Botany Bay penal colony
Topic: Settler Colonialism: Native Peoples of America and Australia · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Displacing Indigenous Peoples"
Meaning
This was the British convict settlement in Australia, founded in 1788. A penal colony is a place where prisoners are sent as punishment. It is linked to Botany Bay, which James Cook had reached in 1770, but the settlement itself grew up nearby at Sydney. Britain had sent its convicts to its American colonies, but it had to find a new place after those colonies became independent.
Example
Freed convicts were not allowed to go back to Britain, so they had to make a life in Australia. They felt no hesitation in driving natives off the land they wanted to farm. The local Daruk people found the newcomers' destruction of sacred places and their tree-cutting impossible to understand.
Don't confuse with
- Portuguese convict settlement in Brazil: Portugal had also tried to settle Brazil with convicts. It gave up after natives struck back.