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A review by fourtriplezed
The Fatal Shore: History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787 - 1868 by Robert Hughes
5.0
I thought this a fascinating history and analysis considering that I had yet to read a comprehensive history of transportation to Australia. Fairly long with the text of my copy being 603 pages then add a further 80 pages that covered Appendices, Abbreviations, Notes, a Bibliography and the index. The end notes were very good, and the bibliography is an excellent source for anyone interested in the subject.
The title comes from the Moreton Bay song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Bay_(song)
“I am a native of Erin's island but banished now to the fatal shore,”
To quote author Robert Hughes “…..the truly durable legacy of the convict system was not ‘criminality’ but the revulsion from it: the will to be as decent as possible, to sublimate and wipe out the convict stain, even at a cost – heavily paid for in later education – of historical amnesia.”
In reality the vast majority of the 160,000 transportees did their time and were emancipated with few going back to mother England as life was far superior in the new world of Australia. The “stain” was really the inhumane treatment that was meted out to a few reoffenders and later those transported to Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island that was a form of sadism such was the treatment of those convicts.
In terms of crime most were petty offences committed in England; it was those that reoffended that were mostly transported who were usually poverty-stricken such were the times. There were exceptions, forgers for example, and the Irish transportees were mostly sent for political reasons. Crime has always been a subject that politicians will use to shore up support and Hughes exposed that hypocrisy often both in England and in the colonies. For example, as the debate that was heading towards abolition was hotting up there were those in the ruling class of New South Wales that had claimed that the mass transportation was the cause of massive criminality in the descendants of the transportees. In New South Wales itself, such was the separation of classes, there was a disgust towards those that had been emancipated, but once it looked that there was not going to be free labour with abolition they changed their mind as to that with reports of criminality being a “monstrous caricature” by Whig politicians.
Hughes wrote this book back in the 1980s and I think I have personally seen a slight change in attitude towards our convict past. From what I can ascertain it is better taught in schools, though my generation still seems to think “we just turned up”. Hughes' asks would Australians have done anything different if it had not begun as a jail. He surmises that we would not have had a collective amnesia to that past for as long as we had. We preferred (and in some cases still do) Mother County history, for example. There are still residues of that attitude to this day, think of the lack of support for a republic through to the more buffoonery examples of a recent Australian Prime Minister knighting a British prince. And for all that comment I am as guilty, having had in the past a preference for foreign history over just about all things Australian. It took a visit to Norfolk Island to really open my eyes to our past and not just read interesting snippets or immerse myself in our WW2 history.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2809884622
I read a review from a good reads friend who stated that “…….Robert Hughes writing is, well, florid. He writes well but he is just too adjectival for my tastes.” And I have to agree with that. I spent a lot of times looking up archaic words and event’s that were interesting to me as such, but is not normally my style of history telling. This is also very much an opinionated telling, and I do prefer to make my own mind up and not be lead. Be that as it may, I think this is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject and does modern Australians a great service in explaining a past that some just are not interested in due to the so-called “stain” of criminality or even the perception that it is “boring”. It is not boring and is in fact a very interesting colonial history and with that I recommend this book highly.
The title comes from the Moreton Bay song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Bay_(song)
“I am a native of Erin's island but banished now to the fatal shore,”
To quote author Robert Hughes “…..the truly durable legacy of the convict system was not ‘criminality’ but the revulsion from it: the will to be as decent as possible, to sublimate and wipe out the convict stain, even at a cost – heavily paid for in later education – of historical amnesia.”
In reality the vast majority of the 160,000 transportees did their time and were emancipated with few going back to mother England as life was far superior in the new world of Australia. The “stain” was really the inhumane treatment that was meted out to a few reoffenders and later those transported to Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island that was a form of sadism such was the treatment of those convicts.
In terms of crime most were petty offences committed in England; it was those that reoffended that were mostly transported who were usually poverty-stricken such were the times. There were exceptions, forgers for example, and the Irish transportees were mostly sent for political reasons. Crime has always been a subject that politicians will use to shore up support and Hughes exposed that hypocrisy often both in England and in the colonies. For example, as the debate that was heading towards abolition was hotting up there were those in the ruling class of New South Wales that had claimed that the mass transportation was the cause of massive criminality in the descendants of the transportees. In New South Wales itself, such was the separation of classes, there was a disgust towards those that had been emancipated, but once it looked that there was not going to be free labour with abolition they changed their mind as to that with reports of criminality being a “monstrous caricature” by Whig politicians.
Hughes wrote this book back in the 1980s and I think I have personally seen a slight change in attitude towards our convict past. From what I can ascertain it is better taught in schools, though my generation still seems to think “we just turned up”. Hughes' asks would Australians have done anything different if it had not begun as a jail. He surmises that we would not have had a collective amnesia to that past for as long as we had. We preferred (and in some cases still do) Mother County history, for example. There are still residues of that attitude to this day, think of the lack of support for a republic through to the more buffoonery examples of a recent Australian Prime Minister knighting a British prince. And for all that comment I am as guilty, having had in the past a preference for foreign history over just about all things Australian. It took a visit to Norfolk Island to really open my eyes to our past and not just read interesting snippets or immerse myself in our WW2 history.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2809884622
I read a review from a good reads friend who stated that “…….Robert Hughes writing is, well, florid. He writes well but he is just too adjectival for my tastes.” And I have to agree with that. I spent a lot of times looking up archaic words and event’s that were interesting to me as such, but is not normally my style of history telling. This is also very much an opinionated telling, and I do prefer to make my own mind up and not be lead. Be that as it may, I think this is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject and does modern Australians a great service in explaining a past that some just are not interested in due to the so-called “stain” of criminality or even the perception that it is “boring”. It is not boring and is in fact a very interesting colonial history and with that I recommend this book highly.