Squatting, Colonial Autocracy, and Imperial Policies
Squatting, Colonial Autocracy, and Imperial Policies
This chapter explores how the British military, convict workforce, and British government financial outlays laid the early foundations of a tiny local economy at the outer margins of a vast imperial project. From the 1820s, Australia's prosperity rested, initially, on the productivity of its labor force—convicts, emancipists, and free immigrants—and the occupation and exploratory utilization of a large area of natural grassland primarily for the production and export of wool. This geographical settlement and pastoral development occurred in a rapidly evolving institutional setting. Both in the economic and political spheres, institutional innovation and adaptation appears successfully to have underpinned the attainment of quite high incomes per capita even before the discovery of gold.
Keywords: Australia, labor force, free immigrants, British government, financial outlays, prosperity, pastoral development, institutional innovation
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