"Transportation sort to remove, once and for all, the source of contamination from the otherwise decent bosom of the lower classes, and ship it "beyond the seas" to a place from which it could not easily return. There it would stay, providing slave labour for colonial development and undergoing such mutations toward respectability as whips and chains might induce. The main point was not what happened to it there, but that it would no longer be here."
Source: The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
Showing posts with label story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story. Show all posts
the Story - iv
"Transportation- forced exile, in plain english - had undeniable merits. It preserved the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, as the felon was left alive. At the same time he was removed from the realm as completely, if not as permanently, as any hanged man. Transportation got rid of the prison as well as the prisoners. It supplied Britain with a large labour force, consisting entirely of people of who, having forfeited their rights, could be sent to distant colonies of a growing Empire to work at jobs that no free settler would do. Free-born Englishman had always disliked the idea of labouring bands of convicts engaged in public works at home. A bill of 1752 introducing public chain-gang labour as punishment for criminals was rejected by the Lords partly because security was too great a problem but mainly because the sight of chain-gangs in public places was felt to be degrading. How could onlookers distinguish such a punishment fro outright slavery? In the New World there was no such problem."
Source: The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
the Story - iii
"The trade in convict or indentured servants was attractive to British government because, unlike the prison system, it cost them little."
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
the Story - ii
Eora people asked the question,
Waube-rong orab,
Where is a better country?
The thief colony might hereafter become a great empire, whose nobles will probably, like the nobles of Rome, boast of their blood.
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Waube-rong orab,
Where is a better country?
The thief colony might hereafter become a great empire, whose nobles will probably, like the nobles of Rome, boast of their blood.
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
