The Voyage of the Beagle

As the new year begins, the Beagle sails from New Zealand to Australia. Although he is initially unimpressed with the country, Darwin admires the beautiful harbor at Sydney and notes that English colonialists are more successful than their Spanish counterparts. He describes the rapid growth of the city and notes that the local colonists complain of high rents and a scarcity of housing.

Darwin travels inland toward Bathurst on roads that have been cleared by the forced labor of English convicts. Darwin is impressed by the colony’s ability to draw prosperity out of this unique labor pool. He records (without judgment) the colonists’ abuse of what he sees as Indigenous Australian naivete: The colonists often trade with the Indigenous people for trinkets and are systematically taking their land. Darwin predicts that the English colonists will eventually take the entire continent from the Indigenous people. Darwin generally criticizes what he sees as a lack of sophistication among the Indigenous population, as well as their itinerant lifestyle, although he praises their skills as hunters. He notes the declining population of Indigenous people in Australia and acknowledges European complicity in this decline. The frequent deaths of Indigenous people from diseases of European origin cause him to speculate on the relationships between race and the spread and treatment of disease.