Indigenous Australians
British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay, New South Wales, in 1788. Settlements were subsequently established in Tasmania (1803), Victoria (1803), Queensland (1824), the Northern Territory (1824), Western Australia (1826), and South Australia (1836). Australia was the exception to British imperial colonization practices, in that no treaty was drawn up setting out terms of agreement between the settlers and native proprietors, as was the case in North America, and New Zealand. Many of the men on the First Fleet had had military experience among Indian tribes in North America, and tended to attribute to the aborigines alien and misleading systems or concepts like chieftainship and tribe with which they had become acquainted in the northern hemisphere.
British colonisation of Tasmania
The first British colonies on Tasmania appeared circa 1803. Small numbers of whalers and sealers set up communities along the Northern Coast and the Bass Strait islands. The whalers and sealers began to trade with the native aborigines along the North Coast. Most of the goods traded were seal skins, dogs and aboriginal women. Sporadic skirmishes over land and women occurred between the settlers and the aborigines, but few records of the conflict exist. In late 1803 to early 1804 colonisation of Tasmania began to formalise. The governor of New South Wales built military outposts along the River Derwent in southern Tasmania, and also on the Tamar River in the north to prevent French interests in the area. These outposts began to grow into small communities as new settlers and convicts came from Great Britain. Communities around Hobart and Launceston were established, which would eventually become the largest settlements on Tasmania, and railways connecting the towns were built. The early colonies on Tasmania constantly suffered from lack of food.