Early Settlement in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land
The settlement of the Australian colonies in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries could hardly be described as "harmonious experiments in colonization". The period of Australian history from 1788 until the 1820s was fraught with unanticipated difficulties, forcing the colonists and convicts to struggle for their very survival. Some of the problems that emerged within the colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land concerned very basic matters such as insufficient food supplies and the keeping of general law and order. Other areas in which the colonials struggled included the development of a workable internal economy, and the managing of relations between the social classes, and between the white settlers and the indigenous people of Australia, the Aborigines. These problems and the lengthy fight for solutions created environments in the colonies that were far from harmonious.
There were some motivations for colonising Australia which may be considered experimental. James Cook, after his famous voyage to Australia, had reported to the Admiralty that he had discovered an abundance of tall pine trees which would make excellent masts for the British fleet. These trees flourished on Norfolk Island, and of equal interest, so did the flax plant, upon which the British navy depended for their ships' sails and cordage. These plans eventually were undone, due to Cook's exaggeration of the amount and accessibility of the Norfolk Island commodities (White, 17). But there were other strong motivations for settlement, as Russel Ward writes, and none of them support the view that colonisation was a "harmonious experiment":
"Perhaps a settlement on the east coast of
New Holland, close to the supposed naval
supplies of Norfolk Island, would buttress
Britain's strategic position throughout the
Indian and Pacific ocean areas, forestall
the Fre...