History of Brisbane - 1824 Colony

1824 Colony

In 1824, the first convict colony was established at Redcliffe Point under Lieutenant Miller. Meanwhile, Oxley and Allan Cunningham explored further up the Brisbane River in search of water, landing at the present location of North Quay. Only one year later, in 1825, the colony was moved south from Redcliffe to a peninsula on the Brisbane River, site of the present central business district, called "Meen-jin" by its Turrbul inhabitants.

At the end of 1825, the official population of Brisbane was "45 males and 2 females". Until 1859, when Queensland was separated from the state of New South Wales, the name Moreton Bay was used to describe the new settlement and surrounding areas. Edenglassie was the name first bestowed on the growing town by Chief Justice Francis Forbes, a portmanteau of the two Scottish cities Edinburgh and Glasgow. The name soon fell out of favour with many residents and the current name in honour of Governor Thomas Brisbane was adopted instead.

The colony was originally established as a "prison within a prison"—a settlement, deliberately distant from Sydney, to which recidivist convicts could be sent as punishment. It soon garnered a reputation, along with Norfolk Island, as one of the harshest penal settlements in all of New South Wales.

Over twenty years, thousands of convicts passed through the penal colony. Hundreds of these fled the stern conditions and escaped into the bush. Although most escapes were unsuccessful or resulted in the escapees perishing in the bush, some (e.g. James Davis) succeeded in living as "wild white men" amongst the aboriginal people.

During these decades, the local aboriginals tried to "starve out" the settlement by destroying its crops—most notably their "corn fields" at today's South Bank. In retaliation, colony guards shot and killed aboriginals entering the corn fields.