Settlement, the Treaty of Waitangi and land conflict in Australia and New Zealand (1788–1860s)
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All 12 Flashcards — Settlement, the Treaty of Waitangi and land conflict in Australia and New Zealand (1788–1860s)
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Question
What does 'terra nullius' mean and how was it used?
Answer
Latin for 'land belonging to no one' — Britain used this false legal claim to occupy Australia without treaty or payment to Aboriginal peoples.
Question
Who founded the first British colony in Australia, and when?
Answer
Captain Arthur Phillip landed the First Fleet at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, founding a penal colony in New South Wales.
Question
What was the key wording difference in the Treaty of Waitangi (1840)?
Answer
The English text ceded 'sovereignty' to the Crown; the Māori text used 'kāwanatanga' (governorship) — a weaker term, causing lasting disagreement over what chiefs had actually agreed to.
Question
Who signed the Treaty of Waitangi on behalf of the Crown?
Answer
Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, meeting over 500 Māori chiefs at Waitangi in February 1840.
Question
What was Edward Gibbon Wakefield's theory of 'systematic colonisation'?
Answer
Sell colonial land at a fixed price rather than cheaply, and use the proceeds to fund assisted immigration — keeping a stable labour force instead of workers becoming landowners too fast.
Question
Which two settlements were founded on Wakefield's model?
Answer
South Australia (1836) and the New Zealand Company's settlements (from 1840) at Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth.
Question
Who were 'squatters' in colonial Australia?
Answer
Settlers who occupied vast areas of Crown land illegally from the 1820s for sheep and cattle grazing, later granted formal leases by colonial governments.
Question
What did the Selection Acts (1860s) aim to do, and what actually happened?
Answer
They aimed to let smaller farmers (selectors) buy land to break up squatter monopolies; in practice squatters often used loopholes to keep the best land, leaving selectors poorer blocks.
Question
What was the Kīngitanga (Māori King Movement)?
Answer
Formed in 1858 to unite Māori iwi under one king and resist further land sales to the Crown — a key organised response to settler land pressure.
Question
Name the two major New Zealand Wars campaigns covered here and their dates.
Answer
The Taranaki War (1860–61) and the Waikato War (1863–64), fought between colonial/British forces and Māori resisting land loss.
Question
What did the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863) do, and why was it controversial?
Answer
It confiscated large areas of fertile Māori land without payment, even from iwi who had not fought the Crown — becoming a long-lasting grievance.
Question
Compare squatters and selectors in colonial Australia.
Answer
Squatters: occupied land illegally from the 1820s, later leased, held huge runs, politically powerful. Selectors: bought smaller blocks legally under the 1860s Selection Acts, meant to farm on a family scale, often got poorer land.
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Topic 20.8 hub
British colonialism and emerging national identities in Oceania (1788-1919)
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