s a fascinating place. Check out the views from Q1, the world’s tallest residential tower when it was built in 2005 and now sixth tallest.

With a resident population of well over half a million, the Gold Coast has many hundreds of restaurants to choose from, and dozens of nightclubs provide plenty of entertainment.

The southern end of the Gold Coast is probably more picturesque, with its headlands and vast expanses of sand. Look out for the dolphins at the mouth of the Tweed River around high tide. My wife and I have walked around this area a number of times.

You might like to time your visit to the Gold Coast to coincide with one of the major events held each year. There’s the Gold Coast Indy race in October (now the Gold Coast 600), the Magic Millions horseracing carnival in January, and for those who like 1950s and 1960s music and cars, don’t miss the Wintersun Festival in June.

If you’re into partying, or quiet walks along the beach, the Gold Coast is for you.

Sydney

A visit to Australia wouldn’t be complete without seeing Sydney, one of the great harbour cities of the world. Apart from numerous restaurants and nightclubs, things to see include the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Hyde Park, the Domain, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, and various museums and art galleries.

For those who like history, visit the Rocks for a fascinating tour of buildings dating back to Sydney’s convict era in the early nineteenth century. It’s part of the downtown area. Whenever I visit Sydney, I like to walk around this locality.

Popular events are the Sydney Festival of arts, dance and music each January, the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in February, and the Sydney Film Festival in June.

The traffic in the downtown area can get a bit heavy and parking is scarce and expensive, so a good spot to stay is Manly, next to the ocean. From there, it’s an easy 20 minute ferry ride across the harbour to the central city area. I have stayed at Manly twice, once with my wife and once while at a conference with work. Lovely beach.

I’ve visited Sydney at least a dozen times and always enjoy it. My first trip to Sydney was with my family when about 10. A great day trip was a visit to the Jenolan Caves about 100 miles to the west.

Melbourne

A great place to visit is Melbourne, often called Australia’s sporting and cultural capital. It is home to the Melbourne Cup, the horse race that stops a nation on the first Tuesday in November. The state of Victoria has a public holiday on this day, while people in other states tend to stop what they are doing and find the nearest television or radio when the race is on.

Experience the thrills and spills of that great Aussie game, Australian Football. Finals matches in September can attract crowds of 100,000 people. Many of the matches are played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the great stadiums of the world.

Take in the views of Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay from the top of the 91 storey Eureka Tower. It was the second highest residential building in the world when built in 2006, although it has since been overtaken by about a dozen other buildings, mainly in Dubai.

The Crown Casino, Melbourne Aquarium, the Shrine of Remembrance, and the Docklands precinct are all fascinating spots to visit. And don’t forget the arts centres, museums and art galleries.

Not to be missed events in Melbourne include the Comedy Festival in March-April, the Arts Festival in October, and of course the Australian Football grand final and the Melbourne Cup.

I grew up in Melbourne about 100 yards from the bay. There are some lovely beaches right the way down its eastern side. I’m in Brisbane now and don’t get down there all that often as it is over 1000 miles away. I flew down recently for a school reunion and to catch up with a few other old friends.

Great Ocean Road

One of the world’s most picturesque drives is Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, south-west of Melbourne. It runs for about 150 miles from Torquay, which is about 60 miles from Melbourne, and passes through some lovely seaside resorts. I’ve been there a number of times, though not since 1998 as I now live over 1000 miles from this area.

The Great Ocean Road was built in the 1920s by 3,000 returned servicemen from World War I. It hugs the coastline and is often carved into steep coastal mountains. There are many lookout points, as well as bush and beach walks along the way. In 2004, the Great Ocean Walk opened, joining 60 miles of walking tracks from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles.

Make sure you see the Twelve Apostles, regarded as one of the world’s most scenic coastal sites. Erosion has formed a series of rock formations of limestone and sandstone 150 feet or more in height in the shallows. But be quick. There are actually only eight apostles left after one collapsed in 2005.

Accommodation is offered at various towns along the route. There are guided tours, helicopter rides and plenty of touristy things.

Central Australia

This is an area that covers the southern part of the Northern Territory. I went there on a school trip back in the late 1960s.

Central Australia has a number of icons significant to Aboriginal culture, such as Uluru (or Ayers Rock, as it was known back when I was there), and various cave paintings. Uluru is one of the main attractions, 280 miles south-west of Alice Springs (population 25,000), the only town of any size in this vast desert region.

Allow an hour for the steep climb to the top of the 1,140 foot high sandstone rock, although climbing is discouraged these days, not so much because of safety concerns but due to local Aboriginal beliefs. I think I scaled it easily in about 20 minutes, but I was 16! A six mile walk will get you right around its perimeter. It changes colour at different times of the day and is quite spectacular at sunset and sunrise.

The only accommodation when I was there were a couple of camping grounds / caravan parks, and some cabins. I think the nearest asphalt road was in Alice Springs. Now there are luxury hotels, including five-star, and made roads.

Many animals unique to Australia proliferate in the centre, including wallabies, dingoes and emus. As it’s so far away from major cities, the night sky is filled with more stars than just about anywhere else in the world.

How Australia was colonized

(This follows on from my article, ‘Why Australia was colonized': https://chrispearce52.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/why-australia-was-colonized/

The First Fleet of two naval vessels and nine convict ships carrying 579 male and 193 female convicts left England for Botany Bay on May 13, 1787. The whole party of about 1,400 convicts, crew and officers arrived at Botany Bay on January 19, 1788, but the bay was too open to offer protection, the soil was poor, fresh water was lacking and the convicts’ tools broke when they tried to chop down the hardwood trees, among other problems. The colony was moved to Port Jackson, just to the north, on January 26, to a spot which is the present site of downtown Sydney.

Convicts put up tents and started to build simple bark and thatching huts, but there were few skilled tradesmen among the convicts. Crops were sown but again, the convicts didn’t know much about farming as most had come from the cities and towns. Breeding stock either died or wandered off into the bush. Crops failed, and theft and drunkenness were rife. In early March, 2,000 people were ill with scurvy. A search for fertile land resulted in a settlement at Rose Hill, or present-day Parramatta. A contingent of convicts was sent to Norfolk Island too.

By 1789, food was so short that rations were cut by a third and soon reduced further. To make things worse, the Second Fleet, which no one in Sydney would have known about, arrived in June 1790 with another 750 convicts and 100 officers to feed, clothe and house. Then, in July to October, the Third Fleet came into port. Finally, in 1792, London started sending food and other supplies on a regular basis.

The colony soon expanded. Governor Phillip granted 30 acres of land to convicts who had served their sentence, plus 20 acres for a wife and 10 for each child. Soldiers were given fifty acres. New settlements were established north and west of Parramatta. New governor John Hunter started a settlement at Windsor on the Hawkesbury River. The Hunter Valley to the north was opened up in 1797 when coal was found. The first of the penal colonies for convicts who had committed another crime since their arrival was set up at Newcastle, 100 miles north of Sydney, in 1801. John Macarthur launched the wool industry at Camden, 35 miles from Sydney, in 1805. Floods, drought and bush fires played havoc from time to time. By 1810, people lived in poverty, crops were failing and public works were in disrepair. Drunkenness and crime were widespread.

The turning point for the colony came during Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s time from 1810 to 1821. He encouraged settlers to grow extra crops, go to church and get married (before that, only about half of couples were getting married). He closed many of the public houses and undertook an extensive program of public works, including a market place, public storehouses, convict and military barracks, a new hospital and better streets and roads. He sent an expedition to find a way over the Blue Mountains to the west so that the vast interior could be opened up to farming and industry. More colonies of secondary punishment were established at Wellington Valley, Port Macquarie, and at Moreton Bay in the 1820s.

The convicts kept coming. Regular shipments were sent from England, mainly to Sydney, but also to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), Norfolk Island and the Swan River colony (Perth) in Western Australia. Transportation to Sydney stopped in the 1840s but continued to Swan River until 1868. Over a period of eighty years, Australia received 158,829 convicts, consisting of 134,261 males and 24,568 females, mainly from England and Ireland. They were either employed by the colonial governments on public works or were assigned to free settlers, many of whom were farmers. Most convicts were transported for theft. Sentences were usually seven or 14 years, but only about five per cent of convicts ever returned to Great Britain. These people were instrumental to the colonization and development of the country.

Many other places around the continent were being colonized by the early decades of the nineteenth century. For example, a separate colony at Van Diemen’s Land was set up on the Derwent River in 1803, the present site of Hobart. As at Sydney, the new colony was developed with convict labor. Settlement expanded quickly across the island with the help of convicts from Norfolk Island. A colony of secondary punishment was set up in 1824 where Brisbane now stands. In the same year, a settlement was established on Melville Island, Northern Territory, to open up trading with Indonesia and ward off the French. Norfolk Island, which had been abandoned in 1814, was reopened in 1825. A military settlement was started at Albany south of Perth in the same year, also to keep the French away. The Swan River colony was set up in 1829 at Perth. The Port Phillip Bay colony (Melbourne) commenced in 1835. The difference between this colony and others was that there were no convicts. A colony at South Australia (Adelaide) was formed in 1836, also without convict labor.

The colonization process continued throughout the nineteenth century as vast tracts of land were opened up all over the continent. Gold discoveries in Victoria in particular, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia brought new settlers in their hundreds of thousands and accelerated development and expansion after the convict era finished. Farming, mining, manufacturing and construction flourished, and the colonies exported their produce to Great Britain and other countries.

The colonial period drew to a close in 1901 after the people of the six colonies the continent was divided into, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, voted to form a new nation, the Commonwealth of Australia, and to govern itself.

Why Australia was colonized

To find out why Australia was colonized, it is necessary to go back to early Georgian England. Life in London and the other major cities was becomingly increasingly unbearable for a large repressed working class. Overcrowding meant several families lived in one tumbledown hovel, open sewers ran through the streets, disease was rampant, and children went to work at age six to help buy enough food for the family, as people took solace in vast quantities of gin and other liquor. More people were moving to the cities all the time as work in the country diminished, but jobs in the cities were scarce too, with the industrial revolution still a few decades away.

Not surprisingly, these factors led to a steady increase in crime, with tens of thousands of Londoners believed to be living off crime by the mid eighteenth century. The city was full of thieves, forgers, muggers and prostitutes. Crime was up in the smaller towns and the countryside too. Social and other government services were in their infancy. No mechanisms existed to relieve unemployment. Policing was largely in the hands of poorly paid parish watchmen who were often involved in crime themselves. England had a number of jails, but these were very expensive to build and maintain, and those that did exist were usually full.

The government was always looking for cheaper alternatives to deal with its felons. One cheaper but not always preferred option was hanging. As the century wore on, fewer wrongdoers received capital punishment. Hangings were always carried out in public as it was thought that this would deter others from committing crimes. But hangings attracted large unruly crowds and often finished in riots. The government’s other option for getting rid of offenders altogether was to transport them overseas.

Transportation of undesirables had long been an issue in England. Under an act of 1597, England expelled its law-breakers across the Atlantic. Banishment to the New World accelerated with the Transportation Act of 1717, before coming to a halt with the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1775. English prisons were soon overcrowded with paupers caught stealing food and clothing, as well as debtors without the means to discharge their obligations.

As a temporary solution the Government converted old wartime sailing ships into floating jails called “hulks”. These too were soon full to the brim with prisoners, and disease ridden. England had to find a new land to send its thieves. Debtors, on the other hand, would be kept at home, although the difference between the actions of a thief and a debtor was sometimes slight.

In 1779, the House of Commons set up a committee to work out where to send convicts as America was no longer an option with the War of Independence dragging on. Joseph Banks was called on as a witness. Banks had been botanist on an expedition to Australia with Captain James Cook in 1768 to 1771. (Cook was on another voyage at the time of the hearing.) Banks gave a favorable report on Botany Bay on the eastern coast of Australia, talking about the availability of fresh water, abundance of fish, arable soil, good pasture, plentiful supply of wood and agreeable climate. He believed that a convict colony could be self-supporting within a year. He also spoke of the Aboriginal people, and how they were placid, disinterested in the visitors and few in number. They would pose no threat.

On the other hand, he told of the New Zealand Maoris greeting them with stones and haka (an aggressive war dance still used at the start of rugby union matches between New Zealand and Australia). For this reason, New Zealand was eliminated as an option for a convict settlement. Other witnesses before the committee argued for Gibraltar and Africa’s west coast as suitable places for a colony. In the end the committee made no decision, but the scene had been set.

A great deal of discussion on where England should establish a convict colony took place in the first half of the 1780s. Two main reasons were put forward for setting up a settlement in Australia. The first was England’s increasing trade with the Far East, particularly India, south-east Asia and China. The second was the need for a naval post to keep the French and the Dutch away. Australia, and especially Norfolk Island, had a good supply of tall pine trees and flax to keep the navy ships going. In 1783, James Matra, who had been a midshipman on Cook’s 1768-1771 trip, proposed a settlement at Botany Bay for strategic reasons, and for the pine and flax on Norfolk Island, a thousand miles east of the mainland. When his plan was largely ignored, he added convicts to it.

By this time, England was becoming desperate to sort out its convict problem. Prisons and hulks were chronically overcrowded. Parliament drafted a bill which became the Transportation Act (24 Geo. III, c. 56) in 1784. But it didn’t include a place to send the felons! Lord Howe Island, four hundred miles east of the mainland, was suggested, and so was Botany Bay and Norfolk Island. Several places in Africa were proposed too, including a spot 400 miles up the Gambia River in West Africa, Gromarivire Bay east of Cape Town, Madagascar, Tristan da Cunha and Das Voltas Bay at the mouth of the Orange River in south-west Africa. By 1785, Das Volta Bay was leading the race for trade and strategic reasons, and due to rumors of copper ore in the mountains. But a survey team came back with news that the place was too dry to be settled. With that, Botany Bay became the preferred place.

In 1786, just as the jails and hulks threatened to burst at the seams, the government chose Botany Bay. In the end, the reasons were to stake a claim on the new continent and as a place to send convicts rather than any trade or strategic issues. A proposal was drawn up and approved by cabinet, with Captain Arthur Phillip as expedition leader and governor of the new colony.

A history of Muslims in Australia

The history of Muslims and Islamic influences in Australia predates European settlement. Since the 1600s, Muslim fishermen sailed south from what is now Indonesia in search of trepang, green snail, shark fin, and trochus shell, among other sea products. They made contact with the Australian Aboriginal people along the northern part of the country. Evidence of this is found in Aboriginal language, art, song, and even in the genetics of people along the northern Australian and southern Indonesian shores.

Soon after the first European settlement at Sydney in 1788 under Captain Arthur Phillip, small numbers of Muslims were brought to Australia as convicts for “disobedience”. Early ships used Muslims from Africa and from British territories as navigators and labourers. They didn’t leave much evidence as they tended to marry and integrate into the larger community.

From the 1860s to about 1910, several thousand Muslims from Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries brought their camels to Australia and headed inland where the animals became an important means of transport before motor vehicles. These people were used to hot, arid climates. They assisted European explorers, helped to open up the country, and were instrumental in the development of railway and telegraph services. Many of these Muslims settled in Central Australia and inter-married with Aboriginal people. Australia’s first mosque was built by Afghan camel drivers at Renmark in South Australia in 1861.

In the 1870s, Muslim divers from Malay and other British and Dutch colonies in south-east Asia were hired to work in the pearling grounds off Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Some 1,800 Muslim divers were in the industry in Western Australia in 1875. It was a hazardous occupation and deaths and injuries were common. Most of these people eventually returned to their homes.

The White Australia Policy limited the number of Muslims coming to Australia in the late nineteenth century until around the middle of the twentieth century. However, the policy was gradually relaxed and in the 1920s, about 1,000 Albanian Muslims migrated to Australia. They worked mainly as farmers. Australia’s post-World War II immigration policy allowed displaced European Muslims to move to this country in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Muslims from Bosnia and Kosova worked on Australia’s huge Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme in the 1960s. About 10,000 Turkish Muslims arrived in Australia between 1967 and 1971, mainly settling in Melbourne and Sydney.

A dismantling of the last remnants of the White Australia Policy in 1973 heralded large-scale migration of Muslim people. Thousands of Lebanese Muslims came to Australia in the mid 1970s to escape their country’s civil war. Many settled in Sydney, where about half of Australia’s Muslim population live. Muslims fleeing the Somali civil war migrated to Australia in the 1990s. Most Muslims arriving in Australia in recent decades have come here as part of normal migration processes. Their cause has been helped by an Australian policy of multiculturalism rather than assimilation.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Societies was formed to 1963 to serve the needs of the Muslim community, such as building mosques and providing education. The structure was changed in 1976 to better serve the rapidly growing community. A hierarchy of Islamic societies was established at local and state level under this national body.

The first Islamic school in Australia opened at Coburg, Melbourne, in 1983. Since then, Islamic schools have been established around the country. For example, the Australian Islamic College in Perth has about 2,000 students. Many of the international Islamic students in Australia settle here after they finish their studies, as part of the “skills migration program”. These people now work here in various occupations, such as doctors, scientists, teachers, and tradespeople. A number of Islamic cultural centres, often attached to mosques, have also been set up.

By the twenty-first century, Muslims had come from over sixty countries to live in Australia, mainly from Lebanon and Turkey, but also from Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia, Egypt, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Sudan, and other countries. In 2011, about 476,000 Muslims were living in Australia or 2.2 per cent of the population, up from 340,000 or 1.7 per cent in 2006. The number has grown from around 280,000 in 2001 and 200,000 in 1996. This compares with just 41,000 in 1981.