Editing First Fleet (section)

===Smallpox===
{{main|Australian history wars#Controversy over smallpox in Australia| l1 = Controversy over smallpox in Australia|History_of_smallpox#Australia| l2 = History of smallpox in Australia}}

Historians have disagreed over whether those aboard the First Fleet were responsible for introducing smallpox to Australia's indigenous population, and if so, whether this was the consequence of deliberate action.

In 1914, [[John Cumpston|J.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;L. Cumpston]], director of the [[Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service|Australian Quarantine Service]], put forward the hypothesis that smallpox arrived in Australia with First Fleet.<ref name="autogenerated1908">Cumpston, JHL "The History of Small-Pox in Australia 1788–1908", Government Printer (1914) Melb.</ref> Some researchers have argued that any such release may have been a deliberate attempt to decimate the indigenous population.<ref>{{cite book|last=Day|first=David|title=Claiming a Continent|page=42|publisher=Harper Collins|year=2001|isbn=9780732269760}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Davis|first=Jack|editor1-last=Berndt|editor1-first=Ronald M.|editor2-last=Berndt|editor2-first=Catherine H.|title=Aborigines of the West: their Past and Their Present|publisher=University of Western Australia Press|page=58|year=1980}}</ref> Hypothetical scenarios for such an action might have included: an act of revenge by an aggrieved individual, a response to attacks by indigenous people,<ref name="Bennett, MJ 2009, pg 48">Bennett, MJ, "Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 ...", ''Bulletin of the History of Medicine'', 83(1), Spring 2009, pg 48.</ref> or part of an orchestrated assault by the [[New South Wales Marine Corps]], intended to clear the path for colonial expansion.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Smallpox at Sydney Cove – who, when, why?|journal=Journal of Australian Studies|first=Christopher|last=Warren|date=2 January 2014|volume=38|issue=1|pages=68–86|doi=10.1080/14443058.2013.849750|s2cid=143644513}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/smallpox-outbreak-of-sydney27s-past/5375394#transcript |title= Smallpox outbreak of Sydney's past|author= Chris Warren (radio transcript) ''Ockham's Razor'' (presenter: Robin Williams) |publisher=Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) |date= 13 April 2014 |access-date= 28 October 2015}}</ref> Seth Carus, a former Deputy Director of the [[National Defense University (Washington, D.C.)|National Defense University]] in the United States wrote in 2015 that there was a "strong circumstantial case supporting the theory that someone deliberately introduced smallpox in the Aboriginal population."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Carus|first=W. Seth|title=The History of Biological Weapons Use: What We Know and What We Don't|journal =Health Security|volume=13|issue=4|pages=219–255|date=August 2015|doi=10.1089/hs.2014.0092|pmid=26221997}}</ref>
[[File:First Fleet Smallpox.ogg|thumb|Chris Warren, "Was Sydney's smallpox outbreak of 1789 an act of biological warfare against Aboriginal tribes?", ABC Radio National – ''Ockhams Razor'' (podcast) (2014); 13 minutes.]]

Other historians have disputed the idea that there was a deliberate release of smallpox virus and/or suggest that it arrived with visitors to Australia other than the First Fleet.<ref>{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Biskup|chapter=Aboriginal History|title=New History: Studying Australia Today|editor1-last=Osborne|editor1-first=G.|editor2-last=Mandle|editor2-first=W.F.|publisher=Allen & Unwin|year=1982|page=30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Macknight, C. C. |title=Macassans and the Aboriginal past in ''Archaeologia Oceania'' | date=1986 | volume=21 | pages=69–75}}</ref><ref name="campbell"/><ref name="willis 2010">{{Cite journal| author1=Willis, H. A | title=Poxy history [Smallpox and Aboriginal history.] | journal=Quadrant | date=September 2010 | volume=54 | issue=9 | pages=70–73 | issn=0033-5002 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| author1=Willis, H.A. | title=Bringing Smallpox with the First Fleet | journal=Quadrant |year=2011 | volume=55 | issue=7–8 | page=2 | issn=0033-5002}}</ref> It has been suggested that live smallpox virus may have been introduced accidentally when Aboriginal people came into contact with [[variolation|variolous matter]] brought by the First Fleet for use in anti-smallpox inoculations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/smallpox-in-sydney-1789/3145560|title=Smallpox in Sydney: 1789|publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]]|date=30 April 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Warren|first=C.|title=Could First Fleet smallpox infect Aborigines? – A note|journal=Aboriginal History|date=January 2007 |volume=31 |issue=31|pages=152–164|url=https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=382267759356262;res=IELAPA}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Mear|first=C.| title   = The origin of the smallpox in Sydney in 1789
  | journal = Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
  | volume  = 94
  | issue   = 1
  | pages   = 1–22
  }}</ref>

In 2002, historian Judy Campbell offered a further theory, that smallpox had arrived in Australia through contact with fishermen from [[Makassar]] in Indonesia, where smallpox was endemic.<ref name="campbell">Judy Campbell, '' Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780–1880'', Melbourne University Press, 2002, Foreword & pp 55, 61, 73–74, 181</ref><ref>During the writing of her book, Campbell consulted [[Frank Fenner]], the head in 1977–1980 of a successful campaign by the [[World Health Organization]] to eradicate smallpox internationally.</ref> In 2011, Macknight stated: "The overwhelming probability must be that it [smallpox] was introduced, like the later epidemics, by [Indonesian] [[Trepanging|trepang]]ers ... and spread across the continent to arrive in Sydney quite independently of the new settlement there."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Macknight|first=Campbell|title=The view from Marege': Australian knowledge of Makassar and the impact of the trepang industry across two centuries|journal=Aboriginal History|year=2011|volume=3|pages=121–143}}</ref>

There is a fourth theory, that the 1789 epidemic was not smallpox but [[chickenpox]] – to which indigenous Australians also had no inherited resistance – that happened to be affecting, or was carried by, members of the First Fleet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/chickenpox-blamed-for-aboriginal-deaths-20130807-2rh3m.html|title=Chickenpox blamed for Aboriginal deaths|work=The Canberra Times|date=7 August 2013 |access-date=17 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Seminars/13/Seminar-Topics%E2%80%94Series-2/07_8_Seminar.php |title=The 'myth' of smallpox at Sydney Cove in April 1789 - CAEPR - ANU |access-date=27 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202101013/http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Seminars/13/Seminar-Topics%E2%80%94Series-2/07_8_Seminar.php |archive-date=2 February 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> This theory has also been disputed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kociumbas |first=Jan |title=Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History |date=2012 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78238-169-3 |pages=79 |chapter=Chapter 3 Genocide and Modernity in Colonial Australia, 1788-1850 |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qdg7m.8}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Letters page |journal=United Service|volume=65|issue=1|date=March 2014|page=7|url=http://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/2014AU05.pdf}}</ref>