Backbencher

In this lecture we learned about how Australia and New Zealand were settled. the two countries were settled in very different ways.

Australia began as a convict colony. England had been transporting convicts to North America for some time, but when the American revolution happened, they wouldn't stand for it any more. For a short time, decommissioned Navy ships were used to house convicts, but they filled up quickly. Soon, convicts were transported to "botony bay." The first group of convicts arrived in New South Wales in 1788.

These were difficult years as very few of the convicts were skilled laborers. Convict colonies expanded to Van Diemens Land and Western Australia. They were seen as the botony bays of botony bay.

New Zealand was settled in a very different way. In the beginning, New Zealand was to be a planned colony. The "good" members of society would be chosen to settle in New Zealand. Often time it would be someone like the second or third son of a wealthy family-who would not get a land inheritance.

There was a very structured scheme for planning this colonization. To discourage using hard laborers or slaves to tend to the land, only small parcels of land would be sold. It would be sold at a price that would make it difficult, but not impossible to obtain enough of. This was to be English life, only better. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was the father of the planned settlement and led 4 of them.

What I found interesting was that convicts were once shipped to America. I did not know that. I can't believe that an entire country could be colonized through shipping convicts there. It was interesting that the hardest convicts were sent away to even harder lands. New Zealand being a planned colony was very interesting to me. It is difficult to believe that they thought it would work. Maybe they didnt think it would last forever, but I wonder how long they did expect it to last.