Civilisation of Port Phillip: Settler ideology, violence, and rhetorical possession

Port Phillip's free settlers often said that they were civilising a wilderness. The truth was that the occupied country already had people, laws, politics, and economies. What did 'civilisation' mean to the free settlers? And what was the relationship between civilising and violence?

The Civilisation of Port Phillip tracks the violent history of the first years of British settlement in the Port Phillip District, now the state of Victoria. It illuminates the underlying free-settler rhetoric ...