1 - Colonialism and Catastrophe, 1830

Summary

By 1830, British statesmen and political theorists were starting to debate the morality of settler-colonialism, recognising the devastating impact it had on indigenous societies, including the penal and pastoral colonies of Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales. Figures like Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur found that any attempt to protect Aboriginal people was greeted furiously by British settlers who saw such protection as a violation of their own right to shape the colonising project. In VDL, the authorities attempted to quell Aboriginal resistance by military subjugation, then diplomatic missions, before removing the survivors to Flinders Island where they were confined and subjected to attempts at a “civilising” mission. Meanwhile, in NSW, where there had never been a coherent Aboriginal policy, frontier violence accompanied the spread of convict and free colonists through vast tracts of land. Aboriginal people reached out to the new authorities via relationships with missionaries and public, ceremonial meetings with governors, but to little avail. As British policy-makers embraced a liberal vision of colonialism as a positive outlet for British initiative, economic growth and the spread of civilisation, and as moves towards representative government began in NSW, Aboriginal people were pushed further to the margins of colonial polity.