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.
Parliament House, Hobart
The island of Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) was claimed and subsequently settled by Great Britain in 1803. Initially, it was administered by the Governor of New South Wales, as part of that British Colony. In 1825 Tasmania became an independent British colony, administered separately from New South Wales, and the Legislative Council was formed as an appointed six man body to advise the Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land who had sole governance of the colony. The council initially held their meetings in a room adjacent to the old Government House that was located near to the present site of Franklin Square, but by 1841 they relocated their meetings to the 'Long Room' (now the Members' Lounge) in the Customs House.