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Finest Harbour in the World
The Rocks are the birthplace of white Australia, the area
where the First Fleet finally encamped after the long voyage
from England. The fleet had intended to settle at Botany
Bay, but found that it was nowhere near as habitable as
they had understood from the journals of Captain James Cook,
the man who navigated the Australian coastline and claimed
it as British territory. In Port Jackson, now known
as Sydney Harbour, Governor Phillip found "the
finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the
line may ride with the most perfect security".
Despite these rhapsodies, little thought was given to the
security of the original inhabitants, who were under threat
from the white invasion. The Iora Aborigines of the
Rocks area must have watched in astonishment as the European
vessels sailed into the harbour and the white men staggered
on to the steep sandstone ledges and rocky shores (from which
The Rocks takes its name) to build their penal colony. It
appears that relations were friendly between the groups at
first, with the officers making conciliatory gifts of ribbons
and beads, and the natives telling the invaders the names
of things in their own tongue.
These coastal dwelling Aborigines had inhabited the Rocks
for thousands of years as the constant availability of fish
in the harbour meant that there was no need to leave the coast
other than for trade and ceremony. The 1500-year-old remains
of a campfire were recently discovered in the Rocks area,
complete with the scraps of a meal of snapper and rock oysters.
Other artefacts and objects used by the Iora, such as weapons
and large flat baking stones, have been found in the area,
as well as numerous rock engraving sites.
Setting up Home
Despite the presence of these inhabitants, the convicts were
ordered to begin building crude shelters for the fledgling
colony. The land to be cleared was hard and unfamiliar to
the convicts, and the work difficult after long, inactive
months at sea had made jelly of their muscles. It took two
weeks before there were enough shelters ready for the female
convicts, who had been kept on board in the harbour. By the
time they had disembarked, a fierce thunderstorm had broken
out, which turned the ground to mud and whipped many of the
tents away. Unfazed, the convicts and marines, many drunk
with celebratory rum and deprived of the mere sight of a woman
for months, were intent on one thing only. And so the Rocks
from which modern Australia grew provided the shelter and
crevices for Australia's first drunken orgy.
Because of a combined lack of skill and decent tools, the
early convict shelters built in the Rocks were mere huts of
cabbage tree palm, with roofs were made of insect-infested
reeds which washed away in the rain - as did the mud sealing
the walls. By 1790, bricks were being crudely manufactured
and were used to build a two-storey government house. Mortar
could only be obtained by collecting and burning oyster shells
for lime - however, this was such an arduous task that the
Government House was the only structure built with it. All
other buildings were held together by a mixture of mud &
sheep's hair, which washed away in the rain and explains why,
despite the relative youth of the area, no original buildings
still stand in the Rocks.
No Room at the Inn
Despite early attempts at friendly relations with the Iora
Aborigines, the clearing of land and hunting of game compromised
their spiritual links with the land and destroyed the resources
on which they depended for their survival. Bloodshed was soon
common, as the convicts, reviled and exiled, sought someone
to whom they could feel superior. Even more commonly, the
introduction of European diseases like smallpox and influenza,
to which the natives had no immunity, had devastating effects,
as they spread and wiped out hundreds of the 1500 or so natives
that Governor Phillip had estimated inhabited the area. Bodies
were seen floating in the harbour and decomposing in the hollows
of the Rocks as traditional burial practices were abandoned
by those fleeing for their own survival, or too unwell to
carry them out.
The absence of coinage in the early settlement led to the
use of rum, over which the corrupt soldiers of the NSW corps
had a monopoly, as currency. The Rocks, having been the dumping
ground for England's unsavoury and disadvantaged rejects,
quickly gained a reputation for bawdiness, villainy and drunkenness,
and the development of the area was further hindered.
The face of the Rocks changed somewhat as it became an important
point of call on trading routes. Whaling and sealing bought
sea-faring itinerants to the area and buildings became more
permanent. The Rocks were still the slums of Sydney, where
sailors and prostitutes exchanged favours, pubs and boarding
houses contained mainly lower working class rabble, and gangs
of hooligans roamed the streets. The discovery of gold in
Australia had bought an influx of Chinese immigrants and the
Rocks became Sydney's first Chinatown where immigrants scraped
about for a living in conditions of appalling squalor.
Cleaning up the slums
An outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 1900s gave the
Government an opportunity to buy the Rocks outright and embark
on a massive cleanup of the area, the first day of which resulted
in 750 tons of debris being dumped in the sea or burnt on
the streets. Sydney's public hygiene was atrocious, with rampant
rats, no proper sewage systems and a dependence on the nightcart
to remove human filth, but Australia's early racism manifested
itself and blamed the Chinese community for the spread of
the disease.
Once in government hands, the Rocks were soon modernised
with the building of the Harbour Bridge causing hundreds of
buildings to be demolished. The heritage of the area was only
preserved in some part by campaigning in the 1960s which led
to the restoration of existing buildings in the federation
style of sandstone and iron lace. Walking through the Rocks
today, with its cosmopolitan eateries, expensive boutiques,
kitsch souvenirs, sleek pubs and slick locals, the area's
chequered past seems far more than only 2 centuries ago. |
