and the settlement at large. In 1816, after Aboriginal attacks on farms on the outskirts of the Sydney settlement, Governor Macquarie sent a party to arrest the offenders. This resulted in an attack on an Aboriginal camp at Appin, and the killing of 14 Aboriginal people, none of them known to have been involved in the initial incident.
Macquarie declared individual Aboriginals as wanted outlaws when whites and blacks clashed, and declared martial law on both Aboriginals and bushrangers when needed in regions where conflict was most rife.
Re-ordering a town, re-ordering convict behaviour
Macquarie may have been impressed with the industry evident in the new colony of NSW, but he still believed things should be done in a certain (ordered and moral) way. Although not really in the way instructed by the Colonial Office, Macquarie did introduce some order to the settlement.
Introducing order to Sydney’s layout
Macquarie proved himself different from the previous governor (Governor Bligh) when he was able to refashion the town of Sydney without residents threatening him with revolution. Unlike Bligh, who called into question ordinary people’s property rights and threatened them with summary eviction (refer to Chapter 4), Macquarie was able to impose change in a way that seemed orderly rather than arbitrary.
In October 1810, a new town plan was introduced for Sydney, which included new street names, washhouses, widened roads — and the creation of a certain Macquarie Place. A month later, it was announced that a brand new hospital was to be built (for the price of a five-year rum trading monopoly to the three men who promised to build it — pragmatism in action!). A year later further plans were introduced, including a new animal pound and a turnpike on the Parramatta Road. These were followed by a lighthouse on South Head, a new fort, and plenty more churches — with a very large fountain in Sydney topping it all off.
Macquarie ensured that whatever came next in the colony, no-one was going to forget him in a hurry. His mark would be evident everywhere, on maps and on buildings, roads and other structures. As a result, the shanty metropolis began to show a lot more orderliness.
HELLO NSW: CALL ME LACHLAN, AND I’LL CALL EVERYTHING MACQUARIE
Macquarie made a lasting impact on life in Australia — and on maps in Australia. He made sure he was remembered by naming things after himself, and encouraging others (explorers, surveyors, builders and designers) to do the same. Here Macquarie didn’t stint.
In Australia today you can find Macquarie
Lakes
Rivers
Lighthouses
Harbours
Piers
Hills
Fields
Passes
Marshes
Islands
Pubs
You name it — Macquarie’s name will be on it.
Introducing order to the population’s behaviour
Macquarie was keen to introduce orderliness to all aspects of colonial life, and so he encouraged the general population to settle down in their behaviour and lives.
Hundreds of men and women were living in ‘common-law marriages’, or what are known today as de facto relationships (and what shocked Evangelical ministers at the time called the keeping of ‘concubines’!). Macquarie tried to get men and women to make it all official, in a church, with the registry. This was part of his plan to make the whole colony more settled, along with his building of churches and encouragement of schools.
Macquarie was also strict in his treatment of convicts. Even though he liked nothing more than helping ex-convicts attain the social prominence that their material wealth and industrious activity had (in his eyes at least) earned them, that didn’t mean he thought convicts should be allowed to do whatever they wanted.
In 1814, Macquarie declared sternly that convicts could no longer swap between masters. If a neighbouring settler offered you a better deal, more free time or more pay, tough — you had to stick with the master you’d been assigned to.
Macquarie took his control of convicts further in 1819 when, to groans from convicts all round, the Hyde Parke Barracks opened.
For those who Macquarie coaxed into the Hyde Parke Barracks, there was no more task work and knocking off when the job was done at about midday. Now work would continue from sunrise to sunset, with two short meal breaks. Finally, 30 years after the so-called prison colony was founded, something resembling a prison to put the convicts in was opened. Convicts were still allowed out on weekends, and they made the most of it — thefts and arrests for drunkenness rose steeply at the end of each week.
Becoming a Governor Ahead of His Time
Macquarie may have said that he only wanted to let ex-convicts be readmitted to their previous rank in society, but everyone could see it was much more than that. To Macquarie, your previous ‘rank’ in the British social hierarchy didn’t matter. If you made a great success of yourself and your operations in NSW, Macquarie welcomed you. This would cause problems for Macquarie among the ‘Exclusives’ within the new colony and, eventually, with the Colonial Office in Britain.
Stirring up trouble with the free folk
Most of those who’d arrived free in the colony mingled, cohabited and married with the convicts and ex-convicts without any real worries. But a small minority (there’s always some …) went out of their way to hold themselves aloof and ‘exclusive’ (which became their nickname) whenever possible.
With the arrival of Macquarie,
