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179-534: 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 , to 1842, when the South Australia Act 1842 changed the form of government to a Crown colony . Ideas espoused and promulgated by Wakefield since 1829 led to

358-598: A blueprint for development of British colonial policy. The defunct New Zealand Association reformed itself as the New Zealand Company in June 1838. By the end of the year they had purchased a ship, the Tory . Early in 1839 they discovered that although they now complied with the conditions the government had laid down for the old New Zealand Association, it was not prepared to honour its promises. Furthermore, it

537-408: A board to inquire into the conditions at Wybalenna that rejected Robinson's claims regarding improved living conditions and found the settlement to be a failure. The report was never released and the government continued to promote Wybalenna as a success in the treatment of Aboriginal people. In March 1847 six Aboriginal people at Wybalenna presented a petition to Queen Victoria , the first petition to

716-482: A book about the colonisation of South Australia in 1835) was first approached by a group of emigrants, while the Colonial Office was considering Sir John Franklin . Franklin withdrew in favour of Napier, but Napier quarrelled with the emigrants and made two requests (for access to Treasury funds, and for troops to act as police) which were not met, and he resigned. Napier favoured Light as Governor; however,

895-454: A break from New Zealand affairs. It did not serve his purpose and he returned to London two months later in a semi-invalid state. During his convalescence he wrote his book A View of the Art of Colonization , in the form of letters between a "Statesman" and a "Colonist". By January 1846 Wakefield was back to his scheming. By now Gladstone was Colonial Secretary. Wakefield approached him early in

1074-650: A detailed report on public lands, arguing that the better way to encourage settlement was to sell Crown lands at higher prices than had been the case up to then, which would attract immigrants with capital. This approach had been tried without much success in Upper Canada some years before. Wakefield's report on public lands became Appendix B to the Durham Report . No attempt was made to implement his policy proposals. Durham met extensively with local political leaders, but at one point, Wakefield met with one of

1253-591: A document claiming they were extinct. A dispute exists within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, however, over what constitutes Aboriginality . The Palawa, mainly descendants of white male sealers and Tasmanian Aboriginal women who settled on the Bass Strait Islands, were given the power to decide who is of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent at the state level (entitlement to government Aboriginal services). Palawa recognise only descendants of

1432-483: A dozen and, by 1869, there was only one, who died in 1876. Commenting in 1899 on Robinson's claims of success, anthropologist Henry Ling Roth wrote: While Robinson and others were doing their best to make them into a civilised people, the poor blacks had given up the struggle, and were solving the difficult problem by dying. The very efforts made for their welfare only served to hasten on their inevitable doom. The white man's civilisation proved scarcely less fatal than

1611-414: A few months after the establishment of the first British settlements at Risdon Cove and Hobart. The 1804 Risdon Cove massacre resulted in a large number of Aboriginal people being killed after an attack by British soldiers and settlers. A boy whose parents were killed in the massacre was taken and given the name Robert Hobart May . This boy became the first Indigenous Tasmanian to have extended contact with

1790-521: A fifteen-year-old girl in Britain, he enjoyed a lengthy career in colonial governments and colonial policy. Wakefield was born in London in 1796, the eldest son of Edward Wakefield (1774–1854), a distinguished surveyor and land agent, and Susanna Crush (1767–1816). His grandmother, Priscilla Wakefield (1751–1832), was a popular author for the young, and one of the introducers of savings banks. He

1969-554: A founding father of the colony; to be feted and immediately asked to assume the leadership of colony. However, colonisation had inevitably changed the perspectives of the people of Canterbury. Many of them felt they had been let down and cheated by the Association, and the two arrivals were firmly linked in their minds with the broken promises and disappointments of the Association. Aboriginal Tasmanian The Aboriginal Tasmanians ( Palawa kani : Palawa or Pakana ) are

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2148-540: A gentleman settler in New South Wales (completely fictitious), outlining his various ideas as a new theory of colonisation. He proposed an "Emigration Fund" payable by landlords' taxes and land sales, which would fund labour for the colonies. Gouger, an enthusiastic supporter, edited the letters and published them as a book, helping to distribute Wakefield's document. Wakefield saw the colonies as "extensions of an old society"; all classes would be represented among

2327-527: A huge public meeting at Exeter Hall in London on the 30 June 1834, to spread awareness about the proposal for the new province and emigration scheme, chaired by Wolryche-Whitmore. The meeting was attended by more than 2,500 people, including well-known philosophers and social reformers , and the speeches and discussions continued for seven hours. Afterwards the association received hundreds of enquiries from people interested in emigration. The Association lobbied

2506-737: A large number of enthusiastic members. Wakefield's ideas caused much debate in Parliament . After Charles Sturt discovered the River Murray in 1830, more interest in Wakefield's scheme followed. One key component of the Wakefield Scheme was that the land price should be set high enough to prevent land speculation . In 1831 a "Proposal to His Majesty's Government for founding a colony on the Southern Coast of Australia"

2685-468: A lot of interest. The National Colonization Society (also spelt National Colonisation Society ) was created in 1830 in order to advocate for the type of "systematic colonisation " set out in Letter from Sydney , based on three principles: careful selection of emigrants; the concentration of settlers; and the sale of land at a fixed, uniform, "sufficient price", to provide funding for new settlers. Wakefield

2864-559: A minimum price of five shillings per acre in the colony of New South Wales . After his Letter from Sydney in 1829, Wakefield's name became associated with other "scientific theories" of colonisation similar to his. People who accepted these ideas were usually on the side of the colonists, and were called "systematic colonizers," or (more commonly) "colonial reformers" and "radical imperialists," to highlight their Radical Whig political roots. After his release Wakefield briefly turned his attention to social questions at home, and produced

3043-700: A new Governor ( George Gawler ) appointed, who would also act as Resident Commissioner. The procedure for the founding of the South Australian province was unclear to the Board of Commissioners, so Letters Patent , specifically Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom erecting and establishing the Province of South Australia and fixing the boundaries thereof , were presented to

3222-873: A new project was under way, the New Zealand Association . In 1837 the Colonial Office gave the New Zealand Association a charter to promote settlement in New Zealand. However, they attached conditions that were unacceptable to the members of the Association. After considerable discussion, interest in the project waned. Wakefield was undoubtedly one of the most influential voices in the Association, but he discovered another interest, Canada. In 1837, there were rebellions in both Lower Canada and Upper Canada . The colonial governments in both provinces had been able to suppress

3401-650: A pamphlet, "A View of Sir Charles Metcalfe's Government of Canada", and an article "Sir Charles Metcalfe in Canada", which appeared in Fisher's Colonial Magazine in July 1844. That was the end of his involvement with Canadian affairs, apart from being paid about £20,000 by the Association for his work in Canada. Wakefield returned to England in early 1844 to find the New Zealand Company under serious attack from

3580-527: A position whereby they were willing to surrender to Robinson and move to Flinders Island . European and Aboriginal casualties, including the Aboriginal residents who were captured, may be considered as reasonably accurate. The figures for the Aboriginal population shot is likely a substantial undercount. In late 1831, Robinson brought the first 51 Aboriginal people to a settlement on Flinders Island named The Lagoons, which turned out to be inadequate as it

3759-525: A reigning monarch from any Aboriginal group in Australia, requesting that the promises made to them be honoured. In October 1847, the 47 survivors were transferred to their final settlement at Oyster Cove station. Only 44 survived the trip (11 couples, 12 single men and 10 children) and the children were immediately sent to the orphan school in Hobart. Although the housing and food was better than Wybalenna,

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3938-404: A representative, James Munro , to appeal to Governor George Arthur and argue for the women's return, on the basis that they wanted to stay with their sealer husbands and children rather than marry Aboriginal men unknown to them. Arthur ordered the return of some of the women. Shortly thereafter, Robinson began to disseminate stories, told to him by James Munro, of atrocities allegedly committed by

4117-639: A riding accident in September 1841 before any decision was made. Wakefield returned to Canada in January 1842 to lobby the new governor, Sir Charles Bagot , and stayed for almost a year. Although there was strong opposition in the Assembly to the canal proposal, a major loan guarantee from the British government ensured that funds could be obtained. In June 1842 the Executive Council approved

4296-612: A ruse by Robinson or Lieutenant-Governor Arthur to transport the Tasmanians quietly to a permanent exile in the Furneaux Islands . The survivors were moved to Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island , where disease continued to reduce their numbers. In 1847, the last 47 survivors on Wybalenna were transferred to Oyster Cove , south of Hobart . Two individuals, Truganini (1812–1876) and Fanny Cochrane Smith (1834–1905), are separately considered to have been

4475-418: A significant debate was generated which split the colonists along class lines. The "higher grade" saw the hanging as a dangerous precedent and argued that Aboriginal people were only defending their land and should not be punished for doing so. The "lower grade" of colonists wanted more Aboriginal people hanged to encourage a "conciliatory line of conduct". Governor Arthur sided with the "lower grade" and 1825 saw

4654-661: A source within Governor Bagot's office: in one letter to the Colonial Gazette , he correctly predicted that Bagot would appoint LaFontaine to the Executive Council within a month, a significant political advance for French-Canadians, and a major shift in imperial policy. It reached the point that rumours circulated that Wakefield himself was behind Bagot's policy, a claim denied by Bagot, who stated that he had only met Wakefield two or three times. At

4833-592: A tract on the Punishment of Death (1831), with a graphic picture of the condemned sermon in Newgate, and another on the rural districts, with an equally powerful exhibition of the degraded condition of the agricultural labourer. He soon, however, became entirely engrossed with colonial affairs. In 1831, having impressed John Stuart Mill , Robert Torrens and other leading economists with the value of his ideas, Wakefield became involved in various schemes to promote

5012-654: A wealthy merchant and former British Cabinet minister, who had substantial business interests in British North America. (Ellice's son, also named Edward Ellice , had been Durham's private secretary. While in Lower Canada, he and his wife, Katherine Ellice , had been taken prisoner by Patriotes at the seigneury during the Battle of Beauharnois in November 1838.) In addition to the proposed settlements,

5191-508: A work primarily intended to develop his own colonial theory, which is done in the appendix entitled "The Art of Colonization." The body of the work contains many new ideas, some of them reaching apparently extreme conclusions. It contains the distinct proposal that the transport of letters should be wholly free, and the prediction that, under given circumstances, the Americans would raise "cheaper corn than has ever yet been raised". Soon,

5370-536: Is now called Encounter Bay . They each gave names to various places around Kangaroo Island and the two gulfs: Gulf St Vincent and Spencer Gulf . The British Government, not wanting to be pre-empted by the French, sent out expeditions to Port Phillip and northern Tasmania , and set up the first free settlement, the Swan River Colony , in 1829. Historian Geoffrey Dutton suggests three clear phases in

5549-511: Is strongly opposed by the Palawa and has drawn an angry reaction from some quarters, as some have claimed " spiritual connection" with Aboriginality distinct from, but not as important as the existence of a genetic link. The Lia Pootah object to the current test used to prove Aboriginality as they believe it favours the Palawa, a DNA test would circumvent barriers to Lia Pootah recognition, or disprove their claims to Aboriginality. In April 2000,

British colonisation of South Australia - Misplaced Pages Continue

5728-468: Is to found a Colony, under Royal Charter , and without convict labour, at or near Spencer Gulf , on the south coast of Australia, a tract of country far removed from the existing Penal Settlements... ...The South Australian Association consists of three classes of members, First, Persons who propose to settle in the Colony. Secondly, Persons willing to aid the Association without taking a responsible part in

5907-596: Is usually considered to be the proclamation of the new Province by Governor Hindmarsh at Glenelg on 28 December 1836. However, after the government under the Colonisation Commission set up by the 1834 Act failed to achieve financial self-sufficiency, the South Australia Act 1842 repealed the earlier Act, made South Australia a Crown colony , provided for the formation of an appointed Legislative Assembly and passed greater powers to

6086-520: The Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania , located south of the mainland. At the time of European contact, Aboriginal Tasmanians were divided into a number of distinct ethnic groups . For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, and erroneously, thought of as extinct and intentionally exterminated by white settlers. Contemporary figures (2016) for

6265-659: The British Museum returning ashes to two descendants in 2007. During the 20th century, the absence of Aboriginal people of solely Aboriginal ancestry, and a general unawareness of the surviving populations, meant many non-Aboriginal people assumed they were extinct , after the death of Truganini in 1876. Since the mid-1970s Tasmanian Aboriginal activists such as Michael Mansell have sought to broaden awareness and identification of Aboriginal descent. After campaigning by Tasmanian Aboriginal people in April 2023 UNESCO removed

6444-534: The Buffalo on 28 December. The foundation of South Australia is usually considered to be Governor Hindmarsh's Proclamation of South Australia at Glenelg on 28 December 1836. Colonel Light was given two months to locate the most advantageous location for the main colony. He was required to find a site with a harbour , arable land , fresh water , ready internal and external communications , building materials and drainage . Light rejected potential locations for

6623-518: The Cape Grim massacre in 1828 demonstrates the level of frontier violence towards Aboriginal Tasmanians. The Black War of 1828–1832 and the Black Line of 1830 were turning points in the relationship with European settlers. Even though many of the Aboriginal people managed to avoid capture during these events, they were shaken by the size of the campaigns against them, and this brought them to

6802-586: The Church of England . This plan matured to become the Canterbury Settlement. The first ship sailed from England in December 1849 with Godley in command of the expedition. Jerningham Wakefield also sailed with them, his health and finances ruined by his dissipated lifestyle in London. The first immigrant ships bound for Canterbury sailed from Plymouth in September 1850, and others followed. In

6981-498: The City of Adelaide Municipal Corporation was the first municipal authority in Australia. At its time of establishment, Adelaide's (and Australia's) first mayor, James Hurtle Fisher , was elected. However, the new corporation suffered financial woes, after several of its actions were unauthorised or reversed by the British government, leading to considerable debt and, so it wound up as insolvent in 1843. The office of Colonial Architect

7160-608: The Colonial Office . Administrative power was divided between a Governor , John Hindmarsh , who represented the Crown , and the Resident Commissioner, who reported to the Colonisation Commissioners and who was responsible for the survey and sale of land as well as for organising migration and funding. The first Resident Commissioner was James Hurtle Fisher . The Commissioner of Public Lands

7339-625: The Governor of South Australia (then Sir George Grey ). There were moves towards representative self-government in the mid-nineteenth century, and South Australia became a self-governing colony in October 1856. The French Nicolas Baudin and the British Matthew Flinders had both made exploratory voyages along the central southern coastline. On 8 April 1802, the vessels of the two explorers met off South Australia, at what

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7518-604: The Mara languages seem to be a relic of ancient conquests mirroring the hostilities during colonial times. After the sea rose to create Bass Strait, the Australian mainland and Tasmania became separate land masses, and the Aboriginal people who had migrated from mainland Australia became cut off from their cousins on the mainland. Archeological evidence suggests remnant populations on the King and Furneaux highlands were stranded by

7697-457: The Province of South Australia was established. Although initially, Wakefield was a driving force, as it came closer to fruition, he was allowed less and less influence, with ally-turned-rival Robert Gouger eventually controlling execution of the scheme. However, he did not lose interest in colonisation as a tool for social engineering . In 1833 he published anonymously England and America ,

7876-433: The 19th century sealer communities of Bass Strait. Between 1803 and 1823, there were two phases of conflict between the Aboriginal people and the British colonists. The first took place between 1803 and 1808 over the need for common food sources such as oysters and kangaroos, and the second between 1808 and 1823, when only a small number of white females lived among the colonists, and farmers, sealers and whalers took part in

8055-414: The 19th century, also point to the significant role of epidemics and infertility without clear attribution of the sources of the diseases as having been introduced through contact with European, and Bonwick notes that Tasmanian Aboriginal women were infected with venereal diseases by Europeans. Introduced venereal disease not only directly caused deaths but, more insidiously, left a significant percentage of

8234-675: The Aboriginal Tasmanians although gifts were left for them in unoccupied shelters found on Bruny Island. The first known British contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians was on Bruny Island by Captain Cook in 1777. The contact was peaceful. Captain William Bligh also visited Bruny Island in 1788 and made peaceful contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians. More extensive contact between Aboriginal Tasmanians and Europeans resulted when British and American seal hunters began visiting

8413-441: The Aboriginal Tasmanians was identified by the colonists. Rapid pastoral expansion, a depletion of native game and an increase in the colony's population triggered Aboriginal resistance from 1824 onwards when it has been estimated by Lyndall Ryan that 1000 Aboriginal people remained in the settled districts. Whereas settlers and stock keepers had previously provided rations to the Aboriginal people during their seasonal movements across

8592-564: The Aboriginal Tasmanians. Trading relationships developed between sealers and Tasmanian Aboriginal tribes. Hunting dogs became highly prized by the Aboriginal people, as were other exotic items such as flour, tea and tobacco. The Aboriginal people traded kangaroo skins for such goods. However, a trade in Aboriginal women soon developed. Many Tasmanian Aboriginal women were highly skilled in hunting seals, as well as in obtaining other foods such as seabirds, and some Tasmanian tribes would trade their services and, more rarely, those of Aboriginal men to

8771-470: The Aboriginal Tasmanians. Bonwick also recorded a strong Aboriginal oral tradition of an epidemic even before formal colonisation in 1803. "Mr Robert Clark, in a letter to me, said: 'I have gleaned from some of the Aborigines, now in their graves, that they were more numerous than the white people were aware of, but their numbers were very much thinned by a sudden attack of disease which was general among

8950-613: The Act, to control sales of land and the administration of revenue: thirteen Commissioners were based in London (at 6 Adelphi Terrace in 1840), with a Resident Commissioner appointed by the board and stationed in the colony. Those first appointed, on 5 May 1835, were Colonel Robert Torrens (Chairman), Rowland Hill (Secretary), G. Barnes (Treasurer), George Fife Angas , Edward Barnard, William Hutt , J. G. Shaw-Lefevre , William Alexander Mackinnon M.P. , Samuel Mills, Jacob Barrow Montefiore , Lt Col George Palmer , and John Wright, representing

9129-558: The Bass Strait Island community as Aboriginal and do not consider as Aboriginal the Lia Pootah , who claim descent, based on oral traditions, from Tasmanian mainland Aboriginal communities. The Lia Pootah feel that the Palawa controlled Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre does not represent them politically. Since 2007 there have been initiatives to introduce DNA testing to establish family history in descendant subgroups. This

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9308-534: The Beauharnois area for the Colonial Association. Metcalfe prorogued the Assembly after the passage of the motion. He found it difficult to assemble a new ministry, and did not recall the Assembly, instead dissolving it for a general election in 1844. Wakefield had returned to Britain after the 1843 session, and did not stand for re-election. In 1844, he wrote two pieces defending Metcalfe:

9487-574: The Beauharnois route, and construction began. As part of his lobbying, Wakefield positioned himself as a champion of French-Canadian interests, sending a series of letters to the Colonial Gazette in London, calling for greater French-Canadian involvement in the government of the province. He cultivated two significant Patriote leaders who had been imprisoned during the Rebellion, Denis-Benjamin Viger and Jean-Joseph Girouard . He also appeared to have

9666-561: The Ben Lomond language meant "dwellings" but is generally translated as "black man's houses". Robinson befriended Truganini, learned some of the local language and in 1833 managed to persuade the remaining 154 "full-blooded" people to move to the new settlement on Flinders Island, where he promised a modern and comfortable environment, and that they would be returned to their former homes on the Tasmanian mainland as soon as possible. At

9845-574: The British colonial society. By 1816, kidnapping of Aboriginal children for labour had become widespread. In 1814, Governor Thomas Davey issued a proclamation expressing "utter indignation and abhorrence" in regards to the kidnapping of the children and in 1819 Governor William Sorell not only re-issued the proclamation but ordered that those who had been taken without parental consent were to be sent to Hobart and supported at government expense. A number of young Aboriginal children were known to be living with settlers. An Irish sealer named Brien spared

10024-547: The British government for years, taking part in numerous negotiations and submitting plans that underwent many modifications. Finally, after intervention by the Duke of Wellington , the bill drafted by the Association and presented by Wolryche-Whitmore was presented to Parliament , which passed the South Australia (Foundation) Act on 15 August 1834. The Act provided for the settlement as the Province of South Australia, for

10203-480: The Colonial Office. In the interval, the Times began publishing extracts from the report. It is not clear how the Times obtained the report, but it is generally accepted that Wakefield likely had a hand in it, to prevent the government from trying to bury the recommendation for responsible government. The report was formally laid before Parliament on 11 February 1839. Eventually this report, and its conclusions, became

10382-433: The Colonial Office. He threw himself into the campaign to save his project. In August 1844 he had a stroke , followed in later months by several other minor strokes, and he had to retire. There is also a possibility that his mental health was not too sound in the succeeding months. His son Jerningham returned from New Zealand about this time and cared for him. In August 1845 he went to France to recuperate and to give himself

10561-473: The Commissioners, which led to tension between the two and caused problems later. The Act provided that three or more persons could be appointed as Commissioners to be known as Colonization Commissioners for South Australia, to carry out certain parts of the Act. The Commissioners formed a Board, which had responsibilities for: The British government appointed Commissioners to oversee implementation of

10740-577: The King highlands (now King Island ). The archeological, geographic and linguistic record suggests successive waves of occupation of Tasmania, and coalescence of three language groups into one broad group. Colonial settlers found two main language and ethnic groups in Tasmania upon their arrival, the western Nara and eastern Mara. The admixture of Nara toponyms (place-names) in the Eastern territory of

10919-459: The New Year with a fairly radical plan that both the Government and the New Zealand Company should withdraw from New Zealand affairs and the colony should become self-governing. While it might have been a good idea, Wakefield wanted it accepted immediately, and became at first heated and then distressed when some months later, it was still being considered. In August 1846, he had another, potentially fatal stroke. His friend, Charles Buller , took up

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11098-408: The New Zealand Company, Wakefield had also maintained his interest in Canadian affairs. He returned briefly in 1841, a year after the British government had brought the Union Act, 1840 into force. The government had only implemented part of Durham's recommendations. The act merged Lower Canada and Upper Canada into the new Province of Canada , but had not implemented responsible government. There

11277-401: The Orphan School in Hobart. Lyndall Ryan reports fifty-eight Aboriginal people, of various ages, living with settlers in Tasmania in the period up to 1835. Some historians argue that European disease did not appear to be a serious factor until after 1829. Other historians including Geoffrey Blainey and Keith Windschuttle , point to introduced disease as the main cause of the destruction of

11456-495: The Province of Canada for a short time. He was best known for his colonisation scheme, sometimes referred to as the Wakefield scheme or the Wakefield system , which aimed to populate the new colony of South Australia with a workable combination of labourers, tradespeople, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants. Despite being imprisoned for three years in 1827 for kidnapping

11635-675: The Province of South Australia. The first migrant ship, the John Pirie , set sail for the colony three days later. An amendment to the 1834 Act (the South Australia Government Act 1838 ( 1 & 2 Vict. c. 60), passed 31 July 1838) incorporated the changes. Under the emigration scheme, "worthy" labourers and their families received free passage. They had to be between 15 and 30 years of age, preferably married, and needed two references. Steerage passengers paid £15-20, middle berth £35-40, and cabin class £70. Children under 14 years were charged £3 while those under 1 year were free. Montefiore and Lt-Col Palmer helped Colonel Light to prepare two of

11814-423: The South Australia Company arrived at Nepean Bay on Kangaroo Island : the Duke of York on 27 July, Lady Mary Pelham on 30 July, John Pirie on 16 August and Emma on 5 October. More ships left in the coming months, making a total of at least nine, which for convenience can be regarded as the First Fleet of South Australia . Apart from the last one, HMS Buffalo , all went to Nepean Bay first. A settlement

11993-471: The South Australian Company imported pure merinos from the German region of Saxony , and cows and goats were also shipped over. Sheep and other livestock were brought in from Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales. The wool industry was the basis of South Australia's economy for the first few years, with the first wool auction held in Adelaide in 1840. The settlers were mostly British, but some German settlers , mainly " Old Lutherans ", also emigrated in

12172-430: The Tasmanian Government Legislative Council Select Committee on Aboriginal Lands discussed the difficulty of determining Aboriginality based on oral traditions. An example given by Prof. Cassandra Pybus was the claim by the Huon and Channel Aboriginal people who had an oral history of descent from two Aboriginal women. Research found that both were non-Aboriginal convict women. The Tasmanian Palawa Aboriginal community

12351-452: The Tasmanian decimation qualifies as genocide by the definition of Raphael Lemkin adopted in the UN Genocide Convention . By 1833, George Augustus Robinson , sponsored by Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur , had persuaded the approximately 200 surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians to surrender themselves with assurances that they would be protected and provided for, and eventually have their lands returned. These assurances were no more than

12530-404: The Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island, described by historian Henry Reynolds as the "best equipped and most lavishly staffed Aboriginal institution in the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century", they were provided with housing, clothing, rations of food, the services of a doctor and educational facilities. Convicts were assigned to build housing and do most of the work at

12709-408: The ambitious John Hindmarsh had got wind of the forthcoming appointment, and set out first to see Napier, then woo some powerful supporters in London, including the Lords of the Admiralty before approaching the Colonial Secretary (Gouger). Light was appointed Surveyor-General on 14 December 1835, and on 21 January 1836 Captain Hindmarsh was appointed the first Governor of South Australia . Hindmarsh

12888-425: The appointment was forbidden by London. Durham appointed one of his other advisors, Charles Buller , as Commissioner, but kept Wakefield as an unofficial representative, advisor and negotiator, giving him effectively the same powers he would have had if he been appointed, but without being paid. Wakefield's main task was analysis of the issue of public lands and the relationship of land to settlement. He prepared

13067-611: The association was to bring to fruition the idea of "systematic colonisation", as proposed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield , in the creation of a new colony in South Australia by the British government. The proposal was for a colony that belonged to the Crown but with its administration run by trustees. The aim of the Association and details of the planned administration of the proposed colony were published on 11 January 1834 in The Spectator : The object of this Association

13246-486: The capture of those without passes, £5 (equivalent to about £540 or AU$ 1010 in 2023 ) for an adult and £2 for children, a process that often led to organised hunts resulting in deaths. Every dispatch from Governor Arthur to the Secretary of State during this period stressed that in every case where Aboriginal people had been killed it was colonists that initiated hostilities. Though many Aboriginal deaths went unrecorded,

13425-554: The centre of government would be on Kangaroo Island or at Port Lincoln on the western side of Spencer Gulf , based on reports from Matthew Flinders . However, the scheme, which included free trade, self-government and the power to select the Governor, was not approved as these ideas were considered too radical and republican. In 1833 the South Australian Association was established and began to lobby

13604-460: The colonisation of South Australia . He believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by overpopulation , and he saw emigration to the colonies as a useful safety valve. He set out to design a colonisation scheme with a workable combination of labourers, artisans and capital. The scheme was to be financed by the sale of land to the capitalists who would thereby support the other classes of emigrants. It took several attempts before

13783-409: The colony was founded is traceable, as far as our proofs allow us to judge, to the prevalence of epidemic disorders. ' " Roth was referring to James Erskine Calder who took up a post as a surveyor in Tasmania in 1829 and who wrote a number of scholarly papers about the Aboriginal people. "According to Calder, a rapid and remarkable declension of the numbers of the Aborigines had been going on long before

13962-844: The custom of the sealers was to each have "two to five of these native women for their own use and benefit". A shortage of women available "in trade" resulted in abduction becoming common, and in 1830 it was reported that at least fifty Aboriginal women were "kept in slavery" on the Bass Strait islands. Harrington, a sealer, procured ten or fifteen native women, and placed them on different islands in Bass's Straits, where he left them to procure skins; if, however, when he returned, they had not obtained enough, he punished them by tying them up to trees for twenty-four to thirty-six hours together, flogging them at intervals, and he killed them not infrequently if they proved stubborn. There are numerous stories of

14141-456: The early times of the colony, may be safely added ... Robinson always enumerates the sexes of the individuals he took; ... and as a general thing, found scarcely any children amongst them; ... adultness was found to outweigh infancy everywhere in a remarkable degree ..." Robinson recorded in his journals a number of comments regarding the Aboriginal Tasmanians' susceptibility to diseases, particularly respiratory diseases. In 1832 he revisited

14320-648: The early years. The first large group of Germans arrived in 1838, with the financial assistance of the Emigration Fund. Most moved out of Adelaide and to the Barossa Valley and settlements in the Adelaide Hills such as Hahndorf , living in socially closed communities, by 1842, and did not participate in government until responsible government was granted 15 years later in 1857. Established in 1840, with its first meeting held on 4 November 1840,

14499-682: The end of the parliamentary session in October 1842, John William Dunscomb , the member of the Legislative Assembly for the Beauharnois district , resigned his seat, since he had taken a new position in Montreal. Wakefield saw an opportunity and stood for election in Beauharnois. Campaigning as a supporter of LaFontaine, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly in November 1842. Having been elected, he then returned to Britain. Wakefield returned to Canada in September 1843 for

14678-456: The entire population previous to the arrival of the English, entire tribes of natives having been swept off in the course of one or two days' illness. ' " Such an epidemic may be linked to contact with sailors or sealers. Henry Ling Roth, an anthropologist, wrote: "Calder, who has gone more fully into the particulars of their illnesses, writes as follows ...: 'Their rapid declension after

14857-431: The fact that she was a wealthy heiress probably played a part, with Edward receiving a marriage settlement of £70,000 (almost US$ 7m in 2018 dollars ), with the prospect of more when Eliza turned 21. The married couple, accompanied by the bride's mother and various servants, moved to Genoa , Italy, where Wakefield was again employed in a diplomatic capacity. Here his first child, Susan Priscilla Wakefield, known as Nina,

15036-540: The first official acceptance that Aboriginal people were at least partly to blame for conflict. In 1826 the Government gazette, which had formerly reported "retaliatory actions" by Aboriginal people, now reported "acts of atrocity" and for the first time used the terminology "Aborigine" instead of "native". A newspaper reported that there were only two solutions to the problem: either they should be "hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed" or they should be removed from

15215-400: The fitting out. Fearing a last-minute attempt by the government to prevent her sailing, Wakefield hastened down to Plymouth and advised their immediate departure. The Tory finally quit English shores on 12 May 1839 and reached New Zealand 96 days later. Wakefield did not sail with the colonists, and many years were to pass before he saw New Zealand. He may have recognised that he did not have

15394-488: The following 12 years. No consensus exists as to the cause, over which a major controversy arose. The traditional view, still affirmed, held that this dramatic demographic collapse was the result of the impact of introduced diseases, rather than the consequence of policy. Others attributed the depletion to losses in the Black War , and the prostitution of women. Many historians of colonialism and genocide consider that

15573-554: The formation of the South Australian Land Company in 1831, but this first attempt failed to achieve its goals, and the company folded. The South Australian Association was formed in 1833 by Wakefield, Robert Gouger and other supporters, which put forward a proposal less radical than previous ones, which was finally supported and a Bill proposed in Parliament. The British Province of South Australia

15752-506: The foundation of the colony: first, the practical men, with their discoveries, second, the theorists, in particular Wakefield and Gouger, who had not seen Australia, and, lastly, the settlers, who had to marry fact with ideals. Prior to the establishment of a formal British colony, Kangaroo Island was inhabited by sealers more or less continuously from 1803, when American sealing captain Isaac Pendleton established an outpost at what

15931-471: The full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal population. Keith Windschuttle argues that while smallpox never reached Tasmania, respiratory diseases such as influenza , pneumonia and tuberculosis and the effects of venereal diseases devastated the Tasmanian Aboriginal population whose long isolation from contact with the mainland compromised their resistance to introduced disease. The work of historian James Bonwick and anthropologist H. Ling Roth, both writing in

16110-503: The government for the establishment of a colony in South Australia, with Crown-appointed governance. Robert Gouger started setting up the South Australian Association from November 1833. Between that time and August 1834, he corresponded with George Grote , Sir Edward Smith-Stanley, Earl of Derby , William Wolryche-Whitmore , Joseph Hume , Liberal MP Sir William Clay , and Charles Shaw-Lefevre . The aim of

16289-465: The government on 19 February 1836, and with its adoption along with an Order-in-Council on 23 February 1836 the foundation of the South Australian province was achieved. The main changes in the Letters Patent were to amend the wording in the 1834 document which referred to the land as "unoccupied", and to recognise the rights of the "Aboriginal Natives" to live unhindered within the lands of

16468-463: The ground, with an opening at the top to let out the smoke, and closed at the ends, with the exception of a doorway. They were twenty feet long by ten feet wide. In each of these from twenty to thirty blacks were lodged ... To savages accustomed to sleep naked in the open air beneath the rudest shelter, the change to close and heated dwellings tended to make them susceptible, as they had never been in their wild state, to chills from atmospheric changes, and

16647-728: The highlands since the Ice Age. In 1990, archaeologists excavated material in the Warreen Cave in the Maxwell River valley of the south-west, proving Aboriginal occupation from as early as 34,000 BP , making Aboriginal Tasmanians the southernmost population in the world during the Pleistocene era. Digs in southwest and central Tasmania turned up abundant finds, affording "the richest archaeological evidence from Pleistocene Greater Australia" from 35,000 to 11,000 BP. Tasmania

16826-595: The ideas of the society. Colonel Robert Torrens and Robert Wilmot-Horton were on the committee of the society. The society published The Outline of a Plan of a Colony , later expanded and elaborated upon by Wakefield. In 1831, Lord Howick , Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office was won over by the idea of selling land at a fixed, uniform price, and based his "Ripon Regulations" on this principle, issued in February 1831, which abolished free land grants, replacing them with and land sales at public auction , set at

17005-533: The island and the rest of mainland Australia, during the Last Glacial Period . Genetic studies show that once the sea level rose to flood the Bassian Plain , the island's population was isolated for approximately 8,000 years, until European exploration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The discovery of 19,000-year-old deposits at Kutikina (or Fraser) Cave demonstrated occupation of

17184-442: The islands in Bass Strait as well as the northern and eastern coasts of Tasmania from the late 1790s. Shortly thereafter (by about 1800), sealers were regularly left on uninhabited islands in Bass Strait during the sealing season (November to May). The sealers established semi-permanent camps or settlements on the islands, which were close enough for the sealers to reach the main island of Tasmania in small boats and so make contact with

17363-610: The land so purchased for the Reception of Immigrants", and the South Australian Land Company ( SALC ) was formed in 1831 to establish a new colony in the area of South Australia. The SALC sought a Royal Charter for the purchase of land for colonisation, which would raise funding for the transport of immigrants, and for the governance of the new colony to be administered by the SALC. The company anticipated that

17542-474: The land. Land could be bought at a uniform price per acre, but it would go to auction in the case of more than one potential buyer. Leases of up to three years could be granted "for pasturage" on unsold lands. All proceeds were to go to the Emigration Fund, set up to help poorer people to migrate to the colony. These regulations were of great significance; the success of the Wakefield scheme to populate and fund

17721-439: The last people solely of Tasmanian descent. The complete Aboriginal Tasmanian languages have been lost; research suggests that the languages spoken on the island belonged to several distinct language families . Some original Tasmanian language words remained in use with Palawa people in the (a community of people descended from European men and Tasmanian Aboriginal women on the Furneaux Islands off Tasmania, which survives to

17900-435: The leaders without trial, nor to threaten the exiles with death. Melbourne's government disallowed Durham's ordinance, which Durham took as a lack of confidence. He and Wakefield left Lower Canada shortly before the second outbreak of the Rebellion in November 1838. In Britain, Durham went into seclusion while he wrote his report on the causes of the rebellions and his recommendations for reforms to prevent further unrest in

18079-543: The life of the baby son of a native woman he had abducted, explaining, "as (he) had stolen the dam he would keep the cub". When the child grew up he became an invaluable assistant to Brien but was considered "no good" by his own people as he was brought up to dislike Aboriginal people, whom he considered "dirty lazy brutes". Twenty-six were definitely known (through baptismal records) to have been taken into settlers' homes as infants or very small children, too young to be of service as labourers. Some Aboriginal children were sent to

18258-507: The living conditions had deteriorated to the extent that in October Robinson personally took charge of Wybalenna, organising better food and improving the housing. However, of the 220 who arrived with Robinson, most died in the following 14 years from introduced disease and inadequate shelter. As a result of their loss of freedom, the birth rate was extremely low and few children survived infancy. In 1839, Governor Franklin appointed

18437-514: The marriage, which had not been consummated , was dissolved by a special act of parliament . He turned his attention while in prison to colonial subjects, and considered the main causes of the slow progress of the Australian colonies in the enormous size of the landed estates , the reckless manner in which land was given away, the absence of all systematic effort at colonisation, and the consequent discouragement of immigration and dearth of labour . He proposed to remedy this state of things by

18616-417: The members of the Executive Council resigned, arguing that Metcalfe's actions were inconsistent with the principle of responsible government. There was a major debate in the Assembly over the issue, resulting in the passage of a motion condemning Governor Metcalfe for his actions. Wakefield defended Metcalfe, relying on a narrow interpretation of the principle of responsible government, and also insinuating that

18795-541: The murdered. Amalie Dietrich for example became famous for delivering such specimens. Aboriginal people have considered the dispersal of body parts as being disrespectful, as a common aspect within Aboriginal belief systems is that a soul can only be at rest when laid in its homeland. Body parts and ornaments are still being returned from collections today, with the Royal College of Surgeons of England returning samples of Truganini's skin and hair (in 2002), and

18974-740: The negotiations. In May 1847 the British Government agreed to take over the debts of the New Zealand Company and to buy out their interests in the Colony. The directors readily accepted the offer. Wakefield found he was powerless and unable to influence the decision, which did not please him. Without notice, his youngest brother Felix Wakefield , who had been in Tasmania since the early 1830s, reappeared in England accompanied by eight of his children, having abandoned his wife and youngest child in Australia. Felix had no money and no prospects and

19153-407: The new Governor General, Sir Charles Metcalfe . (Bagot had died earlier in the year.) In November, there was a major political crisis: LaFontaine and his colleague, Robert Baldwin , who had taken office on the principle of responsible government, got into a dispute with Metcalfe over appointments that Metcalfe made without consulting the Executive Council. LaFontaine, Baldwin, and all but one of

19332-500: The new Province hinged on land development, so land law and regulations governing it were fundamental. Sales of land had proved difficult; buyers did not rush to buy an acre of wild land for 20 shillings . It was left to the South Australian Company (formed on 15 October 1835, after talented businessman George Fife Angas resigned as Commissioner) to purchase the remaining portion of the £35,000 worth of land that

19511-534: The new commander for the station, and moved the Aboriginal people back to The Lagoons. Darling ensured a supply of plentiful food and permitted "hunting excursions". In October 1832, it was decided to build a new camp with better buildings ( wattle and daub ) at a more suitable location, Pea Jacket Point. Pea Jacket Point was renamed Civilisation Point but became more commonly known as the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment . Wybalenna in

19690-429: The new government was to be saddled with the remaining debts of the defunct New Zealand Company. Wakefield now decided that he had achieved everything he could in England; it was time to see the colony he felt he had created. He sailed from Plymouth in September 1852, knowing he would never return. His sister Catherine and her son Charley came to see him off. Then, at the last minute, his father appeared. Edward Wakefield

19869-785: The new main settlement, including Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and Encounter Bay . Light decided that the Adelaide plains were the best location for settlement. The River Torrens was discovered to the south and Light and his team set about determining the city's precise location and layout. The survey was completed on 11 March 1837. Light's poorly paid and ill-equipped surveying team were expected to begin another massive task of surveying at least 405 square kilometres (156 sq mi) of rural land. Light, despite slowly succumbing to tuberculosis , managed to survey 605.7 square kilometres (233.9 sq mi) (or 150,000 acres (61,000 ha)) by June 1838. The settlement grew steadily. In 1836

20048-402: The number of people of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent vary according to the criteria used to determine this identity, ranging from 6,000 to over 23,000. First arriving in Tasmania (then a peninsula of Australia) around 40,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Aboriginal Tasmanians were cut off from the Australian mainland by rising sea levels c. 6000 BC. They were entirely isolated from

20227-643: The other Patriote leaders were "profoundly ignorant of their own position and thoroughly devoid of judgment..." Durham abruptly resigned his post as Governor General in the fall of 1838. He had attempted to deal with those who had been caught in arms by pardoning the rank and file, exiling eight of the leaders to Bermuda, and threatening Patriotes in exile in the United States with death if they returned to Lower Canada. In London, Lord Brougham , former Lord Chancellor , vigorously criticised these actions, arguing that Durham had no legal authority to exile

20406-536: The other settlers described him as "the worst man we have in Canterbury". During 1851 and 1852 Wakefield continued to work for the Canterbury Association and also worked towards making New Zealand a self-governing colony . The New Zealand Constitution Act was passed on 30 June 1852. There was general satisfaction among New Zealanders about this, although they were less happy to discover that

20585-423: The outside world for 8,000 years until European contact. Before British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Aboriginal Tasmanians. The Aboriginal Tasmanian population suffered a drastic drop in numbers within three decades, so that by 1835 only some 400 full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal people survived, most of this remnant being incarcerated in camps where all but 47 died within

20764-665: The parliamentary session. He initially aligned himself with the French-Canadian Group under LaFontaine's leadership, but part-way through the session he left them. He had introduced a bill to make the North American Colonial Association of Ireland a mortgage and trust company, with an accompanying colonisation plan. When the French-Canadian Group refused to support his proposals, he left them and shifted his support to

20943-489: The patience, the skills or the talents needed on a frontier. His talents lay in visualising dramatic plans and grandiose schemes, ignoring the details, and then persuading other people to get involved. He was a salesman, a propagandist and a politician, secretly inspiring and guiding many parliamentary committees on colonial subjects, especially on the abolition of penal transportation . By the end of 1839, he had dispatched eight more ships to New Zealand, before he even knew of

21122-542: The population unable to reproduce. Josephine Flood, archaeologist, wrote: "Venereal disease sterilised and chest complaints – influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis – killed." Bonwick, who lived in Tasmania, recorded a number of reports of the devastating effect of introduced disease including one report by a Doctor Story, a Quaker , who wrote: "After 1823 the women along with the tribe seemed to have had no children; but why I do not know." Later historians have reported that introduced venereal disease caused infertility amongst

21301-474: The present) and there are some efforts to reconstruct a language from the available wordlists. Today, some thousands of people living in Tasmania describe themselves as Aboriginal Tasmanians, since a number of Tasmanian Aboriginal women bore children to European men in the Furneaux Islands and mainland Tasmania. People crossed into Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago via a land bridge between

21480-434: The proceedings. Thirdly, Persons who may take an active part in the preliminary proceedings of the Association, and may become, under the proposed Charter, Trustees for carrying its provisions into effect. The members of the South Australian Association were men of varied backgrounds, from philanthropists to merchants, including Wakefield, Robert Gouger, Robert Torrens Sr and George Fife Angas . The association organised

21659-402: The process. By 1810 seal numbers had been greatly reduced by hunting so most seal hunters abandoned the area, however a small number of sealers, approximately fifty mostly "renegade sailors, escaped convicts or ex-convicts", remained as permanent residents of the Bass Strait islands and some established families with Tasmanian Aboriginal women. Some of the women were taken back to the islands by

21838-528: The rapid depletion of the numbers of Aboriginal women in the northern areas of Tasmania – "by 1830 only three women survived in northeast Tasmania among 72 men" – and thus contributed in a significant manner to the demise of the full-blooded Aboriginal population of Tasmania. However, a mixed-race community of partial Tasmanian Aboriginal descent formed on the Islands, where it remains to the present, and many modern day Aboriginal Tasmanians trace their descent from

22017-489: The real reason LaFontaine and Baldwin had resigned was that they feared defeat on a taxation bill they had introduced. He voted against the motion and in support of Metcalfe, along with Viger and some other members who left the French-Canadian Group on the issue. Following the resignations, Wakefield appeared to be heavily involved in giving advice to Metcalfe, with some saying that he was the real governor. His motivation appears to have been still focused on his schemes to develop

22196-478: The rebellions, but the underlying political discontent had not been resolved. In January 1838, the government of Lord Melbourne appointed Lord Durham as Governor General of all of British North America , to inquire into the causes of the rebellions and to make recommendations to settle the disputes. Durham was authorised to appoint his own advisors, and chose Wakefield as one of them. Durham knew Wakefield through Wakefield's plans for colonisation of New Zealand. He

22375-478: The reformers from Lower Canada, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine . He also travelled to Saratoga Springs , New York, in an unsuccessful attempt to meet with the main leader of the Patriote movement , Louis-Joseph Papineau , who had fled to the United States during the Rebellion. It is not clear if Wakefield was acting on his own initiative in these conversations, or on secret instructions from Durham. He later said he

22554-424: The remnants were gathered together on Flinders Island. Whole tribes (some of which Robinson mentions by name as being in existence fifteen or twenty years before he went amongst them, and which probably never had a shot fired at them) had absolutely and entirely vanished. To the causes to which he attributes this strange wasting away ... I think infecundity , produced by the infidelity of the women to their husbands in

22733-427: The rising waters and died out. Abel Jansen Tasman, credited as the first European to discover Tasmania (in 1642) and who named it Van Diemen's Land, did not encounter any of the Aboriginal Tasmanians when he landed. In 1772, a French exploratory expedition under Marion Dufresne visited Tasmania. At first, contact with the Aboriginal people was friendly; however the Aboriginal Tasmanians became alarmed when another boat

22912-438: The sale of land in small quantities at a sufficient price, and the employment of the proceeds as a fund for promoting immigration. These views were expressed in his Letter from Sydney (1829; published under a false name ), published while he was still in prison, but often quoted as if written on the spot. He had published pamphlets in prison in 1828 under the title "Sketch of a Proposal for Colonising Australia", which had created

23091-594: The sale of lands, for funding of the venture, and for governance. The South Australia Act 1834 set out the governance of the new colony by a new body known as the South Australian Colonization Commission , also known as the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia (and variant spellings), which would be based in London. However, the Act gave control of the new colony to the Colonial Office as well as

23270-700: The same year, Wakefield co-founded the Colonial Reform Society with Charles Adderley , a landowner and member of parliament for North Staffordshire . Felix was causing problems back in Britain and causing Wakefield a great deal of grief. Felix decided that settlement in New Zealand was the solution to all his problems. Wakefield reluctantly sponsored his passage to Canterbury, where Felix was allocated 100 acres (0.40 km ) (40 hectares) of land near Sumner . He and six of his children arrived in Lyttelton in November 1851. A short time later one of

23449-469: The sealers against Aboriginal people, and against Aboriginal women in particular. Brian Plomley , who edited Robinson's papers, expressed scepticism about these atrocities and notes that they were not reported to Archdeacon William Broughton 's 1830 committee of inquiry into violence towards Tasmanians. Abduction and ill-treatment of Aboriginal Tasmanians certainly occurred, but the extent is debated. The raids for and trade in Aboriginal women contributed to

23628-533: The sealers being confident that they would return. Bonwick also reports a number of claims of brutality by sealers towards Aboriginal women including some of those made by Robinson. An Aboriginal woman by the name of Bulrer related her experience to Robinson, that sealers had rushed her camp and stolen six women including herself "the white men tie them and then they flog them very much, plenty much blood, plenty cry." Sealing captain James Kelly wrote in 1816 that

23807-543: The sealers for dogs and flour. Walyer was later to gain some notoriety for her attempts to kill the sealers to escape their brutality. Walyer, a Punnilerpanner, joined the Plairhekehillerplue band after eventually escaping and went on to lead attacks on employees of the Van Diemen's Land Company . Walyer's attacks are the first recorded use of muskets by Aboriginal people. Captured, she refused to work and

23986-416: The sealers for the seal-hunting season. Others were sold on a permanent basis. This trade incorporated not only women of the tribe engaged in the trade but also women abducted from other tribes. Some may have been given to incorporate the new arrivals into Aboriginal society through marriage. Sealers engaged in raids along the coasts to abduct Aboriginal women and were reported to have killed Aboriginal men in

24165-473: The sealers involuntarily and some went willingly, as in the case of a woman called Tarenorerer (Eng: Walyer). Differing opinions have been given on Walyer's involvement with the sealers. McFarlane writes that she voluntarily joined the sealers with members of her family, and was responsible for attacking Aboriginal people and white settlers alike. Ryan comes to a different conclusion, that Walyer had been abducted at Port Sorell by Aboriginal people and traded to

24344-497: The sealers' brutality towards the Aboriginal women; with some of these reports originating from Robinson. In 1830, Robinson seized 14 Aboriginal women from the sealers, planning for them to marry Aboriginal men at the Flinders Island settlement. Josephine Flood , an archaeologist specialising in Australian mainland Aboriginal peoples, notes: "he encountered strong resistance from the women as well as sealers". The sealers sent

24523-463: The sealing colonies on Bass Strait – who were often violently abducted from their homelands and made to work as slaves. Influenced by prison reformer Elizabeth Fry serving a term in prison for abducting a minor, Wakefield turned his mind to social problems caused by over-population . In 1829, he wrote a series of anonymous "Letters from Sydney" to a London newspaper, The Morning Chronicle , in which he purported to write about his own experiences as

24702-561: The seigneury was also valuable because it was close to the location for a proposed canal, to avoid a stretch of rapids on the River St. Lawrence . The initial arrangement for purchase had been made in 1839, and in 1841 Wakefield made a brief trip to Canada to gain support for the canal proposal. He met with the Governor General, Lord Sydenham , who was interested in the proposal but wary of Wakefield's involvement. Sydenham died in

24881-413: The settled districts, and recognised this practice as some form of payment for trespass and loss of traditional hunting grounds, the new settlers and stock keepers were unwilling to maintain these arrangements and the Aboriginal people began to raid settlers' huts for food. The official Government position was that Aboriginal people were blameless for any hostilities, but when Musquito was hanged in 1825,

25060-431: The settled districts. The colonial Government assigned troops to drive them out. A Royal Proclamation in 1828 established military posts on the boundaries and a further proclamation declared martial law against the Aboriginal people. As it was recognised that there were fixed routes for seasonal migration, Aboriginal people were required to have passes if they needed to cross the settled districts with bounties offered for

25239-422: The settlement including the growing of food in the vegetable gardens. After arrival, all Aboriginal children aged between six and 15 years were removed from their families to be brought up by the storekeeper and a lay preacher. The Aboriginal people were free to roam the island and were often absent from the settlement for extended periods on hunting trips as the rations supplied turned out to be inadequate. By 1835

25418-525: The settlers. In addition, the colonies would be more or less self-governing. His ideas were not original, but Wakefield was the one who synthesised a number of theories into one plan of systematic colonisation, and who spread the ideas among the British public and urged the Colonial Office to push forward with such a plan. After his release from prison in 1830, he funded the National Colonization Society , with Gouger as secretary and

25597-481: The ships, Rapid and Cygnet . They proposed a new code for emigrant ships carrying more than 100 passengers, which meant having a minimum deck height and including a medical practitioner on board. These reforms reduced mortality and were later adopted by all British emigrant ships. Four ships chartered by the South Australia Company set sail for South Australia in early 1836: All four ships of

25776-406: The station was a former convict station that had been abandoned earlier that year due to health issues as it was located on inadequately drained mudflats . According to the guards, the Aboriginal people developed "too much independence" by trying to continue their culture which they considered "recklessness" and "rank ingratitude". Their numbers continued to diminish, being estimated in 1859 at around

25955-879: The success of the Tory expedition led by his brother William. He then recruited another brother, Arthur , to lead another expedition, this time to settle in the Nelson area at the top of the South Island . Charles Torlesse, the 16-year-old son of his elder sister Catherine, and Rev. Charles Martin Torlesse, rector of Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk , sailed with Arthur as a trainee surveyor. By now William's daughter, Emily, and his ward, Leocadia, were already in New Zealand. Two more of his brothers also went to New Zealand later, along with numerous nieces and nephews. Although active with

26134-422: The trading, and the abduction, of Aboriginal women as sexual partners. These practices also increased conflict over women among Aboriginal tribes. This in turn led to a decline in the Aboriginal population. Historian Lyndall Ryan records 74 Aboriginal people (almost all women) living with sealers on the Bass Strait islands in the period up to 1835. In 1804, the first major massacre of Aboriginal Tasmanians occurred

26313-474: The two colonies be united under a single government, but with the key recommendation that the government be drawn from the groups which had a majority in the Assembly: the basic principle of responsible government . Durham's report was one of the first documents to outline this principle in detail. Durham provided the proofs of the report to Cabinet on 31 January 1839, four days before he presented it to

26492-517: The two colonies: Report on the Affairs of British North America . Wakefield and Buller are not mentioned in the report, but it seems likely that the report was written cooperatively by the three men, although some historians have asserted the primary author was Wakefield, while others have said it was Buller. (Lord Brougham, still a critic of Durham, commented that "Wakefield thought it, Buller wrote it, Durham signed it.") The report recommended that

26671-473: The use of clothes had a most mischievous effect on their health. By January 1832 a further 44 captured Aboriginal residents had arrived and conflicts arose between the tribal groups. To defuse the situation, Sergeant Wight took the Big River group to Green Island , where they were abandoned, and he later decided to move the rest to Green Island as well. Two weeks later Robinson arrived with Lieutenant Darling,

26850-408: The west coast of Tasmania, far from the settled regions, and wrote: "The numbers of Aborigines along the western coast have been considerably reduced since the time of my last visit [1830]. A mortality has raged amongst them which together with the severity of the season and other causes had rendered the paucity of their number very considerable." Between 1825 and 1831 a pattern of guerilla warfare by

27029-703: The white man's musket. The Oyster Cove people attracted contemporaneous international scientific interest from the 1860s onwards, with many museums claiming body parts for their collections. Scientists were interested in studying Aboriginal Tasmanians from a physical anthropology perspective, hoping to gain insights into the field of paleoanthropology . For these reasons, they were interested in individual Aboriginal body parts and whole skeletons . Tasmanian Aboriginal skulls were particularly sought internationally for studies into craniofacial anthropometry . Truganini herself entertained fears that her body might be exploited after her death and two years after her death her body

27208-473: Was a British criminal who became a 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 member of parliament). He also had significant interests in British North America , being involved in the drafting of Lord Durham's Report and being a member of the Parliament of

27387-626: Was a bicameral parliament with an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed Legislative Council , but the Governor General still retained considerable control over the government. Wakefield was involved with the North American Colonial Association of Ireland . At his instigation, the Association had purchased a large estate just outside Montreal , the seigneury of Villechauve, where they wanted to establish another colonial settlement. The seigneury, also known as Beauharnois , had been owned by Edward Ellice ,

27566-431: Was a founder member, and Robert Gouger was elected (or appointed ) inaugural secretary of the society, although he was later to fall out with Wakefield when they disagreed on the price that should be charged for land. Members over time included Robert Rintoul (editor of The Spectator ), Charles Buller , John Stuart Mill , Sir William Molesworth , W. W. Whitmore , and Sir William Hutt . Jeremy Bentham supported

27745-558: Was a member of the New Zealand Association, set up by Wakefield ten years earlier to encourage emigration to New Zealand. Durham was only prepared to accept the task if Wakefield accompanied him as Commissioner of Crown Lands. However, they both knew that Wakefield would be completely unacceptable to the British government, so Durham planned to announce the appointment only after he had reached Canada. Wakefield and his son, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, sailed secretly for Canada in April 1838, but before they arrived word had leaked out, and

27924-425: Was acting on his own, but LaFontaine had the clear impression he was acting for Durham. During his conversation with LaFontaine, Wakefield had tried to persuade him to publicly approve Durham's policy concerning the exiles to Bermuda, and the death penalty for Patriotes still in the United States. LaFontaine refused, seeing in it his " suicide politique ". Wakefield was not impressed by LaFontaine, writing that he and

28103-546: Was actively considering making New Zealand a British Colony in which case land sales would become a government monopoly . At a meeting in March 1839, Wakefield was invited to become the director of the New Zealand Company. His philosophy was the same as when he planned his elopements: "Possess yourself of the Soil and you are Secure." It was decided that the Tory would sail for New Zealand as soon as possible. His brother William

28282-506: Was appointed the leader of the expedition with his son Jerningham as his nominal secretary. They had some difficulty finding a suitable captain for the Tory , but then found Edward Main Chaffers who had been sailing master on HMS Beagle during Fitzroy's circumnavigation . Dr. Ernst Dieffenbach was appointed as scientific officer, and Charles Heaphy as a draughtsman. The Tory left London on 5 May and called at Plymouth to complete

28461-601: Was appointed to act under the orders of the Commissioners. All monies were to be submitted to the Lord of His Majesty's Treasury , and be audited in the same manner as other public accounts. A report was required to be submitted to the Secretary of State at least once a year. Robert Gouger was Colonial Secretary to the Commission, John Hindmarsh was appointed Governor and William Light Surveyor-General. The Commission

28640-775: Was banished to Penguin Island . Later imprisoned on Swan Island she attempted to organise a rebellion. Although Aboriginal women were by custom forbidden to take part in war, several Aboriginal women who escaped from sealers became leaders or took part in attacks. According to Lyndall Ryan , the women traded to or kidnapped by sealers became "a significant dissident group" against European/white authority. Historian James Bonwick reported Aboriginal women who were clearly captives of sealers but he also reported women living with sealers who "proved faithful and affectionate to their new husbands", women who appeared "content" and others who were allowed to visit their "native tribe", taking gifts, with

28819-727: Was born in 1817. The household returned to London in 1820 and a second child, Edward Jerningham Wakefield , was born. Four days later Eliza died, and Edward resigned his post. The two children were brought up by their aunt, Wakefield's older sister, Catherine. Nina was suffering from tuberculosis , and Wakefield took his daughter to Lisbon in Portugal in the hope of recovery. He employed a young peasant girl, Leocadia de Oliveira, whom he later fostered, to help care for Nina, and after Nina's death in 1835, sent Leocadia on to Wellington , New Zealand, where she met John Taine and had 13 children. Although wealthy by contemporary standards, Wakefield

28998-507: Was colonised by successive waves of Aboriginal people from southern Australia during glacial maxima , when the sea was at its lowest. The archeological and geographic record suggests a period of drying during the colder glacial period, with a desert extending from southern Australia into the midlands of Tasmania, with intermittent periods of wetter, warmer climate. Migrants from southern Australia into peninsular Tasmania would have crossed stretches of seawater and desert, and finally found oases in

29177-695: Was dispatched towards the shore. It was reported that spears and stones were thrown and the French responded with musket fire, killing at least one Aboriginal person and wounding several others. Two later French expeditions led by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1792–93 and Nicolas Baudin in 1802 made friendly contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians; the d'Entrecasteaux expedition doing so over an extended period of time. The Resolution under Captain Tobias Furneaux (part of an expedition led by Captain James Cook ) had visited in 1773 but made no contact with

29356-524: Was educated at Westminster School in London, and Edinburgh . He served as a King's Messenger , carrying diplomatic mail all about Europe during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars , both before and after the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1816, he eloped with a Miss Eliza Pattle and they were subsequently married in Edinburgh. It appears to have been a love match, but

29535-415: Was established by July 1840, with George Strickland Kingston the first appointee to the role. Other architects who served in this role included Richard Lambeth; William Bennett Hays ; and Edward Hamilton , with George Soward acting in the position for six months after Hamilton's resignation in 1860. Edward Gibbon Wakefield Edward Gibbon Wakefield (20 March 1796 – 16 May 1862)

29714-567: Was established by the South Australia Act 1834 in August 1834, and the South Australian Company formed on 9 October 1835 to fulfil the purposes of the Act by forming a new colony financed by land sales. The first settlers arrived on Kangaroo Island in July 1836, with all of the ships later sailing north soon afterwards to anchor in Holdfast Bay on the advice of Surveyor-General , Colonel William Light . The foundation of South Australia

29893-498: Was exhumed and sent to Melbourne for scientific study. Her skeleton was then put up for public display in the Tasmanian Museum until 1947, and was only laid to rest, by cremation, in 1976. Another case was the removal of the skull and scrotum – for a tobacco pouch – of William Lanne , known as King Billy, on his death in 1869. However, many of these skeletons were obtained from Aboriginal "mummies" from graves or bodies of

30072-567: Was exposed to gales, had little water and no land suitable for cultivation. Supplies to the settlement were inadequate and if sealers had not supplied potatoes, the Aboriginal people would have starved. The Europeans were living on oatmeal and potatoes while the Aboriginal people, who detested oatmeal and refused to eat it, survived on potatoes and rice supplemented by mutton birds they caught. Within months 31 Aboriginal people had died. Roth wrote: They were lodged at night in shelters or "breakwinds." These "breakwinds" were thatched roofs sloping to

30251-698: Was named American River . The island soon became a target for sealers based in the British colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land . In 1826, The Australian estimated that Kangaroo Island had a population of around 200 people, who in addition to sealing also traded in salt and wallaby and kangaroo skins. However, following the decline of the sealing industry, the island's population had dwindled significantly by 1836. Several farms were established at Three Well Rivers , with poultry and pigs being reared and barley, wheat and vegetables under cultivation. Many residents lived with Aboriginal women – either from mainland South Australia or Aboriginal Tasmanians from

30430-570: Was not satisfied. He wished to acquire an estate and enter Parliament , for which he lacked sufficient capital. Through deception he wed another wealthy heiress in 1826 when he abducted 15-year-old Ellen Turner, after luring her from school with a false message about her mother's health. Wakefield was brought to trial for the case known as the Shrigley abduction in 1826 and, along with his brother William, sentenced to three years in Newgate prison ;

30609-541: Was now 78 years old; he and Wakefield had not spoken since the Ellen Turner abduction 26 years before. They were reconciled, and the elder Edward died two years later. The ship arrived at Port Lyttelton on 2 February 1853. Wakefield had travelled with Henry Sewell who had been deputy chairman and full-time manager of the Canterbury Association. It seems likely that he expected to be welcomed as

30788-434: Was only too well calculated to induce those severe pulmonary diseases which were destined to prove so fatal to them. The same may be said of the use of clothes ... At the settlement they were compelled to wear clothes, which they threw off when heated or when they found them troublesome, and when wetted by rain allowed them to dry on their bodies. In the case of Tasmanians, as with other wild tribes accustomed to go naked,

30967-471: Was prepared under the auspices of Gouger, Anthony Bacon , Jeremy Bentham and Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey , but its ideas were considered too radical, and it was unable to attract the required investment. After his first proposal failed, Wakefield published his "Plan of a company to be established for the purpose of founding a colony in Southern Australia, purchasing land therein and preparing

31146-419: Was required for settlement to proceed. The South Australian Company acted as a "third power" in the control of the colony and the one which saved it. The South Australia Act was finally ratified on 19 February 1836 and the first appointments made. The appointment of Governor of South Australia , as the most well-paid position and the most important one, proved complex. Sir Charles Napier (who had written

31325-513: Was responsible for land sales and for land surveying , including choosing the site for the capital city. However, the Act did not clarify the powers of the Commission vis-à-vis the Governor, which led to discord for some years. The South Australian Commission Land Sale Regulations 1835 , authored by the Colonization Commission in 1835, stipulated that surveys were to be undertaken and maps to be made available prior to sale of

31504-649: Was rewarded handsomely, while the salaries for the other men were small. Hindmarsh reported to the Colonial Office, while James Hurtle Fisher , Resident Commissioner, was paid far less, despite having practical control of the colony. Not only did Fisher head up the board of Commissioners, but the Treasurer, Emigration Agent, the Surveyor-General and the storekeeper were responsible to him. Hindmarsh and Fisher quarrelled frequently and could not work together harmoniously, so in 1838 both were recalled to London and

31683-596: Was started at Kingscote , at Reeves Point on Kangaroo Island (now a heritage-listed site, as the earliest formal European settlement in South Australia), on 27 July 1836, but this was soon abandoned in favour of a settlement on the mainland. Some of the original ships sailed on to Holdfast Bay in November and December, with Gouger, now Colonial Secretary and Chief Magistrate, arriving on the Africaine on 8 November 1836. The settlers set up camp, to be joined by

31862-410: Was the brother of: Catherine Gurney Wakefield (1793–1873) (who was the mother of Charles Torlesse (1825–1866)); Daniel Bell Wakefield (1798–1858); Arthur Wakefield (1799–1843); William Hayward Wakefield (1801–1848); John Howard Wakefield (1803–1862); Felix Wakefield (1807–1875); Priscilla Susannah Wakefield (1809–1887); Percy Wakefield (1810–1832); and an unnamed child born in 1813. Wakefield

32041-458: Was unable to provide for his family. Wakefield found him somewhere to live and farmed out the children among relatives, but it was another year before his health was strong enough to take over the role of surrogate father, Felix being apparently unable to do anything for his family. Meanwhile, Wakefield was getting involved in a new scheme. He was working with John Robert Godley to promote a new settlement in New Zealand, this one to be sponsored by

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