Unlike its southern neighbour, Tasmania, Victoria still had a substantial Aboriginal population who had remained on or close to their traditional lands and whose existence was recognised by government and settlers. This population negotiated in various ways with the new colonial governments, especially on the question of reserving traditional lands for community maintenance and survival. With its healthy economy and large middle class population, Victoria became the colony where the policies of protection and latterly amalgamation inherited from Britain would survive the transition to self government to the greatest extent. Under colonial conditions, however, these policies focussed increasingly on management and control, as colonial bureaucracies devised new systems of micro-management and intervention into daily life. As officials and Indigenous people struggled over the nature and management of reserves, officials learnt the value of ethnography for a science of government. For their part, Indigenous people, who demonstrated in a loyal address to the Queen in 1863 a grasp of the value of symbolic occasions and in their dealings with officials over the placement and management of reserves a range of practical negotiating skills, created a tradition of Indigenous activism that continues today.