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Always Was, Always Will Be video transcript

We have always made our voices heard.

From our first stories and songs which began over 65,000 years ago to the moment of colonization, to the protest calls of our elders. Today we echo the trailblazers that have gone before us. That our sovereignty was never ceded. That our nation’s history did not begin 250 years ago.

Today, we ask that all Australians acknowledge our shared history. And join with us to celebrate our language, our country, our culture and our survival. And know that this always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Endeavour Tour Video Transcript

It was the year 1768, first Lieutenant James Cook and his men set sail aboard the HMS Endeavour.

NARRATOR: At 2 pm we got under sail and put to sea, having on board 94 persons near 18 months' provisions and stores of all kinds.

Their aim was to observe a rare event when the planet Venus moved across the sun, but they also had a secret mission to find the rumoured Great South Land and claim it for England. It was an epic three year journey that shaped our country's history, but the ship that made it possible sank years later and its full wreckage has never been found. So in the 1980s, historians helped build this - a replica of the Endeavour in all its 18th century glory.

MIKE, FIRST MATE: The ship itself is sailed exactly the same way, is exactly the same. So we still play the same game if you like as Cook's men did all those years ago.

Now the ship's docked at port so kids can hop aboard and explore what it would've been like to be on Cook's famous voyage. Above deck, the ship is just like it would've been more than 200 years ago, right down to the toilets.

GUIDE: This was their toilet paper! Into the bucket of saltwater, wipe their bottoms and that was it.

Down below, the ship is also decked out like the 1700s; from an old school oven, to cannons, even the ship's cat! There was also another kind of cat that kept the crew in order, the dreaded cat-o-nine-tails!

MIKE, FIRST MATE: If someone was going to be punished for say, disobeying an order that an officer gave them, they'd probably get 12 lashes with this cat across their bare back.

JESSICA: It'd probably be pretty annoying 'cause you'd have to follow everybody's rules, like the Captain's rules cause you don't want to get whipped.

Something else that would have been tough on the crew was the food.

REPORTER: So this is where the crew would've eaten all their meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Things like porridge, maybe a thin boiled soup with some meat in it and even this - a biscuit called hard tack. Hmm, maybe not.

The kitchen area doubled as another room too.

REPORTER: And this is where the crew would've slept. Pretty comfy really, not bad.

JAKE: I actually can't believe how many people could fit on this boat. And how humid it is and really hot it would've been.

But for some crew members things weren't so bad.

REPORTER: And this would've been a luxury cabin. Top class. It's a little small, but not bad!

It's the kind of room the gentlemen onboard like James Cook and botanist Joseph Banks would've had.

REPORTER: And this is where Captain Cook would've spent most of his time, sitting right here on the original Endeavour, most of the time charting his maps and eating his meals.

GIRL: I thought everything was really cool, but I really liked going into Captain Cook's like cabin, I thought that was really cool.

BOY: I think it was great, like how it shows, like what it was like, how many ropes there were, how much they had to do.

So it seems James Cook and the Endeavour have inspired some of us to take the helm and sail the high seas on a voyage of discovery! Well, maybe one day.

Before 1770 Video Transcript

In 1770, the British navigator Lieutenant James Cook arrived on this island continent. He was not the first visitor, stranger, to arrive, but the first to claim the entire east coast for the British crown.

Before 1770, this land had been owned and occupied by a population estimated at over 750,000. We are the oldest living culture on the planet, unbroken over thousands of generations.

Before 1770, this land is criss-crossed with some 800 nations and clan groups, all with intimate cultural and spiritual connections to country, to water, to living creatures, and to each other.

Before 1770, our nations are enshrined through our law and spiritual beliefs, enriched by kinship systems, sophisticated knowledge practices and ingenious land management systems.

Before 1770, our song lines, art and ceremonies mapped country and recorded our history, our existence and our Dreaming. They are the world’s first maps, the oldest rock art, and part of the largest gallery in the world.

Before 1770, there are as many as 250 languages, and up to 800 dialects spoken in every corner of this continent. Language that transmits culture, law and knowledge across generations. They are the world’s oldest oral stories.

Before 1770, we transformed the harshest habitable continent into a land of bounty, through innovation, adaption, and an intimate knowledge of the natural environment. Hundreds of nations each managed their land, but together, it was the biggest estate on Earth.

And before 1770, we were here.

East Coast Encounters Video Transcript

Man 1: When Lieutenant James Cook travelled the coastline, one thing he noted was all the fires. The old people were sending the messages ahead as he was travelling, they knew he was coming but they didn’t know what his business was. Even within that first couple of minutes of meeting, the misunderstandings happened.

Narrator: In 2010, a group of artists, songwriters, historians and film makers began to explore James Cook’s 1770 voyage in the Endeavour.

[Singing: Burning the candle late at night; To keep our little ship afloat …]

Man 2: You can erect a flag, say a few words, fire off a few rounds, and the Endeavour responds with a bit of cannon fire and that’s it, the country is yours.

Woman: It was that big land race time in history, conquering empire, you know, it’s just trying to spread their wings and gain my land.

Man 1: Don’t blame anyone for what’s happen but accept what’s happened. Recognise it, respect it, talk abut it and draw from that for our future.

[Singing: Standing on the shore one day; What are those white sails in the sun; Wasn’t long before you felt that sting; White man, white boat, white gun; Tell me it’s justified …;Captain Cook alive ...]

Narrator: Over four years we explored Cook’s four-month journey along the eastern coastline.

Man 3: If people knew the longer timelines of our history, we could move on together because the beauty of this place most definitely, if we listen to what is singing here to us, you can hear it, tells us how to do this, that we are now all of this land.

5. Describe why the HMB Endeavour decided to stop at Kamay Botany Bay. (3 marks)

[‘Describe’ questions require students to provide characteristics and features.]

After a month at sea, after sailing from New Zealand, Kamay Botany Bay was the first safe place Cook found to anchor. The men on the Endeavour needed to:

• replenish their supplies of fresh water, timber for firewood, and grass for livestock

• carry out basic repairs and maintenance

• collect fresh food, including fish and green plants.

[Students may also bring in information about the opportunities to carry out scientific research and mapping, and the attempts made to make connections with the local people while the ship was anchored in the bay.]

6. Explain the first contact between the Aboriginal People and the crew of the HMB Endeavour. (5 marks)

[‘Explain’ questions require students to relate cause and effect.]

Responses might include:

• After anchoring the Endeavour, a landing party consisting of two or three boatloads of men, approached the shore, towards where people had been seen earlier. It was important to them to land because they needed to find water and collect wood and needed a good landing place to organise themselves to do that.

• Two men came down onto the rocks where the boats were headed—they appeared to be very angry. It’s likely that they were worried about the visitors’ intentions and were acting to protect their families—they might have been scared of what might happen—they had never seen people with white skin and colourful clothing before. Or they might have been worried that the visitors weren’t following the rules that their people had always followed when visitors moved into another people’s country. Note that the two men's reactions might be explained by any combination of these things.

• James Cook wanted to land, but the two men made it clear that they didn’t want the landing party to come ashore. The men continued their opposition, one of them threw a rock. Cook fired a musket near them, employing techniques used in New Zealand – shoot a musket firstly over the heads of the inhabitants, then (if required) directly at them – as he had found the method to be successful in subduing resistance from some groups of Maori men. The two Gweagal still opposed the landing. Cook fired a musket loaded with small pellets at one of the men, the men then threw spears, then one of the men left to get a shield, and then the visitors landed.

• After the landing party came ashore, the two men stopped trying to fend off the visitors and they disappeared into the bush.

• In the eight days that the Endeavour was in Kamay Botany Bay, no effective relationship was formed - they did not have a way to communicate and culturally the two groups were very different. In particular, the visitors had no knowledge of the cultural protocols that were part of the lives of Australian Aboriginal people.

7. Write two short accounts of the first contact of these two cultures, one by a Gweagal, the other by someone on the Endeavour. Include the landing itself, and then the activities carried out by the crew of the Endeavour over the eight days, then compare these two perspectives of the eight days in Kamay. (6 marks)

['Compare' questions require students to show how things are similar or different.]

Here are the basic points that would need to be included and compared:

• A Gweagal perspective – the men of the Endeavour landed without permission, they forced their way onshore injuring one of our leaders with a strange weapon, then they took our food, water and other supplies, again without permission. They didn’t listen when we later tried to tell them to leave us.

• A perspective of James Cook and all of those aboard the Endeavour – it was good to get back on dry land again. We desperately needed fresh water and firewood if we were to be able to continue on our way back home. We tried to land but two of the men didn’t seem to want us to—we had to use the ‘small shot’ to enable us to come ashore. Having fresh fish almost every day, and plenty of it, was a change from what we had been eating. The crewmen worked hard to make sure we’d be ‘shipshape’ when it was time to leave—all the repairs done, and the ship scrubbed clean. Banks and Solander collected plants almost non-stop and the lieutenants and Mr Green and some of the others were very helpful when we got the chance to explore the place. But we had no luck trying to strike up any kind of friendship with the local people.

8. Compare the different ways that James Cook, and the arrival of the Endeavour, is viewed in today’s Australia. (6 marks)

• Many see the shots that James Cook fired as symbolic of the guns that would later be fired against Aboriginal people all across Australia in the years that followed after the British ships returned in 1788.

• Many see the way the Endeavour crew made themselves at home as a symbol of what would happen in 1788 and soon afterwards when people just moved in on Aboriginal land and expected the Aboriginal people to move aside.

• Many believe that when the Endeavour arrived it was the beginning of British settlement of Australia. In fact many people now use the word ‘invasion’ when they talk about the arrival of James Cook. Because of that, many people blame James Cook for all the terrible things that happened after 1788 as the colony spread out.

• Others have a different perspective – Cook and the rest of the crew were on their way home having completed a very long mission. They were men of their time, they were subjects of a powerful nation, they were duty bound to honour their king and to follow the orders of the British Admiralty. When they arrived in Kamay Botany Bay they quickly learned that they couldn’t communicate with the local people, and although they kept trying nothing helped. James Cook wanted to avoid anyone being killed after the disastrous time he had in New Zealand. He proved himself a good leader of men, a great explorer, navigator and cartographer. In the past some people have revered him as a hero.

9. Assess the long-term impact of the HMB Endeavour visiting Kamay Botany Bay in 1770. (8 marks)

['Assess' questions require students to make a judgement about the results.]

Responses might include:

• For 18 years, little changed for the Aboriginal people of Kamay

• The information recorded by James Cook, Joseph Banks and others, plus Cook’s charts of the east coast, eventually influenced the selection of ‘Botany Bay’ as a place to return in order to set up a penal colony.

• This colonisation eventually led to profound changes to the lives of Aboriginal people across the continent.