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.
Colony of Tasmania
The Theatre Royal was established in 1834, making it the oldest still operating theatre in Australia. A strong literary tradition also developed, with famous titles such as Quintus Servinton by Henry Savery (1831) and For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (1874) being produced in the colony. Other less sophisticated forms of entertainment, such as cock fighting and dog fighting were also popular in Tasmania in the late nineteenth century.