SLNSW 826105 Botany Bay New South Wales ca 1789 watercolour by Charles Gore

In April 1789,

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, experienced one of its most violent outbreaks of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

when the disease swept through

aboriginal Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

and colonial Australians on the coast. The outbreak began in early March with the first cases appearing in a tribes living near

Port Jackson Port Jackson, consisting of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, is the ria or natural harbour of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The harbour is an inlet of the Tasman Sea (p ...

. Aboriginal communities had no preexisting immunity to smallpox, and suffered mortality rates of around 70%.

Smallpox in Sydney

Aboriginal tribes on

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compan ...

first contracted smallpox when they made infectious contact with fishermen from southeast Asia. Governor Arthur Philip estimated that around half of the aboriginal population around Sydney harbor died in the outbreak.

References

Smallpox epidemics 1789 in Australia 18th-century disasters in Oceania {{epidemic-stub