Politeness, civility, and violence on the New South Wales ‘frontier’, 1788-1816

Interrogating the relationship between politeness and violence in Warrane/Sydney, 1788–ca. 1816, this article investigates the impact of Enlightenment thought in the transoceanic British colonial world. The author argues that polite sociability was crucial to the imposition and self-justification of the British occupation of Eora country. Principally examining the published and personal journals and diaries of First Fleet officers, the author reveals how politeness was a display of European notions of civility understood within a stadial model of progress: Enlightenment ideology enabled the ruling naval elite to consider their invasion friendly, despite the lethal violence of colonial occupation. Foregrounding the construction and performance of a status-specific whiteness in colonial space, the author shows how politeness in the colonial context justified rather than mitigated violence. In so doing, they hope to destabilize our understanding of the Scottish Enlightenment, politeness, and violence. In what is primarily a study of Enlightenment and settler colonialism, Indigenous perspectives provide a crucial framework to comprehend the British naval elites’ commitment to the imposition of civility by force in Warrane/Sydney.