Africans have been in Australia since 1788 when around a dozen African men arrived here as part of the First Fleet - according to renowned Australian non-fiction author and historian, Dr Cassandra Pybus.

Dr Pybus, an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow based at the University of Tasmania, began researching the subject a few years ago, uncovering material on over 800 convicts and free settlers from the African Diaspora. Dr Pybus is currently researching the history of Australia's 'first bushranger', an African man known as Black Caeser, who was eventually confined to chains on Garden Island.

Caeser came out to Australia with the First Fleet in the 1780s. Other Africans came to Australia during the 1800s. According to Dr Pybus, many were freed slaves who had gone to Britain after the American Revolution - only to fall on hard times, and to be sent to Australia as convicts. Others came out during the 1830s, when slaves and ex-slaves were transported from the West Indies and the Cape Colony, or during the 1850s Gold Rush. The Sydney landmark Blues Point is said to be named after William Blue, a man of African descent who was a confidant of Governor Macquarie.

According to Dr Pybus' research, most convicts of African descent stayed 'clean' and eventually won their freedom. Many were given land grants like other convicts, and married local women and had children.

Cassandra Pybus, founder, Australian Humanities Review, has written two books on African Americans:

Black Founders

In her new book, Black Founders: the Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers, Cassandra Pybus reveals that black convicts were among our first fleet settlers in early colonial Australia.

Most of these black founders were originally slaves from America who had sought freedom with the British during the American Revolution, only to find themselves abandoned and unemployed in England when the war was over. Pybus's stories include the notorious runaway Black Caesar, who became our first bushranger, and the wonderfully subversive Billie Blue, who was the first ferryman on Sydney Harbour and after whom Blues Point is named.

and...

Epic Journeys of Freedom

Historian Cassandra Pybus traces the lives and adventures of the runaway slaves who absorbed the dreams of liberty from their masters during the American Revolution and fled to the British to find freedom. She tells us where where these hopeful and courageous idealists went and what kind of lives they made for themselves.

Interesting. Do you know what happened to those from the Americas? Did they form their own communities? Did they marry into other groups? Did they migrate after the rush?

Excellent questions. I'll have to get back to you on that.
Some did intermarry with whites, but I'm interested to know if they formed family groups with the indigenous people - as the indigenous people had by necessity moved inward for their survival.

When I've read the book Black Founders (and done a little online research) I hope I have some answers - it's sitting next to my computer, but be patient Henry Reynold's (he's the man) meticulous book North of Capricorn - the untold story of the people of Australia's north is next on my list before Pybus's.

So many books... so little time!

ma'am... I may have answers sooner that I thought.
Tonight I went to a lecture about the Cadigal (Sydney) indigenous people and their history as hunters, gatherers and fishermen/women. Very interesting!

Anyway, I asked the historian about the Africans who arrived on the First Fleet and he gave me the name of a book/author to follow up about those African/Indigenous interactions. Pybus's book apparently doesn't go into those relationships in depth, more the cultural environment and history.

So when I track it down I'll give you a shout.
An interesting fact I picked up tonight was that while indigenous men (of the Sydney, Cadigal clan at least) were buried - usually with possessions of value such as spears - the women were cremated. An interesting fact to follow up perhaps.

Cool. I had another question yesterday, but figured leave da lady alone, lol.

I don't remember it.

But I find that some intermarried with Whites interesting. I know there were efforts to "purify" the race of the indigenous Australians of mixed descent. Making sure "half-castes" intermarried with Whites thinking that their future generations would become White and the Aboriginal people would die out.

Was that the same thinking in regards to Blacks from the Americas? And what were the attitudes concerning those who married Aboriginal people.

. . .I think I need to add a couple of more works into my book list.

Thanks for bringing up this interesting subject!

(Did he go into why there was a difference in burial?)

ma'am... hi... I can't answer these questions yet, but I will aim to.

A huge and very interesting topic.

There were both friendly and deadly social interactions. The idea to "purify" the race came later. Governor Phillip's original party - first contact - in 1788, were to explore the land and the aboriginal culture and language. To that end, there are now around 1000 words in a wordlist (compiled by historians, mostly from Dawes original notebook) from the Cadigal (original) people of Sydney at that time.

However, noone is denying or ignoring or justifying the fact there were many massacres of indigenous people.

To give you an idea of numbers, the First Fleet numbered 1500 people, equal to the number of original Sydney indigenous people.

Within 2 years of 'settlement' of Sydney half the indigenous Population died of smallpox. There are differing views about whether the smallpox outbreak was accidental or aided.

The Australia's tropical (read hot) north is interesting reading too, because - away from the east coast with it's temperate climate - it existed as a thriving and cosmopolitan place of mixed nationalities and relatively harmonious cultural exchange. This was before Federation in 1900.

I didn't get the opportunity to ask about the significance of the burial differences between men and women... it's one I'll try to follow up out of curiosity.

As to the Africans here, I'll let you know what I find out - please reciprocate if you find out any info?

It seems the British had a similar "romantised" (in their minds) view about setting up new colonies in both Freetown, and Sydney, at roughly the same time. Very spooky. I went to another talk a month or so back by a female academic who wrote a book about this, but it's a Cambridge Press book and sells at AU$150. Perhaps my library might buy a copy.

Darug people's new dreaming - the return of the land they called home
Daniel Lewis
July 3, 2006

AT A recent tribal gathering among the gums of Blacktown's Nurragingy Reserve, Jacinta Tobin pulled out her guitar to strum a song about her people.

"Yarramundi ... his bloodline, we're still living on ... we're humming on and living on."

With the annual celebration of Aboriginal culture, NAIDOC Week, this week, the Darug people are still busy dispelling the myth that Sydney's Aborigines were wiped out by smallpox, rum and gunpowder.

About 75 community members attended the get-together, where a Macquarie University academic, James Kohen, had a proof of his new book, Daruganora: Darug Country, the Place and the People. It is an update of his 1993 book The Darug and Their Neighbours, which helped arouse Darug consciousness.

The Darug once belonged to clans like the Burramattagal (Parramatta), Kameygal (Botany Bay) and Warmuli (Prospect).

They wore animal tails in their hair, wrapped their children in paper bark and around Sydney Harbour used the word "Eora" to describe themselves. They later lived on missions and reserves such as Sackville, La Perouse, Kogarah, Holsworthy and Katoomba. Now they have family names like Lock, Webb, Everingham, Moran and Gale.

Dr Kohen said the thousands of Darug descendants "just want recognition of who they are and where they come from".

Despite claiming hundreds of parcels of vacant Crown land from Bondi to the Blue Mountains under native title, they have been unsuccessful.

"You have got to show that you are practising traditional Aboriginal culture," Dr Kohen said. "That's a problem for people in south-east Australia because the courts are taking a very narrow interpretation of traditional culture."

Like the song says, Ms Tobin traces her bloodline from Yarramundi, chief of the Boorooberongal clan from the Richmond area. Governor Arthur Phillip encountered Yarramundi on his first overland expedition to the Hawkesbury in 1791.

Nurragingy, chief of the South Creek clan, and Colebee, a son of Yarramundi, became the first Aborigines granted land by white Australia in 1819.

Beside Richmond Road, in what are now the Blacktown suburbs of Oakhurst and Colebee, the area of the grants became known as the Black Town.

Governor Macquarie's Native Institution for the education of Aborigines was moved there from Parramatta in 1823.

A convict assigned to the project was Robert Lock, and on January 27, 1824, he married Maria, daughter of Yarramundi. It was the first marriage between black and white.

Maria Lock had 10 children and when she died in 1878 aged 84 her will showed she owned 60 acres at Blacktown.

Ms Tobin, 36, grew up in Emu Plains and was 19 before she realised her heritage. Now chairwoman of the Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation, her goal is recognition for her people.

"The problem about the Darug is that they are too white to be black and too black to be white," Ms Tobin said. "The most important thing to me is to give my family a chance to be Darug."

For the Darug, the old Black Town is a powerful symbol of their identity. Some time in the 1920s the Aborigines Protection Board took control of the land and sold it in the late 1940s.

Much of it has been developed, but Landcom has decided to give five undeveloped hectares to Blacktown Council to manage on behalf of the community.

Blacktown Council said it was consulting with the Aboriginal community, including Darug elders, about developing an Aboriginal cultural centre, with the old Native Institute land among the sites being considered.

While happy to know the land will not be carved up for housing, the Darug believe it should be given to them so it can be used to tell the Darug story.