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The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the
First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
of British ships at
Port Jackson Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta ...
on the lands of the Eora, and the establishment of the penal colony of
New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
as part of the
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
. It further covers the European scientific exploration of the continent and the establishment of the other
Australian colonies The states and territories are the national subdivisions and second level of government of Australia. The states are partially sovereignty, sovereign, administrative divisions that are autonomous administrative division, self-governing polity, ...
that make up the modern
states State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...
of Australia. After several years of privation, the penal colony gradually expanded and developed an economy based on farming, fishing, whaling, trade with incoming ships, and construction using convict labour. By 1820, however, British settlement was largely confined to a radius around
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
and to the central plain of
Van Diemen's land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...
. From 1816,
penal transportation Penal transportation (or simply transportation) was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies bec ...
to Australia increased rapidly and the number of free settlers grew steadily. Van Diemen's Land became a separate colony in 1825, and free settlements were established at the
Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just ''Swan River'', was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, an ...
in Western Australia (1829), the Province of South Australia (1836), and in the Port Philip District (1836). The grazing of cattle and sheep expanded inland, leading to increasing conflict with Aboriginal people on their traditional lands. The growing population of free settlers, former convicts and Australian-born currency lads and lasses led to public demands for
representative government Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies funct ...
. Penal transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840 and a semi-elected Legislative Council was established in 1842. In 1850, Britain granted Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and the newly created colony of Victoria semi-representative Legislative Councils. British settlement led to a decline in the Aboriginal population and the disruption of their cultures due to introduced diseases, violent conflict and dispossession of their traditional lands. Aboriginal resistance to British encroachment on their land often led to reprisals from settlers including massacres of Aboriginal people. Many Aboriginal people, however, sought an accommodation with the settlers and established viable communities, often on small areas of their traditional lands, where many aspects of their cultures were maintained.


Colonisation


Decision to colonise New South Wales

The decision to establish a colony in Australia was made by
Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (24 February 1733 – 30 June 1800) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1754 to 1783 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Sydney. He held several important Cabinet posts in ...
. This was taken for two reasons: the ending of transportation of criminals to North America following the
American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
, as well as the need for a base in the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
to counter French expansion. Approximately 50,000 convicts are estimated to have been transported to the colonies over 150 years. The
First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
, which established the first colony, was an unprecedented project for the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
, as well as the first forced migration of settlers to a newly established colony. The
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
(1775–1783) saw Britain lose most of its North American colonies and consider establishing replacement territories. Britain had transported about 50,000 convicts to the New World from 1718 to 1775 and was now searching for an alternative. The temporary solution of floating prison hulks had reached capacity and was a public health hazard, while the option of building more jails and workhouses was deemed too expensive. Sir
Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English Natural history, naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the European and American voyages of scientific exploration, 1766 natural-history ...
, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Lieutenant
James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...
on his 1770 voyage, recommended
Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point a ...
, then known to the local
Gweagal The Gweagal (also spelt Gwiyagal) are a clan of the Tharawal, Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are Traditional owners, traditional custodians of the southern areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Country The ...
people as Kamay, as a suitable site. Banks accepted an offer of assistance from the American
Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
James Matra James Mario Matra (c. 174629 March 1806), sailor and diplomat, was a Province of New York-born midshipman on the voyage by James Cook to Botany Bay in 1770. He was the first person of Corsican heritage to visit the future nation of Australia. The ...
in July 1783. Matra had visited Botany Bay with Banks in 1770 as a junior officer on the ''Endeavour'' commanded by James Cook. Under Banks's guidance, he rapidly produced "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" (24 August 1783), with a fully developed set of reasons for a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts). Following an interview with Secretary of State Lord Sydney in March 1784, Matra amended his proposal to include convicts as settlers. Matra's plan can be seen to have “provided the original blueprint for settlement in New South Wales”. A cabinet memorandum December 1784 shows the Government had Matra's plan in mind when considering the creation of a settlement in New South Wales. The major alternative to Botany Bay was sending convicts to Africa. From 1775 convicts had been sent to garrison British forts in west Africa, but the experiment had proved unsuccessful. In 1783, the Pitt government considered exiling convicts to a small river island in Gambia where they could form a self-governing community, a "colony of thieves", at no expense to the government. In 1785, a parliamentary select committee chaired by Lord Beauchamp recommended against the Gambia plan, but failed to endorse the alternative of Botany Bay. In a second report, Beauchamp recommended a penal settlement at Das Voltas Bay in modern Namibia. The plan was dropped, however, when an investigation of the site in 1786 found it to be unsuitable. Two weeks later, in August 1786, the Pitt government announced its intention to send convicts to Botany Bay. The Government incorporated the settlement of
Norfolk Island Norfolk Island ( , ; ) is an States and territories of Australia, external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, directly east of Australia's Evans Head, New South Wales, Evans Head and a ...
into their plan, with its attractions of timber and flax, proposed by Banks's Royal Society colleagues, Sir John Call and Sir George Young. There has been a longstanding debate over whether the key consideration in the decision to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay was the pressing need to find a solution to the penal management problem, or whether broader imperial goals — such as trade, securing new supplies of timber and flax for the navy, and the desirability of strategic ports in the region — were paramount. Leading historians in the debate have included Sir Ernest Scott,
Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...
, and
Alan Frost Alan J. Frost , (29 March 1943 – 12 April 2023) was an Australian historian and professor emeritus at La Trobe University. A major theme of his research involved the European exploration of the Pacific Ocean over the second half of the eighte ...
. The decision to settle was taken when it seemed the outbreak of civil war in the Netherlands might precipitate a war in which Britain would be again confronted with the alliance of the three naval Powers, France, Holland and Spain, which had brought her to defeat in 1783. Under these circumstances a naval base in New South Wales which could facilitate attacks on Dutch and Spanish interests in the region would be attractive. Specific plans for using the colony as a strategic base against Spanish interests were occasionally made after 1788, but never implemented. Macintyre argues that the evidence for a military-strategic motive in establishing the colony is largely circumstantial and hard to reconcile with the strict ban on establishing a shipyard in the colony. Karskens points out that the instructions provided to the first five governors of New South Wales show that the initial plans for the colony were limited. The settlement was to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade, shipping and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated and so as not to interfere with the trade monopoly of the
British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
. There was no plan for economic development apart from investigating the possibility of producing raw materials for Britain. Christopher and Maxwell-Stewart argue that whatever the government's original motives were in establishing the colony, by the 1790s it had at least achieved the imperial objective of providing a harbour where vessels could be careened and resupplied.


Establishment of colony

On 13 May 1787, the
First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
of 11 ships and about 1,530 people (736 convicts, 17 convicts' children, 211 marines, 27 marines' wives, 14 marines' children and about 300 officers and others) under the command of Captain
Arthur Phillip Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...
set sail for Botany Bay. A few days after arrival at
Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal language, Dharawal: ''Kamay'') is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point a ...
the fleet moved to the more suitable
Port Jackson Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta ...
where a settlement was established at
Sydney Cove Sydney Cove (Eora language, Eora: ) is a bay on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, one of several harbours in Port Jackson, on the coast of Sydney, New South Wales. Sydney Cove is a focal point for community celebrations, due to its central ...
, known by the Indigenous name Warrane, on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day,
Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet and raising of the Flag of Great Britain, Union Flag of Great Britain by Arthur Phillip at Sydney Cove, a ...
. The colony was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney. Sydney Cove offered a fresh water supply and a safe harbour, which Philip famously described as:
Phillip named the settlement after the
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
, Lord Sydney. The only people at the flag raising ceremony and the formal taking of possession of the land in the name of King George III were Phillip and a few dozen marines and officers from the ''Supply'', the rest of the ship's company and the convicts witnessing it from on board ship. The remaining ships of the Fleet were unable to leave Botany Bay until later on 26 January because of a tremendous gale. The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on 7 February. The colony included all of Australia eastward of the meridian of 135° East. This included more than half of mainland Australia and reflected the line of division between the claims of Spain and Portugal established in the
Treaty of Tordesillas The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian (geography) ...
in 1494.Robert J. King, "Terra Australis, New Holland and New South Wales: the Treaty of Tordesillas and Australia", ''The Globe'', No. 47, 1998, pp. 35–55. Watkin Tench subsequently commented in ''A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay'', "By this partition, it may be fairly presumed, that every source of future litigation between the Dutch and us, will be for ever cut off, as the discoveries of English navigators only are comprized in this territory". The claim also included "all the Islands adjacent in the Pacific" between the latitudes of Cape York and the southern tip of
Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...
(Tasmania). King argues that an unofficial British map published in 1786 (''A General Chart of New Holland'') showed the possible extent of this claim. In 1817, the
British government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
withdrew the extensive territorial claim over the South Pacific, passing an act specifying that Tahiti, New Zealand and other islands of the South Pacific were not within His Majesty's dominions. However, it is unclear whether the claim ever extended to the current islands of New Zealand. On 24 January 1788 a French expedition of two ships led by Admiral Jean-François de La Pérouse had arrived off Botany Bay, on the latest leg of a three-year voyage. Though amicably received, the French expedition was a troublesome matter for the British, as it showed the interest of France in the new land. Nevertheless, on 2 February Lieutenant King, at Phillip's request, paid a courtesy call on the French and offered them any assistance they may need. The French made the same offer to the British, as they were much better provisioned than the British and had enough supplies to last three years. Neither of these offers was accepted. On 10 March the French expedition, having taken on water and wood, left Botany Bay, never to be seen again. Governor Phillip was vested with complete authority over the inhabitants of the colony. His intention was to establish harmonious relations with local Aboriginal people and try to reform as well as discipline the convicts of the colony. Early efforts at agriculture were fraught and supplies from overseas were scarce. Between 1788 and 1792 about 3546 male and 766 female convicts were landed at Sydney. Many new arrivals were sick or unfit for work and the condition of healthy convicts also deteriorated due to the hard labour and poor food. The food situation reached crisis point in 1790 and the Second Fleet which finally arrived in June 1790 had lost a quarter of its passengers through sickness, while the condition of the convicts of the Third Fleet appalled Phillip. From 1791, however, the more regular arrival of ships and the beginnings of trade lessened the feeling of isolation and improved supplies. In 1788, Phillip established a subsidiary settlement on
Norfolk Island Norfolk Island ( , ; ) is an States and territories of Australia, external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, directly east of Australia's Evans Head, New South Wales, Evans Head and a ...
in the South Pacific where he hoped to obtain timber and flax for the navy. The island, however, had no safe harbour, which led the settlement to be abandoned and the settlers evacuated to Tasmania in 1807. The island was subsequently re-established as a site for secondary transportation in 1825. Phillip sent exploratory missions in search of better soils, fixed on the
Parramatta Parramatta (; ) is a suburb (Australia), suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River. It is co ...
region as a promising area for expansion, and moved many of the convicts from late 1788 to establish a small township, which became the main centre of the colony's economic life. This left Sydney Cove only as an important port and focus of social life. Poor equipment and unfamiliar soils and climate continued to hamper the expansion of farming from Farm Cove to Parramatta and Toongabbie, but a building program, assisted by convict labour, advanced steadily. Between 1788 and 1792, convicts and their gaolers made up the majority of the population; however, a free population soon began to grow, consisting of emancipated convicts, locally born children, soldiers whose military service had expired and, finally, free settlers from Britain. Governor Phillip departed the colony for England on 11 December 1792, with the new settlement having survived near starvation and immense isolation for four years. A number of foreign commentators pointed to the strategic importance of the new colony. Spanish naval commander Alessandro Malaspina, who visited Sydney in March–April 1793 reported to his government that imperialism and trade were the real objects of the colony. Frenchman François Péron, of the Baudin expedition visited Sydney in 1802 and reported to the French Government his surprise that the Spanish had not protested at a colony strategically place to challenge Spanish interests in the region. King points out that supporters of the penal colony frequently compared the venture to the foundation of Rome, and that the first Great Seal of New South Wales alluded to this. Phillip, however, wrote, "I would not wish Convicts to lay the foundations of an Empire...


Consolidation of colony

After the departure of Phillip, trade developed with visiting ships and farming spread to more fertile lands on the fringes of Sydney.The
New South Wales Corps The New South Wales Corps, later known as the 102d Regiment of Foot, and lastly as the 100th Regiment of Foot, was a formation of the British Army organised in 1789 in England to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied ...
was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment of the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
to relieve the marines who had accompanied the First Fleet. Officers of the Corps soon became involved in the corrupt and lucrative rum trade in the colony. Governor
William Bligh William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a Vice-admiral (Royal Navy), Royal Navy vice-admiral and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New South Wales from 1806 to 1808. He is best known for his role in the Muti ...
(1806 1808) tried to suppress the rum trade and the illegal use of Crown Land, resulting in the
Rum Rebellion The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a ''coup d'état'' in the British penal colony of New South Wales, staged by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. Australia's first and only military coup, its name derives from the ...
of 1808. The Corps, working closely with the newly established wool trader John Macarthur, staged the only successful armed takeover of government in Australian history, deposing Bligh and instigating a brief period of military rule prior to the arrival from Britain of Governor
Lachlan Macquarie Major-general (United Kingdom), Major General Lachlan Macquarie, Companion of the Order of the Bath, CB (; ; 31 January 1762 – 1 July 1824) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Scotland. Macquarie served as the fifth Gove ...
in 1810. Macquarie served as the last autocratic
Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the representative of the monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia, Governor-General of Australia at the national level, the governor ...
, from 1810 to 1821, and had a leading role in the social and economic development of New South Wales, which saw it transition from a penal colony to a budding civil society. He established a bank, a currency and a hospital, and commissioned extensive public works. Central to Macquarie's policy was his treatment of the
emancipist An emancipist was a convict sentenced and transported under the convict system to Australia, who had been given a conditional or absolute pardon. The term was also used to refer to those convicts whose sentences had expired, and might sometimes ...
s, whom he considered should be treated as social equals to free-settlers in the colony. He appointed emancipists to key government positions including
Francis Greenway Francis Greenway (20 November 1777 - September 1837) was an English-Australian convict and colonial architect. After being convicted of forgery in England and subsequently transported to New South Wales, Australia (known then as New Holland) ...
as colonial architect and
William Redfern William Redfern (1775 – 17 July 1833) was the Surgeon’s First Mate aboard HMS ''Standard'' during the May 1797 Nore mutiny, and at a court martial in August 1797 he was sentenced to death for his involvement. His sentence was later commuted ...
as a magistrate. His policy on emancipists was opposed by many influential free settlers, officers and officials, and London became concerned at the cost of his public works. In 1819, London appointed J. T. Bigge to conduct an inquiry into the colony, and Macquarie resigned shortly before the report of the inquiry was published.


Expansion (18211850)

In 1820, British settlement was largely confined to a 100 kilometre radius around Sydney and to the central plain of Van Diemen's Land. The settler population was 26,000 on the mainland and 6,000 in Van Diemen's Land. Following the end of the
Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
in 1815 the transportation of convicts increased rapidly and the number of free settlers grew steadily. From 1821 to 1840, 55,000 convicts arrived in New South Wales and 60,000 in Van Diemen's Land. However, by 1830, free settlers and the locally born exceeded the convict population of New South Wales. From the 1820s, grazing of sheep and cattle expanded rapidly, and the colony spread beyond the official bounds of settlement. In 1825, the western boundary of New South Wales was extended to longitude 129° East, which is the current boundary of Western Australia. As a result, the territory of New South Wales reached its greatest extent, covering the area of the modern state as well as modern Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory. The ''Proclamation of Governor Bourke'', (10 October 1835) reinforced the doctrine that Australia had been ''
terra nullius ''Terra nullius'' (, plural ''terrae nullius'') is a Latin expression meaning " nobody's land". Since the nineteenth century it has occasionally been used in international law as a principle to justify claims that territory may be acquired ...
'' when settled by the British in 1788, and that the Crown had obtained beneficial ownership of all the land of New South Wales from that date. The proclamation stated that British subjects could not obtain title over vacant Crown land directly from Aboriginal Australians, effectively quashing the treaty between
John Batman John Batman (21 January 18016 May 1839) was an Australian Pastoral farming, grazier, entrepreneur and explorer, who had a prominent role in the foundation of Melbourne, founding of Melbourne. He also was involved in many attacks against Indigen ...
and the Aboriginal people of the Port Phillip area. By 1850 the settler population of New South Wales had grown to 180,000, not including the 70–75 thousand living in the area which became the separate colony of Victoria in 1851.


Establishment of further colonies


Van Diemen's Land

After hosting Nicholas Baudin's French naval expedition in Sydney in 1802, Governor Phillip Gidley King decided to establish a settlement in
Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...
(modern
Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
) in 1803, partly to forestall a possible French settlement. The British settlement of the island soon centred on Launceston in the north and Hobart in the south. For the first two decades the settlement relied heavily on convict labour, small-scale farming and sheep grazing, sealing, whaling and the "dog and kangaroo" economy where emancipists and escaped convicts hunted native game with guns and dogs. From the 1820s free settlers were encouraged by the offer of land grants in proportion to the capital the settlers would bring. Almost 2 million acres of land was granted to free settlers in the decade, and the number of sheep in the island increased from 170,000 to a million. The land grants created a social division between large landowners and a majority of landless convicts and emancipists. Van Diemen's Land became a separate colony from New South Wales in December 1825 and continued to expand through the 1830s, supported by farming, sheep grazing and whaling. Following the suspension of convict transportation to New South Wales in 1840, Van Diemen's land became the main destination for convicts. Transportation to Van Diemen's Land ended in 1853 and in 1856 the colony officially changed its name to Tasmania.


Victoria

Pastoralists from Van Diemen's land began squatting in the
Port Phillip Port Phillip (Kulin languages, Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped bay#Types, enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, ...
hinterland on the mainland in 1834, attracted by its rich grasslands. In 1835,
John Batman John Batman (21 January 18016 May 1839) was an Australian Pastoral farming, grazier, entrepreneur and explorer, who had a prominent role in the foundation of Melbourne, founding of Melbourne. He also was involved in many attacks against Indigen ...
and others negotiated the transfer of 100,000 acres of land from the Kulin people. However, the treaty was annulled the same year when the British
Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...
issued the ''Proclamation of Governor Bourke'' stating that all unalienated land in the colony was vacant Crown Land, irrespective of whether it was occupied by traditional landowners. Its publication meant that from then, all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers. In 1836, Port Phillip was officially recognised as a district of New South Wales and opened for settlement. The main settlement of Melbourne was established in 1837 as a planned town on the instructions of Governor Bourke. Squatters and settlers from Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales soon arrived in large numbers, and by 1850 the district had a population of 75,000 Europeans, 2,000 Indigenous inhabitants and 5 million sheep. In 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales as the colony of Victoria.


Western Australia

In 1826, the governor of New South Wales,
Ralph Darling General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. His period of governorship was unpopular, with Darling being broadly regarded as a tyrant. He introd ...
, sent a military garrison to
King George Sound King George Sound (Mineng ) is a sound (geography), sound on the south coast of Western Australia. Named King George the Third's Sound in 1791, it was referred to as King George's Sound from 1805. The name "King George Sound" gradually came in ...
(the basis of the later town of Albany), to deter the French from establishing a settlement in Western Australia. In 1827, the head of the expedition, Major Edmund Lockyer, formally annexed the western third of the continent as a British colony. In 1829, the Swan River colony was established at the sites of modern
Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...
and
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
, becoming the first convict-free and privatised colony in Australia. However, much of the arable land was allocated to absentee owners and the development of the colony was hampered by poor soil, the dry climate, and a lack of capital and labour. By 1850 there were a little more than 5,000 settlers, half of them children. The colony accepted convicts from that year because of the acute shortage of labour.


South Australia

The Province of South Australia was established in 1836 as a privately financed settlement based on the theory of "systematic colonisation" developed by
Edward Gibbon Wakefield Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 179616 May 1862) was an English politician in colonial Canada and New Zealand. He is considered a key figure in the establishment of the colonies of South Australia and New Zealand (where he later served as a ...
. The intention was to found a free colony based on private investment at little cost to the British government. Power was divided between the Crown and a Board of Commissioners of Colonisation, responsible to about 300 shareholders. Settlement was to be controlled to promote a balance between land, capital and labour. Convict labour was banned in the hope of making the colony more attractive to "respectable" families and promote an even balance between male and female settlers. The city of
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
was to be planned with a generous provision of churches, parks and schools. Land was to be sold at a uniform price and the proceeds used to secure an adequate supply of labour through selective assisted migration.Ford, Lisa; Roberts, David Andrew (2013). pp. 139–40 Various religious, personal and commercial freedoms were guaranteed, and the
Letters Patent Letters patent (plurale tantum, plural form for singular and plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, President (government title), president or other head of state, generally granti ...
enabling the
South Australia Act 1834 The South Australia Act 1834 ( 4 & 5 Will. 4. c. 95), or Foundation Act 1834 and also known as the South Australian Colonization Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the settlement of a province or multipl ...
included a guarantee of the rights of "any Aboriginal Natives" and their descendants to lands they "now actually occupied or enjoyed". The colony was badly hit by the depression of 1841–44, and overproduction of wheat and overinvestment in infrastructure almost bankrupted it. Conflict with Indigenous traditional landowners also reduced the protections they had been promised. In 1842, the settlement became a Crown colony administered by the governor and an appointed Legislative Council. The economy recovered from 1845, supported by wheat farming, sheep grazing and a boom in copper mining. By 1850 the settler population had grown to 60,000 and the following year the colony achieved limited self-government with a partially elected Legislative Council.


Queensland

In 1824, the
Moreton Bay penal settlement The Moreton Bay Penal Settlement operated from 1825 to 1842. It became the city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. History The Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established on the Redcliffe Peninsula on Moreton Bay in September 1824, under t ...
was established on the site of present-day
Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
as a place of secondary punishment. In 1842, the penal colony was closed and the area was opened for free settlement. By 1850 the population of Brisbane had reached 8,000 and increasing numbers of pastoralists were grazing cattle and sheep in the Darling Downs west of the town. However, several attempts to establish settlements north of the Tropic of Capricorn had failed, and the settler population in the north remained small. Frontier violence between settlers and the Indigenous population became severe as pastoralism expanded north of the Tweed River. A series of disputes between northern pastoralists and the government in Sydney led to increasing demands from the northern settlers for separation from New South Wales. In 1857, the British government agreed to the separation and in 1859 the colony of Queensland was proclaimed. The settler population of the new colony was 25,000 and the vast majority of its territory was still occupied by its
traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...
.


Convict society

Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 161,700 convicts (of whom 25,000 were women) were transported to the Australian colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and Western Australia. Historian Lloyd Robson has estimated that perhaps two-thirds were thieves from working class towns, particularly from
the Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefords ...
and north of England. The majority were repeat offenders. The literacy rate of convicts was above average and they brought a range of useful skills to the new colony including building, farming, sailing, fishing and hunting. The small number of free settlers meant that early governors also had to rely on convicts and emancipists for professions such as lawyers, architects, surveyors and teachers. The first governors saw New South Wales as a place of punishment and reform of convicts. Convicts worked on government farms and public works such as land clearing and building. After 1792 the majority were assigned to work for private employers including emancipists (as transported convicts who had completed their sentence or had been pardoned called themselves). Emancipists were granted small plots of land for farming and a year of government rations. Later they were assigned convict labour to help them work their farms. Some convicts were assigned to military officers to run their businesses because the officers did not want to be directly associated with trade. These convicts learnt commercial skills which could help them work for themselves when their sentence ended or they were granted a "ticket of leave" (a form of parole). Female convicts were usually assigned as domestic servants to the free settlers, many being forced into prostitution. Convicts soon established a system of piece work which allowed them to work for wages once their allocated tasks were completed. Due to the shortage of labour, wage rates before 1815 were high for male workers although much lower for females engaged in domestic work. In 1814, Governor Macquarie ordered that convicts had to work until 3pm, after which private employers had to pay them wages for any additional work. By 1821 convicts, emancipists and their children owned two-thirds of the land under cultivation, half the cattle and one-third of the sheep. They also worked in trades and small business. Emancipists employed about half of the convicts assigned to private masters. After 1815 wages and employment opportunities for convicts and emancipists deteriorated as a sharp increase in the number of convicts transported led to an oversupply of labour. A series of reforms recommended by J. T. Bigge in 1822 and 1823 also sought to change the nature of the colony and make transportation "an object of real terror". The food ration for convicts was cut and their opportunities to work for wages restricted. More convicts were assigned to rural work gangs, bureaucratic control and surveillance of convicts was made more systematic, isolated penal settlements were established as places of secondary punishment, the rules for tickets of leave were tightened, and land grants were skewed to favour free settlers with large capital. As a result, convicts who arrived after 1820 were far less likely to become property owners, to marry, and to establish families.


Growth of free settlement

The Bigge reforms also aimed to encourage affluent free settlers by offering them land grants for farming and grazing in proportion to their capital. From 1831 the colonies replaced land grants with land sales by auction at a fixed minimum price per acre, the proceeds being used to fund the assisted migration of workers. From 1821 to 1850 Australia attracted 200,000 immigrants from the United Kingdom. Although most immigrants settled in towns, many were attracted to the high wages and business opportunities available in rural areas. However, the system of land grants, and later land sales, led to the concentration of land in the hands of a small number of affluent settlers. Two-thirds of the migrants to Australia during this period received assistance from the British or colonial governments. Healthy young workers without dependants were favoured for assisted migration, especially those with experience as agricultural labourers or domestic workers. Families of convicts were also offered free passage and about 3,500 migrants were selected under the
English Poor Laws The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s. En ...
. Various special-purpose and charitable schemes, such as those of
Caroline Chisholm Caroline Chisholm ( ; born Caroline Jones; 30 May 1808 – 25 March 1877) was an English humanitarian known mostly for her support of immigrant female and family welfare in Australia. She is commemorated on 16 May in the Calendar of saints (Ch ...
and
John Dunmore Lang John Dunmore Lang (25 August 1799 – 8 August 1878) was a Scottish-born Australian Presbyterian minister, writer, historian, politician and activist. He was the first prominent advocate of an independent Australian nation and of Australian rep ...
, also provided migration assistance.


Women

Colonial Australia was characterised by an imbalance of the sexes as women comprised only about 15 per cent of convicts transported. The first female convicts brought a range of skills including experience as domestic workers, dairy women and farm workers. Due to the shortage of women in the colony they were more likely to marry than men and tended to choose older, skilled men with property as husbands. The early colonial courts enforced the property rights of women independently of their husbands, and the ration system also gave women and their children some protection from abandonment. Women were active in business and agriculture from the early years of the colony, among the most successful being the former convict turned entrepreneur Mary Reibey and the agriculturalist Elizabeth Macarthur. One-third of the shareholders of the first colonial bank (founded in 1817) were women. One of the goals of the assisted migration programs from the 1830s was to promote migration of women and families to provide a more even gender balance in the colonies. The philanthropist Caroline Chisholm established a shelter and labour exchange for migrant women in New South Wales in the 1840s and promoted the settlement of single and married women in rural areas where she hoped they would have a civilising influence on rough colonial manners and act as "God's police". Between 1830 and 1850 the female proportion of the Australian settler population increased from 24 per cent to 41 per cent.


European exploration

By the middle of the 17th century, the discoveries of Dutch explorers allowed the almost complete mapping of Australia's northern and western coasts and much of its southern and south-eastern Tasmanian coasts''.'' In 1770, James Cook had charted most of the east coast of the continent. In 1798–99
George Bass George Bass (; 30 January 1771 – after 5 February 1803) was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia. Early life Bass was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George B ...
and
Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...
set out from Sydney in a sloop and circumnavigated
Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
, thus proving it to be an island. In 1801–02 Flinders, in , led the first circumnavigation of Australia. Aboard ship was the Aboriginal explorer Bungaree, who became the first person born on the Australian continent to circumnavigate it. In 1798, the former convict John Wilson and two companions crossed the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in an expedition ordered by Governor Hunter. Hunter suppressed news of the feat for fear that it would encourage convicts to abscond from the settlement. In 1813,
Gregory Blaxland Gregory Blaxland (17 June 1778 – 1 January 1853) was an English pioneer farmer and explorer in Australia, noted especially for initiating and co-leading the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains by European settlers. Early life ...
, William Lawson and
William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He ...
crossed the mountains by a different route and a road was soon built to the
Central Tablelands The Central Tablelands in New South Wales is a geographic area that lies between the Sydney Metropolitan Area and the Central Western Slopes and Plains. The Great Dividing Range passes in a north–south direction through the Central Tablelands ...
. In 1824 the Governor Sir
Thomas Brisbane Major-general (United Kingdom), Major General Sir Thomas MacDougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet, (23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860), was a British Army officer, administrator, and astronomer. Upon the recommendation of the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke ...
, commissioned
Hamilton Hume Hamilton Hume (19 June 1797 – 19 April 1873) was an early explorer of the present-day Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria (Australia), Victoria. In 1824, along with William Hovell, Hume participated in an expedition that first t ...
and former Royal Navy Captain William Hovell to lead an expedition to find new grazing land in the south of the colony, and also to find an answer to the mystery of where New South Wales's western rivers flowed. Over 16 weeks in 1824–25, Hume and Hovell journeyed to the bay Naarm on the land of the
Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...
, later named Port Phillip, and back. They found many important sites including the
Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray; Ngarrindjeri language, Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta language, Yorta Yorta: ''Dhungala'' or ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is List of rivers of Australia, Aust ...
(which they named the Hume), many of its tributaries, and good agricultural and grazing lands between Gunning, New South Wales and Corio Bay, Victoria.
Charles Sturt Charles Napier Sturt (28 April 1795 – 16 June 1869) was a British officer and explorer of Australia, and part of the European land exploration of Australia, European exploration of Australia. He led several expeditions into the interior of the ...
led an expedition along the
Macquarie River The Macquarie River or Wambuul is part of the Macquarie–Barwon River (New South Wales), Barwon catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is one of the main inland rivers in New South Wales, Australia. The river rises in the central highl ...
in 1828 and found the
Darling River The Darling River (or River Darling; Paakantyi: ''Baaka'' or ''Barka''), is the third-longest river in Australia, measuring from its source in northern New South Wales to its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth. Including its long ...
. A theory had developed that the inland rivers of New South Wales were draining into an inland sea. Leading a second expedition in 1829, Sturt followed the
Murrumbidgee River The Murrumbidgee River () is a major tributary of the Murray River within the Murray–Darling basin and the second longest river in Australia. It flows through the Australian state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, desce ...
into a 'broad and noble river', the Murray River, which he named after Sir George Murray, secretary of state for the colonies. His party then followed this river to its junction with the
Darling River The Darling River (or River Darling; Paakantyi: ''Baaka'' or ''Barka''), is the third-longest river in Australia, measuring from its source in northern New South Wales to its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth. Including its long ...
, facing two threatening encounters with local Aboriginal people along the way. Sturt continued downriver on to Lake Alexandrina, where the Murray meets the sea in South Australia. Suffering greatly, the party had to then row back upstream hundreds of kilometres for the return journey. Surveyor General Sir Thomas Mitchell conducted a series of expeditions from the 1830s to "fill in the gaps" left by these previous expeditions. He was meticulous in seeking to record the original Aboriginal place names around the colony, for which reason the majority of place names to this day retain their Aboriginal titles. The Polish scientist and explorer Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki conducted surveying work in the
Australian Alps The Australian Alps are a mountain range in southeast Australia. The range comprises an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion,
in 1839 and became the first European to ascend Australia's highest peak which he named
Mount Kosciuszko Mount Kosciuszko ( ; ; Ngarigo: ) is the highest mountain of the mainland Australia, at above sea level. It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, a part of the Australian Alps National Parks and ...
in honour of the Polish patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko. European explorers penetrated deeper into the interior in the 1840s in a quest to discover new lands for agriculture or answer scientific enquiries. The German scientist
Ludwig Leichhardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (; 23 October 1813 – ), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.Ken Eastwood,'Cold case: Leichhardt's disappearanc ...
led three expeditions in northern Australia in this decade, sometimes with the help of Aboriginal guides, identifying the grazing potential of the region and making important discoveries in the fields of botany and geology. He and his party disappeared in 1848 while attempting to cross the continent from east to west. Edmund Kennedy led an expedition into what is now far-western Queensland in 1847 before being speared by Aborigines in the Cape York Peninsula in 1848.


Aboriginal resistance and accommodation


Impact of introduced diseases

The relative isolation of the Indigenous population for some 60,000 years meant that they had little resistance to many introduced diseases. An outbreak of smallpox in April 1789 killed about half the Aboriginal population of the Sydney region while only one death was recorded among the settlers. The source of the outbreak is controversial; some researchers contend that it originated from contact with Indonesian fisherman in the far north and spread along Aboriginal trade routes while others argue that it is more likely to have been inadvertently or deliberately spread by settlers. There were further smallpox outbreaks devastating Aboriginal populations from the late 1820s (affecting south-eastern Australia), in the early 1860s (travelling inland from the Coburg Peninsula in the north to the Great Australian Bight in the south), and in the late 1860s (from the Kimberley to Geraldton). According to Josphine Flood, the estimated Aboriginal mortality rate from smallpox was 60 per cent on first exposure, 50 per cent in the tropics, and 25 per cent in the arid interior. Other introduced diseases such as measles, influenza, typhoid and tuberculosis also resulted in high death rates in Aboriginal communities. Butlin estimates that the Aboriginal population in the area of modern Victoria was around 50,000 in 1788 before two smallpox outbreaks reduced it to about 12,500 in 1830. Between 1835 (the settlement of Port Phillip) and 1853, the Aboriginal population of Victoria fell from 10,000 to around 2,000. It is estimated that about 60 per cent of these deaths were from introduced diseases, 18 per cent from natural causes and 15 per cent from settler violence. Venereal diseases were also a factor in Indigenous depopulation, reducing Aboriginal fertility rates in south-eastern Australia by an estimated 40 per cent by 1855. By 1890 up to 50 per cent of the Aboriginal population in some regions of Queensland were affected.


Frontier violence

Aboriginal reactions to the arrival of British settlers were varied, but often hostile when the presence of the colonists led to competition over resources, and to the occupation of Aboriginal lands. By contrast with New Zealand, no valid treaty was signed with any of Aboriginal peoples in Australia. Flood, however, points out that unlike New Zealand, Australia's Indigenous population was divided into hundreds of tribes and language groups, which did not have "chiefs" with whom treaties could be negotiated. Moreover, Aboriginal Australians had no concept of alienating their traditional land in return for political or economic benefits. The British settlement was initially planned to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on agriculture. Karskens argues that conflict broke out between the settlers and the traditional owners of the land because of the settlers' assumptions about the superiority of British civilisation and their entitlement to land which they had "improved" through building and cultivation. Conflict also arose from cross-cultural misunderstandings and from reprisals for previous actions such as the kidnapping of Aboriginal men, women and children. Reprisal attacks and collective punishments were perpetrated by colonists and Aboriginal groups alike. Sustained Aboriginal attacks on settlers, the burning of crops and the mass killing of livestock were more obviously acts of resistance to the loss of traditional land and food resources.As the colony spread to the more fertile lands around the Hawkesbury river, north-west of Sydney, conflict between the settlers and the
Darug The Dharug or Darug people, are a nation of Aboriginal Australian clans, who share ties of kinship, country and culture. In pre-colonial times, they lived as hunters in the region of current day Sydney. The Darug speak one of two dialects o ...
people intensified, reaching a peak from 1794 to 1810. Bands of Darug people, led by
Pemulwuy Pemulwuy ( /pɛməlwɔɪ/ ''PEM-əl-woy''; 1750 – 2 June 1802) was a Bidjigal warrior of the Dharug, an Aboriginal Australian people from New South Wales. One of the most famous Aboriginal resistance fighters in the colonial era, he is n ...
and later by his son Tedbury, burned crops, killed livestock and raided settler huts and stores in a pattern of resistance that was to be repeated as the colonial frontier expanded. A military garrison was established on the Hawkesbury in 1795. The death toll from 1794 to 1800 was 26 settlers and up to 200 Darug. Conflict again erupted from 1814 to 1816 with the expansion of the colony into Dharawal country in the Nepean region south-west of Sydney. Following the deaths of several settlers, Governor Macquarie despatched three military detachments into Dharawal lands, culminating in the
Appin massacre The Appin Massacre was the mass murder of Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal men, women and children in the New South Wales settlement of Appin, New South Wales, Appin, South Western Sydney, on 17 April 1816 by members of the 46th (South Devonshir ...
(April 1816) in which at least 14 Aboriginal people were killed. In the 1820s the colony spread to the lightly wooded pastures west of the
Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...
, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in
Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...
country. From 1822 to 1824
Windradyne Windradyne ( 1800 – 21 March 1829) was an Aboriginal warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation, in what is now central-western New South Wales, Australia; he was also known to the British settlers as Saturday. Windradyne led his ...
led a group of 50-100 Aboriginal men in raids on livestock and stockmen's huts resulting in the death of 15-20 colonists. Martial law was declared in August 1824 and ended five months later when Windradyne and 260 of his followers ended their armed resistance. Estimates of Aboriginal deaths in the conflict range from 15 to 100. After two decades of sporadic violence between settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Van Diemen's land, the
Black War The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832 that precipitated the near-extermination of the indigenous population. The conflict was fought largely as ...
broke out in 1824, following a rapid expansion of settler numbers and sheep grazing in the island's interior. When Eumarrah, leader of the North Midlands people, was captured in 1828 he said his patriotic duty was to kill as many white people as possible because they had driven his people off their kangaroo hunting grounds. Martial law was declared in the settled districts of Van Diemen's Land in November 1828 and was extended to the entire island in October 1830. A "Black Line" of around 2,200 troops and settlers then swept the island with the intention of driving the Aboriginal population from the settled districts. From 1830 to 1834
George Augustus Robinson George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was an English born builder and self-trained preacher who was employed by the British colonial authorities to conciliate the Indigenous Australians of Van Diemen's Land and the Po ...
and Aboriginal ambassadors including Truganini led a series of "Friendly Missions" to the Aboriginal tribes which effectively ended the Black War. Flood states that around 200 settler and 330 Aboriginal Tasmanian deaths in frontier violence were recorded during the period 1803 to 1834, but adds that it will never be known how many Aboriginal deaths went unreported. Clements estimates that colonists killed 600 Aboriginal people in eastern Van Diemen's Land during the Black War. Around 220 Aboriginal Tasmanians were eventually relocated to Flinders Island. As settlers and pastoralists spread into the region of modern Victoria in the 1830s, competition for land and natural resources again sparked conflict with traditional landowners. Aboriginal resistance was so intense that it was not unusual for sheep runs to be abandoned after repeated attacks. Broome estimates that 80 settlers and 1,000–1,500 Aboriginal people died in frontier conflict in Victoria from 1835 to 1853. The growth of the Swan River Colony (centred on Fremantle and Perth) in the 1830s led to conflict with a number of clans of the Noongar people. Governor Sterling established a mounted police force in 1834 and in October that year he led a mixed force of soldiers, mounted police and civilians in a punitive expedition against the Pindjarup. The expedition culminated in the Pinjarra massacre in which some 15 to 30 Aboriginal people were killed. According to Neville Green, 30 settlers and 121 Aboriginal people died in violent conflict in Western Australia between 1826 and 1852. Aboriginal casualty rates in conflicts increased as the colonists made greater use of mounted police,
Native Police Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal troopers under the command of European officers appointed by British colonial governments. The units existed in va ...
units, and newly developed revolvers and breech-loaded guns. Civilian colonists often launched punitive raids against Aboriginal groups without the knowledge of colonial authorities. Conflict was particularly intense in NSW in the 1840s. The spread of British settlement also led to an increase in inter-tribal Aboriginal conflict as more people were forced off their traditional lands into the territory of other, often hostile, tribes. Butlin estimated that of the 8,000 Aboriginal deaths in Victoria from 1835 to 1855, 200 were from inter-tribal violence.


Accommodation and protection

In the first two years of settlement the Aboriginal people of Sydney, after initial curiosity, mostly avoided the newcomers. Governor Phillip had a number of Aboriginal people kidnapped in an attempt to learn their language and customs. In November 1790, 18 months after the smallpox epidemic that had devastated the Aboriginal population,
Bennelong Woollarawarre Bennelong ( 1764 – 3 January 1813) was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal Australian people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia. Bennelong served as an interlocutor between ...
led the survivors of several clans into Sydney. Later, he and a companion became the first Aboriginal people to sail for Europe, when, in 1792 they accompanied Governor Phillip to England and were presented to
King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...
. Bungaree, a Kuringgai man, joined Matthew Flinders in his circumnavigation of Australia from 1801 to 1803, playing an important role as emissary to the various Indigenous peoples they encountered. Governor Macquarie hoped to "effect the civilization of the Aborigines" and reclaim them "from their barbarous practices".Banivanua Mar, Tracey; Edmonds, Penelope (2013). "Indigenous and settler relations". ''The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I''. p. 344–45 In 1815, he established a Native Institution to provide elementary education to Aboriginal children, settled 15 Aboriginal families on farms in Sydney and made the first freehold land grant to Aboriginal people at Black Town, west of Sydney. In 1816, he initiated an annual Native Feast at Parramatta which attracted Aboriginal people from as far as the Bathurst plains. However, by the 1820s the Native Institution and Aboriginal farms had failed. Aboriginal people continued to live on vacant waterfront land and on the fringes of the Sydney settlement, adapting traditional practices to the new semi-urban environment. Escalating frontier conflict in the 1820s and 1830s saw colonial governments develop a number of policies aimed at protecting Aboriginal people. Protectors of Aborigines were appointed in South Australia and the Port Phillip District in 1839, and in Western Australia in 1840. While the aim was to extend the protection of British law to Aboriginal people, more often the result was an increase in their criminalisation. Protectors were also responsible for the distribution of rations, delivering elementary education to Aboriginal children, instruction in Christianity and training in occupations useful to the colonists. However, by 1857 the protection offices had been closed due to their cost and failure to meets their goals. Colonial governments established a small number of reserves and encouraged Christian missions which afforded some protection from frontier violence. In 1825, the NSW governor granted 10,000 acres for an Aboriginal mission at Lake Macquarie. In the 1830s and early 1840s there were also missions in the Wellington Valley, Port Phillip and Moreton Bay. The settlement for Aboriginal Tasmanians on Flinders Island operated effectively as a mission under George Robinson from 1835 to 1838. In more densely settled areas, most Aboriginal people who had lost control of their land lived on reserves and missions, or on the fringes of cities and towns. In pastoral districts the British Waste Land Act 1848 gave traditional landowners limited rights to live, hunt and gather food on Crown land under pastoral leases. Many Aboriginal groups camped on pastoral stations where Aboriginal men were often employed as shepherds and stockmen. These groups were able to retain a connection with their lands and maintain aspects of their traditional culture.


Politics and government

Traditional Aboriginal society had been governed by councils of elders and a collective decision-making process, but the first European-style governments established after 1788 were
autocratic Autocracy is a form of government in which absolute power is held by the head of state and Head of government, government, known as an autocrat. It includes some forms of monarchy and all forms of dictatorship, while it is contrasted with demo ...
and run by appointed
governors A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
—although English law was transplanted into the Australian colonies by virtue of the
doctrine of reception In the legal theory, reception is chiefly defined as ''the transfer of a legal phenomenon 'of a different legal culture', other area or other period of time 'to a new legal climate'.'' Voluntary reception According to Max Rheinstein term "rece ...
, thus notions of the rights and processes established by the ''
Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardin ...
'' and the
Bill of Rights 1689 The Bill of Rights 1689 (sometimes known as the Bill of Rights 1688) is an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the Monarchy of England, Engl ...
were brought from Britain by the colonists. Agitation for representative government began soon after the settlement of the colonies. From 1788 until the 1850s, the governance of the colonies, including most policy decision-making, was largely in the hands of the governors, who were directly responsible to the government in London (
Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...
until 1794;
War Office The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at ...
until 1801; and War and Colonial Office until 1854). The first
governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the representative of the monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia, Governor-General of Australia at the national level, the governor ...
,
Arthur Phillip Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...
, was given executive and legislative powers to establish courts, military forces, fight enemies, give out land grants, and regulate the economy. The early colonists adopted the British
political culture Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Political culture is what the people, the voters, the electorates believe and do based on their understanding of the ...
of the time, which allowed the use of public office for furthering private interests, which led to officers of the
New South Wales Corps The New South Wales Corps, later known as the 102d Regiment of Foot, and lastly as the 100th Regiment of Foot, was a formation of the British Army organised in 1789 in England to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied ...
, which had replaced the original marines in 1791, trying to use their position in order to create monopolies on trade. Such private enterprise was encouraged by the second governor
Francis Grose Francis Grose (before 11June 173112May 1791) was an England, English antiquary, drawing, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local ...
, who had replaced Phillip in 1792, and he started giving out land and convict labourers to the officers. The Corps established a monopoly on the rum trade, and became very powerful within the small colony. After Governor
William Bligh William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a Vice-admiral (Royal Navy), Royal Navy vice-admiral and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New South Wales from 1806 to 1808. He is best known for his role in the Muti ...
tried to break the military monopoly and questioned some of their leases, officers led by George Johnston launched a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
in the
Rum Rebellion The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a ''coup d'état'' in the British penal colony of New South Wales, staged by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. Australia's first and only military coup, its name derives from the ...
. After a year, he agreed to leave his position, and returned to Britain alongside Johnston, who was found guilty by a
court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...
. In response to the events, the British government dispanded the Corps, and replaced them with the 73rd Regiment, which led to "deprivatising" of the officials of the colony. Many of the officers retired, and were later known as the "faction of 1808" and as an influential and conservative element in the politics of the colony. The
New South Wales Act 1823 The New South Wales Act 1823 ( 4 Geo. 4. c. 96), or New South Wales Jurisdiction Act 1823, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which established the New South Wales Legislative Council and the Supreme Court of New South Wales, i ...
by the
Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...
established the first legislative body in Australia, the
New South Wales Legislative Council The New South Wales Legislative Council, often referred to as the upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales. Along with the New South Wales Legislative As ...
, as an appointed body of five to seven members to advise the
Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the representative of the monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia, Governor-General of Australia at the national level, the governor ...
. However, the new body had limited powers of oversight. The act also established the
Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian States and territories of Australia, State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil law (common law), civil matters, and hears ...
, which had power over the
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...
. Before a Governor could propose a law before the council, the Chief Justice had to certify that it was not against
English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...
, creating a form of
judicial review Judicial review is a process under which a government's executive, legislative, or administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. In a judicial review, a court may invalidate laws, acts, or governmental actions that are in ...
. However, there was no
separation of powers The separation of powers principle functionally differentiates several types of state (polity), state power (usually Legislature#Legislation, law-making, adjudication, and Executive (government)#Function, execution) and requires these operat ...
, with Chief Justice Francis Forbes also serving in the Legislative Council as well as the Governor's Executive Council. The Executive Council had been founded in 1825, and was composed of leading officials in the colony. ''The Australian'' began publishing in 1824, as did ''The Monitor'' in 1826, and ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...
'' in 1831.
Ralph Darling General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. His period of governorship was unpopular, with Darling being broadly regarded as a tyrant. He introd ...
tried to control the press first by proposing to license newspapers and impose a
stamp duty Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents (including, historically, the majority of legal documents such as cheques, receipts, military commissions, marriage licences and land transactions). Historically, a ...
on them, and after this was refused by Forbes, by prosecuting their owners for
seditious libel Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purposethat is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and ...
.
Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...
was established in 1825, but remained under the jurisdiction of the New South Wales Governor, being represented there by a lieutenant-governor.
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
was declared to the British Empire by James Stirling, and the
Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just ''Swan River'', was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, an ...
was established there in 1829, with Stirling made governor in 1831. The
South Australian Company The South Australian Company, also referred to as the South Australia Company, was formed in London on 9 October 1835, after the '' South Australia (Foundation) Act 1834'' had established the new British Province of South Australia, with the So ...
was established in 1834 as a private venture to establish a new colony in the south coast, being motivated by the social reformist ideas of
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. 5 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S.– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of mo ...
.


Political divisions

The divide between liberals and conservatives in British politics was replicated in Australia. This division was also affected by that between "emancipists" (former convicts) and "exclusivists" (land-owning free settlers). The conservatives generally saw
representative government Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies funct ...
as a threat, since they were worried about former convicts voting against their masters. The leader of the conservatives was John Macarthur, a wool producer and a leader of the Rum Rebellion. The conservatives believed themselves to be leading and protecting the economic development of the colony. The reformist
attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
, John Plunkett, sought to apply Enlightenment principles to governance in the colony, pursuing the establishment of equality before the law, first by extending jury rights to emancipists, then by extending legal protections to convicts, assigned servants and Aboriginal peoples. Plunkett twice charged the colonist perpetrators of the
Myall Creek massacre The Myall Creek massacre was the killing of at least 28 unarmed Aboriginal people in the Colony of New South Wales by eight colonists on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek in the north of the colony. Seven perpetrators were convicted of murder ...
of Aboriginal people with murder, resulting in a conviction and his landmark '' Church Act'' of 1836 disestablished the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
and established legal equality between
Anglicans Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
,
Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
, Presbyterians and later Methodists.


Representative government

The Legislative Council and Supreme Court provided additional limits to the power of governors, but a number of prominent colonial figures, including
William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He ...
campaigned for a greater degree of self-government. However, there were divisions about the extent to which a future legislative body should be popularly elected. Other major issues in the public debate about colonial self-government were traditional British political rights, land policy, transportation and whether colonies with a large population of convicts and former convicts could be trusted with self-government. The Australian Patriotic Association was formed in 1835 by Wentworth and William Bland to promote representative government for New South Wales. In 1840, the Adelaide City Council and the Sydney City Council were established. Men who possessed 1,000 pounds' worth of property were able to stand for election and wealthy landowners were permitted up to four votes each in elections. The British government abolished transportation to New South Wales in 1840, and in 1842 granted limited representative government to the colony by establishing a reformed Legislative Council with one-third of its members appointed by the governor and two-thirds elected by male voters who met a property qualification. The property qualification meant that only 20 per cent of males were eligible to vote in the first Legislative Council elections in 1843. The increasing immigration of free settlers, the declining number of convicts, and the growing middle class and working class population led to further agitation for liberal and democratic reforms. Public meetings in Adelaide in 1844 called for more representative government for South Australia. The Constitutional Association, formed in Sydney in 1848, called for manhood suffrage. The Anti-Transportation League, founded in Van Diemen's Land in 1849, also demanded more representative government. In the Port Phillip District, agitation for representative government was closely linked to demands for independence from New South Wales. In 1850, the imperial parliament passed the '' Australian Colonies Government Act,'' granting Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and the newly created colony of Victoria semi-elected Legislative Councils on the New South Wales model. The Act also reduced the property requirement for voting. Government officials were to be responsible to the governor rather than the Legislative Council, so the imperial legislation provided for limited representative government rather than
responsible government Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments (the equivalent of the executive br ...
.


Economy and trade

The instructions provided to the first five governors of New South Wales show that the initial plans for the colony were limited. The settlement was to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade, shipping and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated and so as not to interfere with the trade monopoly of the
British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
. There was no plan for economic development apart from investigating the possibility of producing raw materials for Britain. After the departure of Phillip, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Former convicts also farmed land granted to them and engaged in trade. Farms spread to the more fertile lands surrounding Paramatta, Windsor and Camden, and by 1803 the colony was self-sufficient in grain. Boat building developed in order to make travel easier and exploit the marine resources of the coastal settlements. Sealing and whaling became important industries. Because of its nature as a forced settlement, the early colony's economy was heavily dependent on the state. For example, some of the earliest agricultural production was directly run by the government. The
Commissariat A commissariat is a department or organization commanded by a commissary or by a corps of commissaries. In many countries, commissary is a police rank. In those countries, a commissariat is a police station commanded by a commissary. In some a ...
also played a major role in the economy. In 1800, 72% of the population relied on government rations, but this was reduced to 32% by 1806. While some convicts were assigned to settlers as labourers, they were usually free to find part-time work for supplemental income, and were allowed to own property (in contravention to British law at the time). Some convicts had their skills taken to use by the colonial government, as with for example the architect
Francis Greenway Francis Greenway (20 November 1777 - September 1837) was an English-Australian convict and colonial architect. After being convicted of forgery in England and subsequently transported to New South Wales, Australia (known then as New Holland) ...
, who designed many early public buildings. Approximately 10–15% of the convicts worked on public projects building infrastructure, while most of the rest were assigned to private employers.
Land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...
s were abandoned in 1831 in favour of selling crown lands, which covered all land deemed "unsettled". The colonies relied heavily on imports from England for survival. The official currency of the colonies was the British pound, but the unofficial currency and most readily accepted trade good was
rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is produced i ...
. The early economy relied on
barter In trade, barter (derived from ''bareter'') is a system of exchange (economics), exchange in which participants in a financial transaction, transaction directly exchange good (economics), goods or service (economics), services for other goods ...
for exchange, an issue which Macquarie (Governor from 1810 to 1821) tried to fix first by introducing
Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight (, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content fine silver. It w ...
s, and then by establishing the
Bank of New South Wales The Bank of New South Wales (BNSW), also known as The Wales, was the first bank in Australia. It was established in 1817 in Sydney. During the 19th century, the bank opened branches throughout Australia and New Zealand, expanding into Oceania ...
with the authority to issue financial instruments. Barter continued, however, until shipments of sterling in the late 1820s enabled a move to a monetary economy. Macquarie also played a leading role in the economic development of New South Wales by employing a planner to design the street layout of Sydney and commissioning the construction of roads, wharves, churches, and public buildings. He sent explorers out from Sydney and, in 1815, a road across the Blue Mountains was completed, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly-wooded pastures west of the Great Dividing Range. The colonists spent a large part of the early nineteenth century building infrastructure such as railways, bridges and schools, which facilitated economic development. During this period Australian businesspeople began to prosper. For example, the partnership of Berry and Wollstonecraft made enormous profits by means of land grants, convict labour, and exporting native cedar back to England. John Macarthur, after retiring from the New South Wales Corps, went on to start the wool industry in Australia. From the 1820s
squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building (usually residential) that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there wer ...
increasingly established unauthorised cattle and sheep runs beyond the official limits of the settled colony. In 1836, a system of annual licences authorising grazing on Crown Land was introduced in an attempt to control the pastoral industry, but booming wool prices and the high cost of land in the settled areas encouraged further squatting. By 1844 wool accounted for half of the colony's exports and by 1850 most of the eastern third of New South Wales was controlled by fewer than 2,000 pastoralists.


Religion, education, and culture


Religion

According to Australian Aboriginal mythology and the
animist Animism (from meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in ...
framework, the Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral
totem A totem (from or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage (anthropology), lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While the word ...
ic spirit beings formed The Creation. The Dreaming established the laws and structures of society and the ceremonies performed to ensure continuity of life and land. The early chaplains of the colony were also civil magistrates with the power to discipline convicts and grant tickets of leave. The
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
was the only recognised church before 1820 and its clergy worked closely with the governors. Richard Johnson, (chief chaplain 17881802) was charged by Governor
Arthur Phillip Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...
, with improving "public morality" in the colony and was also heavily involved in health and education.
Samuel Marsden Samuel Marsden (25 June 1765 – 12 May 1838) was an English-born priest of the Church of England in Australia and a prominent member of the Church Missionary Society. He played a leading role in bringing Christianity to New Zealand. Marsden w ...
(various ministries 17951838) became known for his missionary work, the severity of his punishments as a magistrate, and the vehemence of his public denunciations of Catholicism and Irish convicts. About a quarter of convicts were Catholics and they frequently requested a Catholic priest to perform their rites. The lack of official recognition of Catholicism was combined with suspicion of Irish convicts which only increased after the Irish-led Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804. Only two Catholic priests operated temporarily in the colony before Governor Macquarie appointed official Catholic chaplains in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land in 1820. The Bigge reports recommended that the status of the Anglican Church be enhanced as a source of stability and moral authority in the colony. An Anglican archdeacon was appointed in 1824 and allocated a seat in the first advisory Legislative Council. The Anglican clergy and schools also received state support. This policy was changed under Governor Burke by the Church Acts of 1836 and 1837. The government now provided state support for the clergy and church buildings of the four largest denominations: Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and, later, Methodist. The Church Acts did not alleviate sectarianism as many Anglicans saw state support of the Catholic Church as a threat. The prominent Presbyterian minister John Dunmore Lang also promoted sectarian divisions in the 1840s. State support, however, led to a growth in church activities. Charitable associations such as the Catholic
Sisters of Charity Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some ''Sisters of Charity'' communities refer to the Vincentian tradition alone, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (whose sisters are also of ...
, founded in 1838, provided hospitals, orphanages and asylums for the old and disabled. Religious organisations were also the main providers of school education in the first half of the nineteenth century.


Education

The first school in the colony was opened in 1789. By 1792, the government had established two public schools for the children of convicts and emancipists. The teachers themselves were female convicts or emancipists. The military also established a school for soldiers and their children. By the early 1800s, public schools were established in the main settlements and some teachers were opening private academies with tuition fees. Public schools were run by the Church of England and taught reading, writing, arithmetic and scripture. They were funded by the government, the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and community donations. Clergy and professional teachers were sometimes recruited from Britain but most teachers were from the colony. The
London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed tradition, Reformed in outlook, with ...
also established several chapel-schools outside the main settlements. Nevertheless, school was not compulsory and many parents preferred to have their children work or help in the home rather than send them to the nearest public school. Affluent colonists sent their children to Britain or local private academies for schooling, or engaged a tutor or governess. An orphan school for girls opened in Sydney in 1801, and one for boys in 1819. Governor Macquarie (1810-1821) established charity schools and, in 1815, a Native Institution for Aboriginal children which provided basic education and training in work skills. In 1826, the Church of England attempted to establish a system of schools through a Church and Schools Corporation but with limited success. In the 1830s, most colonial governments offered support for schools in the recognised Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist denominations. In South Australia, Lutherans established schools without government support. In Western Australia, the Catholic church established the first schools. Church-run schools spread to most major towns in the colonies and were the largest provider of school education. Education intended for the working classes was also provided by mechanics' institutes and schools of arts. These institutions were opened in Hobart (1827), Sydney (1833), Melbourne (1839), Geelong (1846), Brisbane (1849) and Perth (1851). They were intended to provide adult education in literacy, numeracy, the liberal arts and technical subjects. Private schools based on British models of grammar schools and public schools also appeared from the 1830s. These included Sydney College (1830), the Australian College (Sydney, 1831) and The King's School (Sydney and Parramatta,1831).


Science and technology

The new colony was of particular scientific and technological interest in Britain. Up to 1820, Joseph Banks was the chief promoter of the colony's importance to botany and agricultural technology and he corresponded frequently with the early governors on these subjects. William Hooker also promoted the study of Australia's plant life,
Roderick Murchison Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet (19 February 1792 – 22 October 1871) was a Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and desc ...
its geology, and
Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist and paleontology, palaeontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkabl ...
its zoology and palaeontology. Banks organised Matthew Flinders' 1801-03 circumnavigation of the continent, and ensured the crew included an astronomer, a mineralogist and a botanist. The early explorations of surveyor John Oxley involved the mapping of rivers and his parties also included botanists and a mineralogist. The explorations of Sturt and Mitchell were intended to facilitate the economic and scientific development of the colony. In agricultural technology, there were Australian advances in sheep breeding, particularly the development of merino wool. In 1843, John Miller invented the horse-drawn wheat stripper. An astronomical observatory was set up in Sydney in 1788, and governor
Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
established a permanent one at Parramatta in 1824. In 1835 the observatory published the ''Catalogue of 7385 Stars''. The Parramatta observatory was closed in 1847 before the Sydney Observatory was opened in 1855. The Admiralty established a Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory at Hobart in 1840. The Royal Botanic Garden was established in Sydney in 1816, and Charles Frazer was appointed Colonial Botanist in 1821. The
Australian Museum The Australian Museum, originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum. is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney, William Street, Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, New South Wales. It is the oldest natural ...
was founded in Sydney in 1827. The Tasmanian Society, founded in 1837, was Australia's leading scientific society at the time. The Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land for Botany, Horticulture and the Advancement of Science was established in 1844. The University of Sydney, founded in 1850, included chairs in mathematics, chemistry and physics. Colonial medical science was based on existing European knowledge and practice. Over a hundred men who practised medicine were transported to Australia as convicts between 1788 and 1868. Medical qualifications were not standardised at the time, and many would have been unqualified.
D'Arcy Wentworth D'Arcy Wentworth (14 February 1762 – 7 July 1827) was an Irish-Australian surgeon and the first paying passenger to arrive in the new colony of New South Wales. He served under the first seven governors of the Colony, and from 1810 to 1821 ...
was a free settler and assistant surgeon on a convict ship. In 1809 he was appointed Principal Surgeon of the colony. He was instrumental in the opening of the new Sydney hospital in 1816.
William Redfern William Redfern (1775 – 17 July 1833) was the Surgeon’s First Mate aboard HMS ''Standard'' during the May 1797 Nore mutiny, and at a court martial in August 1797 he was sentenced to death for his involvement. His sentence was later commuted ...
was a convict and surgeon who passed an examination before three colonial doctors, becoming Australia's first locally qualified doctor. William Bland was a convict and qualified surgeon. He was pardoned in 1815 and set up a private medical practice. He later worked with the Benevolent Society and the
Sydney Dispensary Sydney is the capital city of the state of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about 80 km (50 mi) from the Pacific Ocean in ...
before embarking on a political career. He was a skilled surgeon who made important contributions to surgical techniques.


Culture

Aboriginal groups continued the artistic traditions they had practised for thousands of years. They made art works on bark, stone and their bodies, and in the sand and earth of their land. They told stories of ancestral beings and the Dreaming. They performed their culture and its stories in song, music and dance. Songmen and women were skilled in correctly singing the songlines of the ancestral beings who created the landscape, and in passing on new songs sent to them in dreams. Aboriginal history, law and creation stories were transmitted orally through generations. The colonists also transmitted their cultures orally and through song, music, art and performance, but also through writing. Governor Macquarie commissioned emancipist Michael Massey Robinson to write verse to celebrate the birthdays of
George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...
and
Queen Charlotte Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until her death in 1818. The Acts of Un ...
. Alongside such official verse, satirical verse written by convicts such as
Frank the Poet Francis MacNamara (c. 1810 – 28 August 1861), known as Frank the Poet, was an Irish writer and poet who was transported as a convict to the penal colony of New South Wales. While incarcerated, he composed improvised verse that captured convi ...
flourished. Barron Field, the supreme court judge, published ''First Fruits of Australian Poetry'' (1819 and 1823). His poem "The Kangaroo" is notable. Early poems with patriotic Australian themes include William Wentworth's "Australasia" (1823) and Charles Thompson's ''Wild Notes From the Lyre of a Native Minstrel'' (1826). In 1845, the radical republican Charles Harpur published ''Thoughts: a Series of Sonnet''s and went on to become an influential Australian poet. Before the 1850s, there was no Australian book publishing industry and few professional authors. Stories and poetry were published in newspapers and magazines, and books were mostly published in Britain or self-published in Australia. In prose, colonial officers Watkin Tench and David Collins published popular early accounts of the colony. Most published prose consisted of works of non-fiction, tales or sketches of colonial life, travel stories and popular fiction. Biographies and novels of convicts were popular.
Henry Savery Henry Savery (4 August 1791 – 6 February 1842) was a Convictism in Australia, convict transported to Port Arthur, Tasmania, and Australia's first novelist. It is generally agreed that his writing is more important for its historical value than ...
's novel of convict life ''Quintus Servinton'' (1830–31) and James Tucker's ''Ralph Rashleigh'' (1844–45) were typical. Novels of emigration to Australia, such as Thomas McCombie's ''Adventures of a Colonist'' (1845), became popular in the 1840s. Mary Theresa Vidal's ''Tales for the Bush'' (1845) was popular in England and Australia and went through many editions. In art, the Port Jackson Painters recorded the growth of the settlement, the local Aboriginal people and the flora and fauna of the colony. Convict artists such as Thomas Watling, Joseph Lycett and Thomas Bock painted landscapes, portraits of affluent settlers, scenes of colonial life and official commissions.
Augustus Earle Augustus Earle (1793–1838) was a British painter. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite indepen ...
, John Glover and Conrad Martens were English artists who visited or migrated to Australia in the 1820s and 1830s and painted influential Australian landscapes. Australia's first colonial music was the popular ballads, sea shanties and folk songs brought by convicts and settlers. Military music was also commonly performed in the early years of the colony. Military musicians often performed at church services, balls and other official and private functions. The first known local composition was a set of
quadrille The quadrille is a dance that was fashionable in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe and its colonies. The quadrille consists of a chain of four to six ''Contra dance, contredanses''. Latterly the quadrille was frequently danced to a medley of ope ...
s written by the bandmaster Reichenberg in 1825. English musician John Phillip Deane (who arrived in Australia in 1822), Irish composer William Vincent Wallace (who arrived in 1835) and English composer Isaac Nathan (who arrived in 1841) all helped develop a musical culture in the Australian colonies. The first play performed in Australia was a 1789 convict production of Farquar's ''
The Recruiting Officer ''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two English Army officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where ...
''. Theatrical performances after this were sporadic, as religious authorities considered the theatre promoted immorality. But by the 1830s, popular demand for comedies, melodramas and pantomime led to regular commercial theatrical and musical performances in Sydney and Hobart. Edward Geoghegan's '' The Currency Lass'' (1844) was a popular example of colonial musical comedy.


Representations in literature and film

*
Marcus Clarke Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke (24 April 1846 – 2 August 1881) was an English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor, librarian, and playwright. He is best known for his 1874 novel ''For the Term of His Natural Life'', about the con ...
's 1874 novel, ''
For the Term of his Natural Life ''For the Term of His Natural Life'' is a story written by Marcus Clarke and published in ''The Australian Journal'' between 1870 and 1872 (as ''His Natural Life''). It was published as a novel in 1874 and is the best known novelisation of life ...
'', and the 1983 television adaptation of the novel. * Eleanor Dark's 1947 ''Timeless Land'' trilogy, which spans the colonisation from 1788 to 1811. The 1980s television drama, '' The Timeless Land'', was based on this trilogy. *
Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...
's 2005 novel ''
The Secret River ''The Secret River'' is a 2005 historical novel by Kate Grenville about an early 19th-century Englishman transported to Australia for theft. The story explores what might have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aborigi ...
'', about a convict transported to Australia for theft and his family, and their confrontations with Aboriginal people.


See also

*
British colonisation of South Australia British colonisation of South Australia describes the planning and establishment of the colony of South Australia by the British government, covering the period from 1829, when the idea was raised by the then-imprisoned Edward Gibbon Wakefield ...
* British colonisation of Tasmania * European Australian *
Europeans in Oceania Age of Discovery, European exploration and settlement of Oceania began in the 16th century, starting with the Spanish people, Spanish (Crown of Castile, Castilian) landings and shipwrecks in the Mariana Islands, east of the Philippines. This was ...
* ''
Historical Records of Australia The ''Historical Records of Australia'' (''HRA'') were collected and published by the Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, to create a series of accurate publications on the history of Australia. The records begin shortly before 1788 ...
'' *
History of Australia The history of Australia is the history of the land and peoples which comprise the Commonwealth of Australia. The modern nation came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a federation of former British colonies. The human history of Australia, ...
*
History of Australia (1851–1900) The History of Australia (1851–1900) refers to the history of the people of the Australian continent during the 50-year period which preceded the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The gold rushes of the 1850s led to high ...
*
History of New South Wales The history of New South Wales refers to the history of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the area's preceding Indigenous Australians, Indigenous and Crown colony, British colonial societies. The La ...
*
History of Queensland The history of Queensland encompasses both a long Indigenous Australian, Aboriginal Australian presence as well as the more recent periods of European colonization, colonisation and as a States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. ...
*
History of South Australia The history of South Australia includes the history of the Australian state of South Australia since Federation in 1901, and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians of various nations or tribes h ...
* History of Tasmania *
History of Western Australia The human history of Western Australia commenced "over 50,000 years ago and possibly as much as 70,000 years ago" with the arrival of Aboriginal Australians on the northwest coast. The first inhabitants expanded across the east and south of the ...
*
Journals of the First Fleet There are 20 known contemporary accounts of the First Fleet made by people sailing in the fleet, including journals (both manuscript and published) and letters. The eleven ships of the fleet, carrying over 1,000 convicts, soldiers and seamen, le ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

*Clark, C. M. H. (1955), ''Select Documents in Australian History 1788–1850'' (
Angus and Robertson Angus & Robertson (A&R) is a major Australian bookseller, publisher and printer. As book publishers, A&R has contributed substantially to the promotion and development of Australian literature.Alison, Jennifer (2001). "Publishers and editors: A ...
). Available at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
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*Duyker, Edward & Maryse. 2001. ''Voyage to Australia and the Pacific 1791–1793''. Melbourne University Press. . *Duyker, Edward & Maryse. 2003. ''Citizen Labillardière – A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration''. The Miegunyah Press. . *Horner, Frank. 1995. ''Looking for La Pérouse''. Melbourne University Press. . *Lepailleur, François-Maurice. 1980. ''Land of a Thousand Sorrows. The Australian Prison Journal 1840–1842, of the Exiled Canadien'' Patriote, ''François-Maurice Lepailleur''. Trans. and edited by F. Murray Greenwood. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver. . * John Holland Rose, Rose, J. Holland; Newton, A. P.; Benians, E. A. (1968), '' The Cambridge History of the British Empire'', Volume II—The Growth of the New Empire 1783–1870. Available at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
br>
*Th
Australian History
page a
Project Gutenberg of Australia
– digitised versions of many old books {{DEFAULTSORT:History of Australia (1788-1850) History of Australia (1788–1850), 19th century in Australia