In 1789 Governor Phillip received a set of instructions about the layout of land grants in the New South Wales colony. The instructions were intended to provide the colonial novitiates with the means to quick and dirty (literally) self-sufficiency. But while these instructions were based on centuries of continuing agrarian practices, their use in a penal colony like Van Diemenʼs Land is a testament to the adaptability of those practices.

This paper examines the three primary elements of these instructions – shape, soils, and soggy feet – to understand how a colony took a practical farm layout and turned it into a mechanism of oversight and control. Drawing on evidence from around the world, it places the shaping of colonial Van Diemenʼs Land back into the global context to argue that while Tasmanians are pretty much the same as everyone else, we are also just a little bit different.