But he argues that the convict settlers and the Aborigines enjoyed 'two decades of comparatively peaceful shared land use' before the
free settlers made their 'land-grab' and, using the considerable skills of the convict bushmen, killed many Aborigines.
9 million names and gives the average person in this country a one in four chance of having a
free settler ancestor.
According to this story, virtually a whole people was wilfully exterminated by the incoming British--the rulers, soldiers, convicts, and
free settlers.
Meanwhile, other colonies developed around the continent, which Britain filled with convicts from home, as well as
free settlers.
I'm not sure if this improves the sailing or makes the harbour dues any cheaper, but the locals seem immensely proud of the fact that their state was colonised only by
free settlers.
As the decades passed, conditions for convicts improved--and many
free settlers arrived.
Merle outlines a micro-society rigidly divided into discrete sectors the Kanaks, defeated in the rebellion of 1878 and increasingly confined to Melanesian reserves; the
free settlers, sustained by a pioneer myth and their French provincial associations; the emancipists wandering the island in search of work; the descendants of the penitentiary, forever stigmatised by their criminal origins, for whom legitimising pioneer myths were unavailable; and contract labourers from Vietnam or Java, who were at the mercy of brutal colon employers.
Section 1 is devoted to the county of Cumberland up to 1860 and discusses horse owners and breeders among the military and civil officers, merchants and
free settlers, emancipists and currency lads.