free settlers
Unpaid pioneer arrivals
Free settlers are colonists who emigrate voluntarily, as opposed to convicts transported as punishment or indentured servants bound by contract.
The term appears most often in Australian history, distinguishing immigrants who chose to settle from the convicts who built the early colony: Her ancestors were free settlers from Scotland, not transported criminals.
- pioneersFirst to explore territory
- colonistsSettlers in new territory
- homesteadersLand-claiming rural settlers
- emigrantsPeople leaving their country
- wagon trainPioneers' covered convoy
frontier · land · land grant · claim · wagon · prairie · farmstead · clearing · log cabin · wilderness · squatters · new life · fresh start · immigrants · passage · penal · Australia · colonial