GOVERNANCE IN THE EARLY COLONY The History Trust of South Australia HISTORY TRUST OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA CENTRE OF DEMOCRACY developed this education resource using The History Trust of South Australia operates The Centre of Democracy is a collaboration the expertise, collections and resources three museums - the Migration Museum, between the History Trust of South Australia of the History Trust of South Australia, the National Motor Museum and the South and the State Library of South Australia. It is its museums and partners. Our learning Australian Maritime Museum, along with supported by the South Australian Government. programs bring to life the stories, the Centre of Democracy managed in Its vibrant program of education, public, objects and people that make up South collaboration with the State Library of South and online programs engage and inform Australia’s rich and vibrant history. Australia. The History Trust’s role is to visitors about the ideas behind democracy, encourage current and future generations political participation and citizenship. The of South Australians to discover this state’s gallery features state treasures from History rich, relevant and fascinating past through Trust and State Library collections, as well as its public programs and museums including items on loan from State Records of South the Migration Museum, the South Australian Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Maritime Museum, the National Motor the Courts Authority, Parliament House, Museum and the Centre of Democracy. Government House and private lenders. history.sa.gov.au centreofdemocracy.sa.gov.au Torrens Parade Ground, Victoria Dr, Adelaide Institute Building, Kintore Ave, Adelaide (08) 8203 9888 (08) 8203 9888 GOVERNANCE IN THE EARLY COLONY AN EDUCATION RESOURCE FOR SECONDARY & SENIOR TEACHERS CONTENTS USING THIS RESOURCE KEY INQUIRY QUESTIONS 02 THE PROVINCE OF This resource is intended to be used in • How have laws affected the lives of SOUTH AUSTRALIA conjunction with three videos produced by people, past and present? the History Trust. It can also be used as a • What were the short- and long-term 04 THE LETTERS PATENT stand-alone resource on the colonisation of effects of European settlement on the 06 THE LETTERS PATENT: South Australia and developing historical local environment and Indigenous land A FIRST NATIONS PERSPECTIVE analysis skills. and water management practices? • How have individuals and groups in 07 DEMOCRACY TIMELINE Activities have been designed to align with the past and present contributed to the ACTIVITY: INVESTIGATE Australian Curriculum History, HASS, Civics development of Australia? & Citizenship and English at primary and 08 THE PROCLAMATION OF • How have experiences of democracy and secondary levels. Curriculum links include: SOUTH AUSTRALIA citizenship differed between groups over ACTIVITY: SOURCE ANALYSIS • Developing humanities and social time and place? sciences understanding through key 10 SIGNIFICANT FIGURES IN THE concepts including significance; EARLY SOUTH AUSTRALIAN COLONY continuity and change; cause and effect; ACTIVITY: PICTURING DEMOCRACY place and space; interconnections; 11 THE FIRST DINNER GIVEN TO THE roles, rights and responsibilities; and ABORIGINES 1838 BY perspectives and action. MARTHA BERKELEY • The study of European exploration and colonisation in Australia and elsewhere up 13 THE FIRST DINNER GIVEN TO THE to the early 1800s and life for Indigenous ABORIGINES 1838 BY Australians pre- and post-contact. MARTHA BERKELEY • The study of colonial Australia in the ACTIVITY: SOURCE ANALYSIS 1800s and the social, economic, 17 DELVING DEEPER political and environmental causes and effects of Australia’s development. 18 NOTES • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. • Developing historical inquiry and analysis skills. 01 GOVERNANCE IN THE EARLY COLONY THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA South Australia was an unusual South Australia was also created initially as The South Australian Company became settlement within the British Empire. a commercial and administrative partnership in effect the financial basis of the new Unlike the older colonies on Australia’s between the British Government (represented settlement, building much of the early eastern seaboard there were to be in the office of the Governor) and the South infrastructure and providing banking and other no convicts, and this commitment Australian Colonization Commission. financial services. In 1836 the first three to a ‘free’ settlement was fiercely The precise distribution of administrative vessels to leave Britain for the Province, the maintained. Historians are divided powers between these two groups was John Pirie, Duke of York and Cygnet, were about the lasting impact of the absence never adequately defined and constant either purchased or chartered by the of the ‘convict taint’ on the province’s conflict between them marked the early Company for the voyage. society and culture, but an awareness years of settlement. To further complicate of difference distinguishes South matters some members of the Colonization Australians to this day. Commission had formed a joint stock company in 1835 to raise sufficient funds in land sales to satisfy the British Government that the new settlement was viable. SOUTH AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE, J. M. SKIPPER, C.1855 - SLSA - B70983 02 GOVERNANCE IN THE EARLY COLONY THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Continued SYSTEMATIC COLONISATION There was also a preference for young, fit FOLLOW UP ... families as assisted emigrants, to ensure a South Australia is often described as a Think about these principles of balance of the sexes. A South Australian ‘planned settlement’. Some have called it ‘systematic colonisation’ as you look at Association, formed in December 1833, a ‘social laboratory’, an attempt to build an the following sources and consider: actively promoted the creation of such a improved colony in a nineteenth century colony in South Australia. Its members 1 Were these principles upheld during sense. It developed from the widespread included many who were active adherents of the colonisation of South Australia? critique of other colonising ventures current various dissenting sects and were influenced in liberal circles in Britain in the 1820s and 2 Did these principles apply to everyone? by prevailing radical and utilitarian ideas. 30s. Most famous perhaps was Edward Robert Gouger, a friend of Wakefield’s, Gibbon Wakefield, whose book Letter from was a prominent member, as was Robert Sydney, penned while he was confined in Torrens. Leading members of the Association Newgate Prison in 1829, outlined many of the later became Board members of the South principles of ‘systematic colonisation’ that Australian Colonization Commission. The were to guide the creation of South Australia. dissenters continued to be very influential Key principles of ‘systematic colonisation’ in the intellectual and political life of South The term Dissenter refers to Protestant included a commitment to free settlement, the Australia is reflected in a commitment to denominations such as Presbyterians, Baptists, belief that land should be bought not granted, freedom of religious expression and to broader Quakers, Congregationalists, and others who and bought at a sufficient price both to ensure an principles of social and political debate: the refused to conform to the Acts concerning adequate supply of labour by preventing potential principles of ‘systematic colonisation’ that religious uniformity passed by the British labourers from acquiring land too quickly, and to were to guide the creation of South Australia. Cavalier Parliament between 1661 and 1665. provide the funds for assisted emigration. L-R PARLIAMENT HOUSE ADELAIDE, 1886 - SLSA - B43069 KING WILLIAM IV, SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, 1833 - ROYAL COLLECTION 03 GOVERNANCE IN THE EARLY COLONY THE LETTERS PATENT The South Australia Act of 1834 was Negotiations between the Commissioners In 1840 Governor Gawler allowed the created as the result of a long campaign and the Colonial Office continued. Finally, Protector of Aborigines, Matthew Moorhouse, by those who wished to establish a colony when the Letters Patent establishing the to select sections of land as reserves for according to the principles of systematic Province were signed by King William IV on Aboriginal people - ahead of the colonists colonisation. The Act empowered the King 19 February, 1836, they included the clause: who were holders of preliminary land orders. to establish South Australia as a British This caused a furore, as the landholders Provided always, that nothing in these province and to provide for its colonisation protested that they should have first choice of our letters patent contained shall affect and government. The preamble to the the land being surveyed and sold. Governor or be construed to affect the rights of any Act included a description of the lands on Gawler stood firm, arguing that his actions Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to which such Provinces were to be erected were consistent with his Royal instructions the actual occupation or enjoyment in their as ‘waste and unoccupied Lands, which and, further, that it was well known that own Persons or in the Persons of their are supposed to be fit for the Purposes Aboriginal people’s rights to land were to be Descendants of any Lands therein now of Colonization’. recognised in the colony. actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives. A period of intense negotiation followed The subsequent history of colonisation