What did the convicts think of Australia upon arrival?

Answer 1

In the early years, convicts were put to work immediately on building projects, particularly roads, and farming. New buildings needed to be constructed as the first shelters were just tents and lean-tos.

The first jobs involved clearing the land. The convicts had to chop down trees, then cut the wood up for practical uses such as building. They needed to clear the shrubs and low bushes as well, and prepare the ground for tilling and planting. This was hard work as most of the English tools were unable to stand up to the demands of Australia's harsher, rocky soil.

The convicts also had to quarry rock and haul it. This was used for building, and in the construction of roads and bridges.

Some of the convicts were assigned as servants to the free settlers or the officers. As the colony developed, the convicts worked in more skilled areas such as smithing, building tools, and even more intellectual pursuits where they showed aptitude. One of Australia's most famous architects, Francis Greenway, was a convict. Another convict with a background in printing was given permission to establish the colony's first newspaper.

Answer 2

The convicts were confused, disoriented and bewildered: they had travelled thousands and thousands of miles from their homes, and what they saw in Australia was so very different to what they knew in their homeland.

There was nothing familiar to them. The trees were not the beautiful and majestic green trees of home; they were tall and spindly, with branches that reached out erratically, and grey-green leaves. The "bush" had a strange sound to it - laughing kookaburras, ear-piercing cicadas, screeching cockatoos - these sounds made them very fearful.

The wildlife was completely unlike the animals at home, while the natives of the land were strange, stealthy people who came and went in silence, and whose eyes seemed to follow one everywhere. The convicts were fearful of being speared in the back, and they had no understanding of Aboriginal ways.

It was a hot and humid country in summer, and the seasons were back to front. The convicts missed the sense of a twilight, because the land would slip suddenly from day into night. The terrain was harsh - no gentle, rolling hills of home here.

Perhaps they expected cities: there were none - just vast, grey-green bushland as far as they could see. Many escaped from the colony, expecting to be able to walk to China. Those who didn't go mad with the strangeness of the bush, or get recaptured, died out in the silence of the bush.

Answer 3

The convicts were not permitted to take any personal belongings, other than what they wore. Chances were high that if they wore anything of value (such as a ring or necklace) it would have been stolen by the time they reached New South Wales.

The prisoners were not issued uniforms, but they were given basic clothes and linen when they arrived in the colony.

Answer 4

The convicts on the First Fleet were thieves, pick-pockets, forgers, petty criminals and ordinary people just struggling to survive and driven to steal food. Some were convicted of assault.

Murderers were not transported on the First Fleet.