What life was like in the early days of white settlement in Tazmania
To explore this question I will contrast between the thoughts of both the aboriginals and europeans. I will also use the English Passengers characters Peevay and George Baines, Baines for the white European settler's perspective of the time and Peevay for the aboriginal's perspective.
George Baines arrived in Tazmania and almost immediately begins commenting on the landscape, "wilder and less formed" "tangy scent" and a "strange land." This is the antithesis of what would be seen in England where he came from, an industrialised nation with railways, factories, extreme poverty, big cities, etc. The word "wilder" suggests that he sees the land as uncivilised and that as a citizen of a nation like England it is his duty to go about his business on the island and civilise it. This would have been what many europeans would have thought about somewhere like Tazmania and "less formed" implies that Baines sees the land as bare and untouched. Peevay, on the otherhand, recognises that the Europeans are thinking like this, thinking about taking over, "Ghosts came to our lands." The aboriginals have lived and wandered on the land of Tazmania for many years and have raised their families there for centuries so, as we can understand now, they saw Tazmania as their home and their land. Therefore, Peevay and other aboriginals believe that the europeans are here to take over by all means necessary.
Peevay describes the land as "our lands", his. He also proves how primitive his people are and the stereotypes against his people by how he describes the English and Europeans as "Ghosts". This shows that Peevay and the aboriginals have never before seen any other races, they know no different from their own kind, which may be why they themselves are seen as different and even "savage" by George Baines and other Europeans. When the word "Savage" is mentioned it reflects what Baines said before about the wilder lands. This consistent use of animal imagery shows just how ignorant, and prejudiced towards those who aren't the same, the majority of Europeans were. The English and other Europeans had all developed certain expectations of what people should look and act like in the Victorian era, "Almost hairless...hardly ladylike." Baines, like almost all Europeans, would've been brought up with the idea that men are the workers and earners and women are the innocent and submissive home makers, that don't show "nakedness" and answer to men. That is a direct juxtaposition, as the aboriginal tibes had women leaders and as mentioned in the previous quote, the women were "in a state of utter nakedness."
It was more of an expectation for Europeans to hate or prejudice against the aboriginals, as shown by the character Mr Pierce. Mr Pierce is described by Baines as having "lonely enthusiasm for the natives." The word lonely emphasises just how prejudiced the Europeans were, that one is that suprised to learn of another European that communicate with the natives and is interested in them for other reasons than just to take from them. Due to this general negative attitude towards the natives, the natives had developed their own expectations on what to think of the Europeans, for example, that they just want to take from them and kill them, "leave their own land or get killed."
The way the Europeans see the natives and how they judge the natives all stems from the belief that the natives are not equal and that they are inferior, Mr Pierce "remained unsatisfied." This came right after the killing of a tribe, Mr Pierce fiercely condemned the killing and people actually could not believe that he was taking offense as they felt the lives of the natives didn't matter. Attempts by people such as Pierce were immediately repealed by this monstrosity, as things like this created a divide between the Europeans and the natives. The natives thinking of the Europeans as "Ghosts" that "killed everyone they could" and the Europeans thought of them nothing more than "creatures."
Life in Tazmania during this time for the natives was a time of great fear of not knowing what your own future would be as the Europeans were a fierce and unstoppable force that wanted to 'civilise' the virgin lands of Van Diemen's Land.