Arthur Phillip
One has to wonder how long it took this bloke
to do his hair in the mornings!
It can't possibly be a wig!This definitely looks like Phillip (albeit, obviously, a modern caricature, but a kind and generous one that gives a good image of "Phillip the Humanist", although an 18th century humanist, and definitely not a 21st century one!). Lex found it, and can confirm it's from an ABC News website page (that's the Ozzie ABC, not the nearly as appalling as Fox USA site) discussing Phillip. We've tried several reverse image searches, but have not yet (08-05-2019) managed to identify its true origin or artist. If anyone knows, please advise via our contact page.
BUT, most folk educated in white Oz's schools DO NOT know this bit:While Phillip had successes, he also had failures, and some of the latter had very serious ramifications. Further, while Phillip was almost certainly a humanitarian fairly typical of the 18th century Enlightenment period, he was most certainly not a 21st century-type humanitarian. We'll touch on this more in our later discussions of Phillip.
AND, most folk educated in white Oz's schools DO NOT know this bit, AND far too many refuse to believe it:Finally, of hugely significant importance, indeed of most importance to us in this discussion, is the fact, yes, naysayers, FACT, that in commanding the first permanent white settlement on what came to be called Australia, Arthur Phillip also commanded the commencement of the British invasion, theft, and occupation of the lands of the people who, under both British law and such international law as then existed, were the owners of at least most, and maybe all, of Australia.
It's almost certain Phillip did not understand what he was, in fact, doing in this regard, and considering his likely beliefs, it seems possible he would have opposed it being done as it was done. But that, of course, is the hopeful statement of people of European, mostly British, ethnicity, educated in white Australia's schools. But, we are also historians, with a powerful belief in the essential need to question and analyse all perceived "truths" in an effort to establish and enhance humanity's understanding of the history of human behaviour and activity that have led to its present condition, whenever that is. Thus, we make the point that at the time of writing (10-05-2019) we have no substantive evidence Phillip had an understanding of what we now know about the consequences of and impetus for his deeds at the time he was doing them, let alone before he was doing them, nor, indeed, after he did them. On the other hand, we have no substantive evidence the other way, either. That brings us to the point where science parts from history, just as science parts from other studies, some of which claim to be or are regarded as being sciences. This point is where opinion, feeling, individual assessment, experience, understanding of precedent, and the like come into play to form likelihoods and probabilities of something being "the truth" or "a fact", and which can sometimes come so close to 100% as to form something we express as the truth or a fact. Thus, both of us, Bronwyn and Lex, believe in the facts of evolution and atheism on the basis of the extent of supportive evidence for those facts and the lack of believable substantive evidence of any alternatives. This doesn't mean we don't quibble about some minor and even some major details that pop out of the woodwork in discussions of these facts, nor that we accept every detail expressed by every proponent of these facts. Rather, it simply means that any discussion we have on these matters begins from the basis that these facts are an expression of their general truth. And, of course, that we may reconsider if any incontrovertible evidence of any alternative or contrary fact is produced and can be proved or appears true to our acceptance. Ok, so if Phillip possibly wasn't aware of the motivations for and consequences of his actions, what about the British government? This becomes a bit more tricky. Phillip's instructions from King George 3 include some regarding the indigenous people with whom it was known he would come into contact. On the surface these appear reasonable and surprisingly humane. These instructions, as far as we know, as only a draft copy has so far been discovered, included the following: You are to endeavour by every possible means to open an intercourse with the natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live in amity and kindness with them. And if any of our subjects shall wantonly destroy them or give them any unnecessary interruption in the exercise of their several occupations it is our will and pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degrees of the offence. You will endeavour to procure an account of numbers inhabiting the neighbourhood of the intended settlement, and report your opinion to one of our Secretaries of State in what manner our intercourse with these people may be turned to the advantage of this colony. There are a couple of matters to note about this extract from Phillip's instructions from King George 3, probably actually written by Tommy Townshend, Baron Sydney at the time, and his staff.
As noted above this is an extract from the draft of Phillip's instructions. It is, in fact, an edited extract. You will have noted we have coloured the word "natives" above. This word was inserted to replace the word "savages" used in the original. We don't know for sure, but it seems likely an official of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the time, the then equivalent of the public (or, as the Brits call it, "civil") service, drafted the document. In doing so he (it would certainly have been a male!) used the fairly typical conservative language of the English middle and upper classes, possibly unintentionally, but completely ignorantly and equally possibly intentionally racist, in an expression of their total certainty of their superiority. On the other hand, one wonders if this constant need to make affirmations of their superiority is actually a sign of fear, at the possibility they may be found to be fakes. Which, of course, they were. The interesting thing is the edit to replace the ignorantly and/or uncaringly offensive "savages" with "natives". Of course, it's not a word we use in this context today, but whoever was responsible for the edit is displaying evidence of the same sort of Enlightenment period humanity as Arthur Phillip. It would, therefore, be no surprise to find the edit was made by Tommy Townshend. Tommy was a leading Whig of the time, the parliamentary grouping (formalised political parties did not then exist) that grew out of the 17th Century parliamentary opponents of too much regal power in the period after the restoration of the Stuart monarchs following the Cromwellian republican years. The Whigs' aims reached fruition with the replacement of the overtly roman catholic James 2 with his overtly protestant daughter, Anne 1, and her Dutch husband, William 2, who led the last successful, albeit largely bloodless, invasion of England, in this case by Dutch troops. The Whig success was finalised with a formal agreement with the new monarchs that required their acceptance of a number of significant limitations on regal power. Of course, the nature of English politics was more complex and nuanced than this, but the Whigs came to represent modernity and change, becoming the drivers of social and political reform, as opposed to the staid conservatism of the Tories, as the more strongly pro-monarchy parliamentary grouping was called. other hand, it seems likely the British government, if it knew, thought the process of pushing the First Australians aside would be carried out quickly and with no trouble. Even better, no-one else would know what was happening at "the arse end of the world" anyway, at least not until it was already complete. Of course, the disappearance from human knowledge of the two French ships that had "raced" the British from Botany Bay to Sydney Harbour would have shot that hope in the foot. Except, of course, for their fortunate, for the British government, disappearance. James Cook and Joseph Banks's reports from their expedition along the east coast of Australia were significantly misleading in this regard, and if anyone in government had questions, it suited them for those questions not to be asked. At least, not where anyone who would publicise them would hear. First, just to get it out of the way because it's a matter of little apparent importance other than one of interest, depending on one's definition of "settlement" the settlement at what came to be called Sydney was the second actual white settlement on continental Australia or within what is now the nation of Australia[1]. |
Most folk educated in white Oz's schools know this bit:Arthur Phillip was the first British governor of New South Wales, and commanded what is commonly called the "First Fleet".
This "fleet" included:
Phillip could do nothing about the lack of normality. His job was to establish and maintain the community's immediate and short-term stability, safety, and survival, and enable its long term survival. On 26 January, 1788, the fleet arrived in what is now called Sydney Harbour. Phillip's 11 ships arrived in a rather undignified rush to beat two French ships in a race from Botany Bay, a little to the south, which had been found to be unfit for the proposed convict colony. The "race" was caused by Phillip's apparent belief the dastardly French were attempting to steal his thunder. The French, on the other hand, were on a scientific expedition, and apparently had no intention of claiming or colonising, at least not at that time. Thus, unaware they were in a race, or even the cause of a race, but wondering what the heck the rush was all about, and presumably scientifically curious about the behaviour of the perfidious British, exacerbated the fleet's competitive behaviour by sailing along with it. Having "beaten" the French, Phillip and his motley mob set about establishing what, as far as we know, was the first white settlement intended to be permanent on the continent of what came to be called Australia Thus, But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The place we've chosen as one for you to visit if, like us, you hold Arthur Phillip in any particular regard for his good aspects, without turning a blind eye to some aspects that could be regarded as very negative and which we will attempt to discuss elsewhere, is the location of Arthur Phillip's remains. With regard to Arthur's odds and sods, we're sure you know, if you're Australian-educated, Australians generally refer to James Cook as "Captain Cook", which was his rank in 1778 when he was murdered and at least partly scoffed on an island in what is now the United States, which at that time was at war with Cook's nation of Britain. We hasten to make the point that the process of at least part of Cook being turned into poo was not a result of this war, being more connected to misunderstandings and ignorance, especially on Cook's part. Oh, and anyway, what is now the State of Hawaii was not then part of the United States. But, back to the point of this diversion. Cook's rank in his time of greatest importance to Australia, on an earlier voyage to the Pacific, when he became the first European for whom we have incontrovertible evidence of commanding a ship that sailed along the eastern coast of Australia in 1770, was actually "Lieutenant". So what, you may wonder, does this have to do with Arthur Phillip? Well, not a whole heck of a lot, to be honest, except for the fact that, like Lex, you may be a bit surprised if you visit the pretty little country church under which Phillip's remains were buried and where, somewhere, such as still exist are believed to still be buried, by the fact that, unlike Cook, we speak of Phillip in the reverse. We know him as "Captain" Phillip, which was his rank when in Australia, but he is buried under the rank he had upon his retirement from the British navy, as "Admiral" Phillip. Seeing this, Lex foolishly thought he and Bronwyn had accidentally come to the wrong place! Regarding Phillip's remains, as mentioned elsewhere in this website, Phillip took 2 First Australians back to Britain after he finally managed to persuade the government to allow him to return to England for treatment of his apparently increasingly poor health. Considering what happened in a few months to one of his fellow passengers, and what we know about the nature of British medical skill at the time, Phillip would probably have been just as well off staying in New South Wales! Anyway, Later Australians and those educated by them generally know Phillip's First Australian fellow passengers as Bennelong and Yemmerrawanyea[2], although the former is far better known than the latter, if only because the Sydney Opera House is now located on a patch of land named after him. Bennelong's fate is a terrible story in itself, but, sadly, Yemmerrawanyea's story is much, much shorter (for a longer version elsewhere on this website, not of his life, but of our description of aspects of it, click here). Largely forgotten to history, Yemmerrawanyea was the first Australian-born person, as far as we know, to die in Britain. We would suggest guilt at what happened to him is at the root of his virtual disappearance from white Australia's history, but while there may have been some genuine sorrow, and we emphasise "may", we doubt there was much general understanding guilt should have been felt. Nor is there much more now. We don't know whether Bennelong:
Which brings us to the worst matter of all regarding this unfortunate young man's remains. It is apparently no longer possible for whatever is now left of them to be returned to his country. Thus, Yemmerrawanyea's angry ghost has been left wandering forever, leaving those of his people, beyond those descended from the owners of the land on which Phillip established the British convict colony angry, traumatised, and immensely sad. Indeed, "immensely" goes nowhere near covering the extent of trauma and sadness they feel. Perhaps even worse, those who still share the spiritual understandings of Yemmerrawanyea's people, are in great fear of his ghost and the damage it could effect. So, why can't Yemmerrawanyea's remains be returned? After all, many other stolen and looted remains have since been returned. Well, the story is now a matter of some disagreement, but the long and short of it is that while we can visit his gravestone and there ponder the fate of the man once buried under it and the succeeding fate of his people, not only was Yemmerrawanyea not buried under the stone in its current position, leaning against a fence, his remains' location or locations, if any remain extant, are now apparently completely unknown. Unlike the man responsible for him being in the land of his death, Arthur Phillip, no less, it is even unknown whether Yemmerrawanyea's remains are still somewhere under the churchyard in which they were originally buried. Some argue this is the result of the treatment of all human remains in many, probably most, churchyards in England. As the gravesites were used up, the oldest were emptied of their contents and disposed of. This disposal could involve burying the remains, usually reduced to bones alone, in a pit. Or, in some cases, the bones were preserved in tunnels, or above the ground in "charnel houses". In any of these cases their final place may or may not be in the original churchyard. But further, graves were sometimes robbed, usually for actual or pseudo-scientific research. Further again, the remains were sometimes simply "disposed of", we know not where. These may, but not necessarily, be somewhere in a churchyard, or anywhere else one doesn't like to think about. In 1986, Lex visited a roman catholic church in the former Portuguese colony of Goa in India where relatives of one of his uncles-by-marriage had been buried. The same practice was still carried out, and skulls and other bones were scattered around the churchyard. However, there appears to be no record of this happening to Yemmerrawanyea's remains, and there are several other possible fates they may have suffered. For example, the First Australian Tasmanian woman Truganini pleaded to be buried, but her skeleton ended up in Melbourne's main museum, where Lex observed them when he was a small child. So, why are we repeating Yemmerrawanyea's story here? It is because of the irony of the fact Arthur Phillip's remains have also been lost, although they, at least, are almost certainly still buried somewhere under the little church in which his memorial is located. In general, however, does the problem of the remains' location really matter? To us atheists, at least, probably not, except for the powerful effect of knowing the physical forms of the people you're considering have become one with the soil on which you're standing, thus adding their molecules to the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat (and consider that fact the next time you consider the matter of cannibalism!) And, of course, the general humane concern we have for the ongoing suffering of people who themselves and whose forebears have suffered more than enough, far, far, far more than enough. For while we don't share the various spiritual beliefs of the First Australian peoples, we know the loss of Yemmerrawanyea's remains, and the pain and anger of his ghost, far from home, can be very real to those who do believe, causing them great pain. The finding of Yemmerrawanyea's remains and returning them home to their “country[3]” is of great importance. Their apparently permanent loss is yet another at least carelessly ignorant, and at worst racist and malignant crime, against Australia's First Nations on the part of both knowingly and/or ignorantly uncaring Europeans. This need to return applies equally to all other still extant, lost, and “lost” remains of every other desecrated First Australian corpse, including those whose identity and/or location were unrecorded, or uncaringly lost, or for various reasons "lost", such as the great warrior Pemulwuy’s grossly pickled head. Where their identity, and/or country, and/or group/s, and/or individual/s responsible for their care have yet to be identified, extant remains should at least be returned to Australia, where they can be cared for appropriately in a location approved by First Australians in Canberra. So, the irony is there, but the little church in which Phillip's odds and sods, such as still exist in more than atomic size, are located is a lovely place in which one can reflect or meditate, if you're so inclined, on the rights and wrongs of Phillip's time in Australia, and the consequences of his arrival. There is, perhaps a further irony, or at least an indication at least some Second and Third Australian attitudes towards the remains of our forebears can differ from those held by First Australians, in the great Australian-born British-resident human rights campaigner and lawyer Geoffrey Robertson's expressed desire to have Arthur Phillip's remains located, transported to Australia, and re-buried far from his "country" in a location with an ocean view. [1] It’s possible to quibble over the meaning of “settlement”, but the first claimant to the title of the first white settlement of which we know occurred during the nightmare of the two settlements of survivors of the 1628 wreck of the Batavia. At the time, this ship was the largest, most militarily powerful ship on our planet’s oceans. It was also the very short-lived flagship of the Dutch East India Company, which began its maiden voyage on 29 October, 1628, ending it on a reef in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos (aka Abrolhos Islands) on 4 June, 1629, just off the western West Australian coast. Describing what followed as a nightmare doesn’t even touch on its ghastliness, nor on features of its miraculous. The settlements lasted less than 6 months before the remaining survivors were rescued after a great and sadly largely unknown Blighesque journey by a small boatload of survivors made it to the Dutch colony of Batavia, Jakarta in what is now Indonesia. One group of survivors, soldiers led by one of the very few heroes of this terrible event, a young mercenary called Wiebbe Hayes, built the earliest known European building in Australia, a tiny fort on West Wallabi Island. Not the least remarkable element of this tale is that the fort’s remains still exist there, as do, mostly on a nearby island and very sadly, the remains of several hundred starved, raped, tortured, and brutally murdered survivors of the wreck. Most of the worst brutes responsible for these events were “tried” on the spot and executed, after having their hands chopped off, and several were shipped away on the rescue vessel to be dealt with later. So the story ends, except for a man and a boy who were left stranded on mainland Australia as what was meant to be their “lesser” punishment. Wouter Loos, who probably deserved execution more than several of those who suffered that fate, and an unfortunate mid-teen cabin boy, Jan Pelgrom de By, who seems to have gone along with the brutes through very understandable fear, became the first known permanent white settlers in Australia. Now, there’s something of which us white Australians can be proud! (NOT!, we hasten to add, for those of you unfamiliar with Australians and what we choose to call our humour). We know nothing more of them, nor of how long their “permanent” status lasted. Whether or not Loos and de By were the first permanent white settlers overall is unknown. There were other examples of rescued shipwreck survivors, but there were also heaps of shipwrecks along the western West Australian coast, any survivors of which remained unknown by other Europeans. There are also unconfirmed, and currently apparently completely discredited tales of Portuguese, and possibly some Spanish, ships having sailed along some parts of Australia’s western and southern coasts. At least some of the tales also include shipwrecks. Evidence of survivors has, like clearly indisputable evidence supporting the tales themselves, yet to be found. [2] If researching these men, the spellings of their names, especially Yemmerrawanyea, vary quite a bit. It would not be correct to state one or the other is “right”. The First Australian languages were all oral only, and any spellings are a result of European interpretations of the sounds they heard and the transposition of those sounds into the so-called Latin alphabet used in English writing. It seems probable, however, that some are much closer to the accurate pronunciation than others. We note “Yemmerrawanyea” is the spelling on this unfortunate young man’s gravestone, Yemmerrawanne in Wikipedia (accessed 3 May, 2019), and Yuremany, Yemmorravonyea, Yemmerrawanie, Yemmeraiwanya, Yemmerewanyea, Imeerawanyee, and Immirawanya are used elsewhere. [3] Here we use the word “country” in the sense of the usage adopted in the English language to describe the First Australian concept of land being cared for by each particular family or “tribal” group. This should not be taken to be some sort of rejection of the modern usage of Australia, being the national entity to which those of us who are citizens belong, and to which we give our allegiance, being our “country”. |