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preface
On June 29, 1835, the "Endeavour" set sail. John Pascoe Faulkner became very ill on board and had to go ashore. As a result, before the Endeavour had entered Port Phillip, John Bartman's entourage came on a whaling ship to stop John Pascoe Faulkner's expedition, warning them that "those who cross the border will be executed." John Pascoe Faulkner's expedition did not argue with each other, and they sailed upstream on the Endeavour Bay to the river, landing at the site where John Bartman had built a village.
On June 29, 1835, the "Endeavour" set sail
J.H. Wedge, assistant director of surveying and mapping at Van Diemens Land, was one of the representatives of the John Bartman consortium. He informed outsiders that they were camping on land that John Bartman had acquired "by covenant with the natives," which was owned by John Bartman. But the two sides are deadlocked. In the eyes of Governor Richard Burke, both sides were foreign invaders. He issued a statement saying: "I have been informed that several British subjects have privately occupied the royal lands. He warned the British that they would be convicted of "trespassing on royal property" and added the phrase "God bless my king."
However, issuing a ban did not work. John Bartman and John Pascoe Faulkner found a meadow in Port Phillip that could raise thousands of cattle and sheep, just as they had discovered a ranch full of gold. Idle and fertile meadows are ridiculous. Long before the two sides competed to bring their sheep across Bass Strait, John Aitken had already grazing cattle east of Port Phillip with a herd of cattle and sheep, becoming the first to occupy the area without permission. Before Governor Richard Burke's statement, many people looking for a place to live had already come to Van Diemens Land. They climb the mountain to overlook the rich land, following the "what you see is what you get" rule.
It can be seen from the official correspondence that the British government does not recognize private possession, so the dispute over Port Phillip has made waves again. The Colonial Office was very troubled by this. Regarding John Bartman's case, the Under-Secretary-General wrote in his December 1835 report: "Colonization and funding of this nature should be prevented in recent years. If everyone could choose a piece of land on the coast of New Netherland as he wished, then we would not be able to determine the borders of the colony. "Demarizing the borders of colonies is one of the jobs of colonial offices, but expanding colonies is an individual act of colonizers.
It was not easy to expel the colonists who had occupied the land privately, they had already occupied large tracts of vacant land in Port Phillip, and it was impossible to expel them by making a statement and a few letters from Downing Street. What the government needed to do was to regulate the administration of the colonies and adjust the proclamations. Governor Richard Burke issued a power of attorney that included the British Crown's claim to all of Australia and, of course, Port Phillip.
The royal family had the right to drive the consortium out of its domain
In the first half of 1835, Governor Richard Burke and the New South Wales Parliament passed an Act imposing fines for unauthorized occupation of "Crown Lands" and for building houses or living on privately occupied land. When the Act was passed, many colonists who entered Port Phillip were unaware of the consequences they were about to bear. In addition, the jurisdiction of the Act includes these contested lands. The consortium represented by John Bartman consulted London's most knowledgeable legal advisers at the time. The opinion given by the legal counsel was: "By law, the royal family has the right to expel the consortium from its territory. ”
The law does nothing to protect the rights and interests of John Bartman or John Pascoe Faulkner, even if they both argue that the land is owned by them and threaten to use force. Both sides hated each other and other independent colonists who trespassed into Port Phillip. Some of John Bartman's supporters declared that "they would immediately ride on the backs of indigenous blacks and eat them up or drive them away." But John Bartman did not make any violent remarks. He wrote: "Before I let the natives use force against the whites, I should think about it, because I think that to do so is to shoot myself in the foot." ”
As a result, his opponents continued to live unscrupulously in Port Phillip, ignoring Governor Richard Burke's pronouncements and hating each other and trumpeting their fictitious land rights. In May 1836, Governor Richard Burke sent a sheriff to investigate the situation in Port Phillip. The sheriff was none other than George Stewart, who discovered a total of one hundred and seventy-seven colonists in and around Melbourne. The colonists raised 26,500 sheep and were surrounded by 800 indigenous people. There was a long conflict between whites and indigenous blacks. The natives, who had no concept of the rule of law or property, killed and ate the colonists' sheep with spears.
Therefore, whites felt the need to teach them a lesson. The Sydney government noticed their struggle and sent a sheriff with executive powers to administer the area. Thus, in August 1836, Governor Richard Burke put William Lonsdale of the Fourth Regiment in charge of the matter. William Lonsdale not only performed the regular duties of sheriff, but also "had command authority on behalf of the government in all emergencies in the new colony." His task was to protect the indigenous people, to "treat them with courtesy" as much as possible, and to "improve their morality and living conditions by existing means".
William Lonsdale arrived in Port Phillip on William Hobson's Sidewinder
On September 29, 1836, William Lonsdale arrived in Port Phillip aboard William Hobson's Sidewinder. Since then, the Port Phillip region has become Victoria, opening a new chapter in history. William Lonsdale (1799-1864) William Lonsdale's first important task after taking office was to choose the specific location for the establishment of a permanent colony. John Bartman and John Pasco Faulkner both built thatched huts on the slopes on the back of the Yarra River. But in some ways, the proximity to the coast is a good place to establish a colony.
Near the mooring of sailboats there is a suitable place for colonization, called Cape Gelibrand, but the water supply there is not enough. John Bartman considered "suitable places for villages" to have abundant water. Thus, William Lonsdale wrote in his report to Governor Richard Burke: "I visited several places before making a decision, but the places finally chosen were already inhabited, and at present the largest number of people lived there. Because Cape Gelibrand "was the most convenient place for me to carry out my duties, I chose to establish a colony here."
Surveyor Robert Russell began planning the town. In March 1837, Richard Burke personally came from Sydney to inspect and gave the town a name. Compared to William Lonsdale, his foresight of the potential for local development was not clear enough, because he thought that Cape Gallybrand was more advantageous, and named the colony there Williamtown after the British monarch. Governor Richard Burke named the town after the last male monarch of the Hanoverian dynasty, which coincided with the early Victorian era with the new colony. Three months later, in June 1837, Wilhelm IV died.
William Lonsdale managed the affairs of the Port Phillip area until 1839, when Charles Ratrob was appointed Superintendent and Lieutenant Governor. At the same time, due to the rapid development of the colony of Port Phillip, the affairs that need to be handled are very complicated, and it is obviously not practical to manage it remotely in Sydney. As a result, Charles Latrobe was granted broad discretion. As a capable and motivated official, he held great power in affairs and was subordinate to and supervised by the Governor. The "contract" signed between John Bartman and the eight "chiefs" will naturally not be recognized.
The land of Port Phillip is governed by the same regulations as the other territories of New South Wales, as will be detailed in Chapter 16. On the issue of the "contract", the Port Phillip Federation has insisted on negotiating with the colonial government. In the end, the New South Wales Government only recognised the federation's pioneering work and allocated them £7,000 worth of land as a reward. In February 1838, agents of the Port Phillip Union participated in the sale and purchase of 9,500 acres of land near Geelong for £7,919, of which £7,000 was directly reduced by the government.
John Bartman did not last long in this awkward situation and died in 1839. He was not treated favorably by the British government, and his small house and twenty acres of gardens near Melbourne were confiscated, and the government only allowed his widow to take some of the building materials with him. The era of gratuitous land allocation is over. While John Bartman's "Covenant" is ironic, he was a brave, pioneering man and respectable man. Some of those who had sinned crossed the Murray River and gained great fortune through good luck, because the land was readily available at that time.
Later, due to the increase in the population and the accumulation of wealth, these people gradually became rich. In contrast, the true pioneers of the colony were not treated very fairly. John Bartman did not become the darling of fate, and he was frequently frustrated by the institutional policies of those in power, or because he angered the government by forcibly advancing colonial development despite official opposition. The Hunty brothers in the Port of Portland must be investigated for the unauthorized development of land in 1834. After some correspondence, they were compensated by a piece of land worth one thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds. It can be seen that the government was not tolerant of colonial pioneers.
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