WEBVTT 00:00:29.155 --> 00:00:35.883 Before the dreaming, the Australian continent was a flat featureless place, devoid of life. 00:00:37.914 --> 00:00:40.886 Then giant beings came down from the sky, 00:00:40.886 --> 00:00:45.963 came from across the sea and emerged from within the Earth. 00:00:45.963 --> 00:00:51.641 With their arrival, the dreaming began and life was born. 00:00:54.872 --> 00:01:01.243 In the north of Australia, the Junkawa Sisters gave birth to humanity. 00:01:02.104 --> 00:01:06.453 In central Australia, Itakawara broke the marriage laws 00:01:06.453 --> 00:01:11.556 and as punishment, was turned into stone forever, entombed in the landscape. 00:01:13.448 --> 00:01:16.628 On the east coast, Baiame shaped the landscape 00:01:16.628 --> 00:01:18.364 and when his work was complete, 00:01:18.364 --> 00:01:23.549 he stepped on to a mountain and back into the sky. 00:01:31.873 --> 00:01:33.560 As they moved across the land, 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:35.919 their giant bodies shaped the Earth, 00:01:35.919 --> 00:01:39.619 creating rivers and mountain ranges. 00:01:39.619 --> 00:01:43.458 In everything they touched, they left their essence 00:01:43.458 --> 00:01:47.197 making the landscape sacred to those who honour the dreaming. 00:01:47.197 --> 00:01:50.367 The first Australians. 00:01:54.937 --> 00:02:00.143 If you think about the ancient civilizations that Europeans look to 00:02:00.143 --> 00:02:05.445 such as the dynasties of the Pharoahs in Egypt, 00:02:05.445 --> 00:02:10.940 then even they are young compared to the period when humans were coming to Australia. 00:02:12.263 --> 00:02:16.454 The first Australians numbered more than 250 tribes, 00:02:16.454 --> 00:02:20.654 each with their own language, laws and territorial boundaries. 00:02:20.654 --> 00:02:25.408 A civilization encompassing the entire continent. 00:02:28.653 --> 00:02:31.772 We've had this debate about Australia was a terra nullius 00:02:31.772 --> 00:02:33.828 and it was a wasted landscape, 00:02:33.828 --> 00:02:36.874 and people hadn't used it and hadn't farmed it. 00:02:36.874 --> 00:02:43.550 They have discovered that in fact, it's probably supported about 1.6 billion lives 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:50.231 and that's how productive Aboriginal people were able to make this part of the Earth 00:02:50.231 --> 00:02:54.861 which has the most irregular and unreliable rainfall 00:02:54.861 --> 00:02:57.695 and the driest continent on Earth. 00:02:57.695 --> 00:03:00.300 80,000 years, 100,000 years, 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:04.638 it doesn't matter whether it's 60,000 years, it's an incredible length of time. 00:03:04.638 --> 00:03:07.449 It's the longest living civilization Earth 00:03:07.449 --> 00:03:13.551 and if you can't learn something from a people that successful, 00:03:13.551 --> 00:03:20.632 then you're really defying your own intelligence. 00:03:21.032 --> 00:03:26.519 Just over 200 years ago, without warning, strangers arrive. 00:03:26.519 --> 00:03:30.927 They appear on the east coast at a place called Warang. 00:03:30.927 --> 00:03:34.107 The strangers name it Sydney. 00:03:34.107 --> 00:03:39.937 They're about to come face-to-face with the first Australians. 00:03:39.937 --> 00:03:42.039 Bennelong, a young American, 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:47.489 who spends his days on the beach, will become the toast of English society. 00:03:47.489 --> 00:03:52.558 Pemulroy will reject diplomacy and will declare the first war on Australian soil 00:03:52.558 --> 00:03:56.387 Believing that he cannot be killed by firearms, 00:03:56.387 --> 00:03:58.659 Windradyne will also become a wanted man 00:03:58.659 --> 00:04:04.073 when his family is murdered over a handful of potatoes. 00:04:04.073 --> 00:04:06.674 This is the story of the first Australians 00:04:06.674 --> 00:04:13.394 and the events that shape the nation when the strangers came to stay. 00:04:24.395 --> 00:04:28.790 It's impossible not to have hoped that there'd be some sort 00:04:28.790 --> 00:04:34.893 of evolution of a society which was tolerant of difference, 00:04:34.893 --> 00:04:39.099 but which sustained everyone. 00:04:40.099 --> 00:04:45.300 It is a summer's night on the 25th January, 1788. 00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:49.105 Eleven giant ships enter the harbour. 00:04:49.105 --> 00:04:52.143 On board are over 1300 people. 00:04:52.143 --> 00:04:57.127 More than half are convicts, the rest are soldiers. 00:04:57.327 --> 00:05:01.556 The people on board are ordered to remain there until dawn. 00:05:01.556 --> 00:05:08.193 They've traveled for nearly 8 months from England to this unknown land. 00:05:08.193 --> 00:05:11.531 Around the harbour, the first Australians light fires 00:05:11.531 --> 00:05:18.016 and they yell from their canoes for these apparitions to go away. 00:05:18.016 --> 00:05:22.537 They thought they was the Devil when they landed first. 00:05:22.537 --> 00:05:25.777 They did not know what to make of them. 00:05:25.777 --> 00:05:29.282 When they saw them going up the masts, 00:05:29.282 --> 00:05:34.330 they thought they was possums, Marut. 00:05:34.330 --> 00:05:37.791 Gamadelpivo 00:05:37.791 --> 00:05:46.404 At first light, the order is given for the convict men and women to disembark. 00:05:46.404 --> 00:05:53.523 For Aboroginal people, can you imagine, suddenly there are 11 ships, 00:05:53.523 --> 00:05:57.579 with these strange people wearing clothes. 00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:01.503 Funny hats, they have guns. 00:06:02.688 --> 00:06:05.662 What are these people up to? Why are they here? 00:06:05.662 --> 00:06:08.688 How long are they going to stay? 00:06:08.688 --> 00:06:13.558 Why did they come to my country? Why don't they go somewhere else? 00:06:13.558 --> 00:06:16.662 Are they spirits? Very strange. 00:06:26.013 --> 00:06:34.195 There's this very curious and very touching attempt to come together and to comprehend. 00:06:34.195 --> 00:06:42.657 So you have extraordinary scenes within two or three days of landing of Britishers and Aborogines dancing together. 00:06:42.657 --> 00:06:45.992 29 January, 1788 00:06:45.992 --> 00:06:48.628 They pointed with their sticks to the boat landing place 00:06:48.628 --> 00:06:51.103 and met us in the most cheerful manner. 00:06:51.103 --> 00:06:56.939 Shouting and dancing, these people mixed with ours and all hands danced together. 00:06:56.939 --> 00:06:59.765 William Bradley, first lieutenant. 00:06:59.765 --> 00:07:02.919 And all we've got to go on are the paintings done 00:07:02.919 --> 00:07:06.827 by a young naval lieutenant called Bradley. 00:07:07.027 --> 00:07:11.435 And he has these enchanting paintings of redcoats 00:07:11.435 --> 00:07:15.058 and aboriginal men, indeed, dancing together. 00:07:15.058 --> 00:07:20.436 They're hand in hand,they seem to be dancing. 00:07:20.436 --> 00:07:25.930 A sort of playground encounter, if you like, 00:07:25.930 --> 00:07:29.017 when you're trying to check each other out. 00:07:29.017 --> 00:07:32.637 The first Australians can't work out these first visitors are men or women 00:07:32.637 --> 00:07:36.376 as their clothing covers them like a strange skin. 00:07:36.376 --> 00:07:43.093 Finally, an officer is challenged to submit to the country's very first immigration procedure. 00:07:43.093 --> 00:07:46.522 He has a wig, he has leotards on. 00:07:46.522 --> 00:07:50.100 THey ask him to take his pants off, 00:07:50.100 --> 00:07:54.665 which he declined and made a sailor do it. 00:07:54.665 --> 00:07:59.096 Arthur Philip, captain of the first fleet, leads the newcomers ashore. 00:07:59.096 --> 00:08:02.270 After an unremarkable career of 30 years in the navy, 00:08:02.270 --> 00:08:04.804 he is dragged from retirement and appointed goverenor of a place nearly sixty times the size of England. 00:08:04.804 --> 00:08:13.033 Governor Philip was in a rather unique situation when he came to Sydney, 00:08:13.033 --> 00:08:17.327 because he had one of his front teeth missing 00:08:17.327 --> 00:08:21.794 and it was the same tooth that was knocked out during the male initiation ceremony. 00:08:21.794 --> 00:08:25.216 On my showing them that I lacked a front tooth, 00:08:25.216 --> 00:08:29.862 it occasioned a general clamour, and I thought it gave me some little merit in their opinion. 00:08:29.862 --> 00:08:32.569 Arthur Philip, Governor. 00:08:32.569 --> 00:08:35.000 The local people would have thought here is...