Did today’s Aussies originate from “British prisoners”? Well, some of them did, and a significant number at that.Even today it’s likely that perhaps 20% of us can lay claim to a convict ancestor. It is a disputed figure, but reasonable, and in any case a lot of people. [1][2]I known I can, and all of my maternal family for that matter. (We also hark back to both Redcoats[3] and free-settlers, which is also not uncommon.)It used to be a shame and a stain on the family name, but over the last few decades, going back maybe 40 or 50 years, it has swung around to being a source of some prideToday it’s almost a hallmark of “Aussie royalty” to have a convict in the family tree. A bit like winning the lottery.[4]And we’ve reassessed who these people were, too.They were largely not hardened criminals, for instanceMurderers and more serious offenders were generally not transported, but executed insteadBetween 30 and 40% of those sent to what became Australia were first convictions, the majority for crimes of poverty, such as petty theft. [5]They ended up being transported to what became Australia because English gaols were horrendously overcrowded. The over-spill of incarcerated humanity being housed on anchored hulks floating in harbours.[6]They weren’t there because of a crime wave, but for a change in society’s attitudes about crime and punishment, coupled with pressure from social, economic and technological change and the loss of the 13 Colonies in America.[7]It was a growing human rights issue, and hotly political to boot.Whilst it may seem a bit bizarre now, locking up petty criminals – and even transporting them to North America or Australia[8] – was seen to be a softening of the rule of law, as well as a political convenience. It was an improvement over hanging them, after all. The downside being that the goals quickly filled up. [9]As horrendous as it all seemed, and was for those transported, efforts were made to ensure that they were at least equally fed and mostly survived the long journey.[10]And by and large, if you could avoid a long stay in Van Diemen’s land[11] or on Norfolk Island[12], or a long spell working on the Great North Road[13], then you could get a ticket of leave[14] and end up with some land (courtesy of the dispossession of the Indigenous Peoples) and perhaps become a pillar of society.But all of that aside, as others have said, around 80% of today’s Aussies can’t lay claim to a convict heritage. Which is obviously a lot more people again.So what does it mean? Or even matter?Apart from the ongoing horrors inflicted upon the displaced, dispossessed or murdered indigenous peoples, ultimately the transportation set the tone (literally, in the case of our accent) for a more class-less, relatively egalitarian society. I’ve written about this in more detail elsewhere on Quora.And in other respects these were simply ordinary people who were quite literally caught in the middle of massive social change.[15] In other places it turned out to be a bloody revolution.So like it or not, it matters.https://ift.tt/2Tinlwr via /r/HistoryMemes https://ift.tt/2YaPhpF
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