ABSTRACT
This chapter hypothesises the existence of a specifically settler colonial mode of conceiving, organising, and conducting expeditions. It argues that colonial and settler colonial expeditions should be seen as structurally distinct undertakings. It is not by chance that the age of the settler revolution, as James Belich emphasises in Replenishing the Earth, is an outcome of the transport revolution. The first relates to the system of reference on which different expeditions are premised: the colonial explorer reports back to an imperial metropole while the settler expedition does not. If a colonial explorer claims land, it is on behalf of a distant sovereign, whereas the settler colonial expedition claims it on its own behalf. The Dutch settlers in South Africa similarly escaped a consolidating colonial order, as did the Mormons in what was essentially a filibustering operation. That settlers are carriers of capitalist modernity has been repeatedly emphasised.
