Honestly, its not a bad idea by Britain, its probably the best way to go out and claim new land. This is probably the beginning of the British empire right here. I mean the British government probably gained a lot by doing sending out these criminals. It was probably really cheap to send out criminals, it would make more room for the rest of the people in Britain, and they get to claim new lands by sending out these people. The criminals probably did not appreciate this, but I found it funny how some non-criminals begged to go on the trip because there life was pretty bad already. But I still find it weird that they were willing to start new colonies with common criminals. I guess the criminals weren't all that bad though, because people were getting arrested and sent off to these colonies just for stealing, and they had to steal or else they would die. Seems a little harsh for those type of people.
I definitely thought Arthur Phillip was a pretty cool character (though I am not sure if he is real or not). The book said he was like a secret agent before he became a captain of the ship and in the Navy. I thought that was pretty amazing and it also seemed like he knew what he was doing. The only thing I didn't like was the really harsh punishments that were given out to the people in colonizing in Australia. There was this one punishment where the people were given like 150 lashes and then they had to have a huge piece of iron attached to them for like a whole yeah. I just think that is torture, I mean they out the iron on so you wouldn't try to escape from the colony. Where are they going to go? They are in uncharted Australia, I doubt they would want to escape and try to live on their own.
And i just thought it was funny how Sydney was discovered (but again, I'm not sure if this part is true or not). You look at these amazing pictures of Sydney today with the amazing buildings and the really cool port. And it seems like you would think wow, whoever built and settled here must have been amazing artists and architects. But then apparently it all started with a bunch of criminals from England. Sydney is definitely one of the coolest cities in the world, and it just seems really funny that is was discovered by a bunch of common criminals and people from the British navy who thought it looked like a good place to dock the boats.
Yeah, Keneally showed the good and bad side of the convicts. There were some that helped Phillip and became his go-to man for stuff, but then he also showed them stealing and being promiscuous throughout the whole book.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the other reasons Britain wanted to get rid of these convicts is so that it wouldn't tarnish their land. I mean, if your country has tons of convicts and your jails are overflowing, other countries would think badly of you.
The prisons were definitely overflowing, at one point in the book I took a note that mentioned the jails were filled to over twice their capacity. If we bring our mentalities to thinking how people though in the eighteenth century- I can see why they were shipping people to the "new land". This was serving them two purposes- relieving Britain's population and as you mentioned, colonizing a new land.
ReplyDeleteI get a mixed feeling as well about the intelligence and capabilities of the prisoners. Some shouldn't even have been prisoners in the first place... they were arrested in Britain for extremely petty crimes with the sole purpose of shipping them over to "Australia".
What I don't really understand is why the government didn't just kill more people... this probably sounds really bad... but they were killing anyways? The living conditions for the prisoners was miserable and filled way beyond capacity. With the mentality of government during this time- I am honestly surprised that they did not send more people to get hung.
James, you bring up some valid points. The idea of bringing criminals to a land you are trying to colonize seems to be like a good idea. I mean, if the prisons are overflowing with people then might as well use the manpower to help settle your colony. However this turned out to be very tumultuous, because there wasn't enough food to feed the convicts, which in return forced the convicts to steal.
ReplyDeleteHowever I disagree that convicts would have been unhappy about going to Australia. I think they would have preferred going to a country where they could work and be outside and have a little bit more freedom than to be stuck in a jail cell
Lastly, I think normal citizens wanted to go to Australia just to explore. Maybe they were bored with life in England. Also during this time colonization was being greatly hyped, and I am sure people heard stories about such and such land being filled with gold and resources and whatnot, so people wanted to explore.
I think a valid point is made in that the British prisons were overflowing. But I cannot imagine that it would be cheap to send a group of convicts with prison guards and load them up in ships with supplies to create their own town. Then they had to be resupplied. Would it not be cheaper to just build some new prisons in Britain? I think that there were several reasons why they went with the penal colony option; the British did not want "bad" people tarnishing their own country and they needed colonists, so the penal colonies worked for them.
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