The squatters and the farmers

In the early days of the colonies, people known as ‘squatters’ took over vast areas of land to farm. Although they had not paid for this land, the squatters considered it their own. After the first gold rushes were over, the government struggled to take this land back from the squatters.

In the 1860s, the government wanted to sell the squatters’ land to working men and their families to farm. But the squatters tried to keep as much land as possible for themselves.

Until the railways were built, the new farmers whose farms were far from the markets faced a difficult environment. The opportunity to earn high wages in the cities made life on the land and working for little reward unappealing.

The Australian tradition of inventing machinery to make farming easier began in South Australia. For example, the stump-jump plough (1870s) allowed rough land to be easily cleared for crop farming.