HIST2227 Chap.3 Making Settler Democracy
Making Settler Democracy
A paradox examined
Week 3 asks how a convict colony became a self-governing democracy so quickly, through the secret ballot of 1856, manhood suffrage in New South Wales in 1858 and payment of members from 1870. Bongiorno stresses how uneven that democracy was, and the lecture adds the history of dispossession that happened alongside it.
Who the citizen was
Readings by Marilyn Lake and John Hirst ask what citizenship offered white women and men, and why the colonies federated.
How to revise it
This topic rewards dates and debates in equal measure.
Learn the core sequence from the partly elected New South Wales council of 1842 to the women’s vote in the Commonwealth in 1902, and learn the three explanations of colonial democracy the lecture names.
Then practise holding the reform story and the dispossession story together, as the second half of the lecture asks.
Federation in the same story
John Hirst carries the topic to 1901. He argues that national feeling, not a business deal, drove federation, pointing to Melbourne business opposition, the language of a sacred cause and the popular conventions and referendums, and he treats the exclusion of Chinese migrants as part of the national ideal rather than its cause.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Colonial autocracy and the governor's powers
- 02
Secret ballot and manhood suffrage
- 03
Upper houses as a brake on democracy
- 04
Gift, accident or struggle from below
- 05
Two histories in the same place
- 06
Lake on gender and nationalism
- 07
Hirst on why the colonies federated
Worked example · free
Testing the gift explanation of democracy
- 1For: Hirst argues that rising property values widened the vote without any change in the law, so the franchise grew almost by accident.
- 1Against: Bongiorno describes reformers marching with torches and placards in Melbourne in 1858, with threats and intimidation part of colonial democracy, which suggests struggle.
Key terms
- Payment of Members
- Salaries for parliamentarians, introduced from 1870 in Victoria, which let men without private wealth sit in parliament.
- Bunyip Aristocracy
- Daniel Deniehy's 1853 mocking name for Wentworth's proposed colonial nobility.
- Federation
- The union of the colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia, proclaimed on 1 January 1901.
- Citizen Soldier
- The figure Lake shows nationalists making into the model Australian citizen.
- Colonial Autocracy
- Rule by a governor with wide powers over land, trade, pardons and officials before self-government.
- Free Selection
- Colonial land policy letting people take up Crown land for small farms, central to the 1861 New South Wales acts.
Making Settler Democracy FAQ
Why does the lecture call colonial democracy a paradox?
Because colonies founded as convict settlements became, within decades, places their leaders boasted were behind no nation in the world. The lecture then asks whether it is really a paradox, since democratic reform and the dispossession of Aboriginal people happened in the same places at the same time.
Was colonial democracy the same in every colony?
No. Bongiorno shows that Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia were in important ways more democratic than Tasmania or Queensland. Queensland lost manhood suffrage when it separated in 1859, and upper houses everywhere were built to slow democratic change.
What does Hirst argue caused federation?
Hirst argues that national feeling drove federation rather than a business deal. He notes that big business in Melbourne opposed it until very late, supporters called the cause sacred, and the popular conventions and referendums turned it into a democratic crusade that produced a democratic constitution.
What does Marilyn Lake argue about gender and the nation?
Lake argues that nationalists defined Australian distinctiveness through a masculine type, first the bushworker and later the soldier at Gallipoli, who was said to have given birth to the nation. She calls this a discursive coup that appropriated women's role in birth while denying it, and shows maternal claims to citizenship meeting a limit.
What were the three explanations of colonial democracy in the lecture?
The lecture names radical nationalists, who saw democracy as a result of gold-rush radicalisation; Manning Clark and John Hirst, who saw it as a gift or accident rather than a struggle; and Terry Irving and Sean Scalmer, who argue it was won from below.
Assessment move
Memorise the reform sequence with one exception, Queensland in 1859, and practise a significance answer on one reform using the three moves: what changed, why it mattered, and its limit. Add a sentence on why the lecture's second half calls the paradox into question. A timeline drawn from memory is the fastest check that the sequence has stuck.
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