The Lost White Tribes of Australia Part 3: 1766 Australia's First Pandemic

In 1766 two Dutch ships entered Port Fairy Bay carrying a deadly cargo: smallpox. The disease spread rapidly from Victoria to SA and NSW killing up to 40% of the indigenous population.

While departing Port Fairy in a storm, one ship ran aground marooning its Dutch crew. Tragically, messengers sent to warn other tribes, brought the disease with them. Four years before the arrival of Cook, the second Dutch ship visited NSW. Captain Hunter described some  Aboriginals in 1790 as “light as a mulatto” (half-caste). Lieutenant Tench asked, “Whence came these copper coloured natives? They represent a mixture of white blood with the Aboriginals.”

The visit of the second Dutch ship was devastating. “Repeated accounts brought by our boats of finding bodies of the Indians in all coves and inlets of the harbour… On inspection, it appeared that all the parties had died a natural death: pustules, similar to those occasioned by the smallpox, were thickly spread on the bodies; but how a disease, to which our former observations had led us to suppose them strangers. could at once have introduced itself, and have spread so widely, seemed inexplicable.”

Watkins Tench 1789.