starter activity

Listen to the Australian convicts folk song ‘Van Diemen’s Land’. What can it reveal about popular attitudes towards the transportation of convicted criminals to Australia. How useful are folk songs in reveal popular attitudes to crime and punishment in our period?

Was transportation Was transportation really such a really such a

terrible terrible punishment?punishment?TBAT to evaluate the nature TBAT to evaluate the nature of transportation as capital of transportation as capital

punishmentpunishment

To explore what it reveals To explore what it reveals about popular attitudes to about popular attitudes to

C&PC&P

Learning objectives

Key words: Van Diemen’s Land ticket of leave

Read the extract from Robert Hughes (1938-2012), best selling history of transportation and the early foundation of Australia, ‘Fatal Shore’. When he died in 2012, the Guardian newspaper noted in its obituary, “For God's sake, this was the author of The Fatal Shore, his epic story of our country's founding. He was the man who had shown us who we were, or what darkness we had to confront in order to grow up. He had grasped the cruelty of our birth and shoved it in our faces. Here, in this vast masterpiece, was the hell we were born into, and he would be our Dante. We could trust not only his research, but also his courage and breadth and depth of learning. And we would be seduced by those sentences that made him – then, in 1987, and now today – one of the greatest writers our country has yet produced.”

What view does Hughes provide of transportation? Can we trust this account?

Read Clive James review of the Fatal Shore from the New Yorker, 1897

Watch this episode from Coast Australia on the Tasmania penal colony of Port Arthur, where many prisoners were deported to.

Answer the questions provided.

Conduct your own research into conditions for prisoners who were transported exploring the sources on the web quest you are directed to.

Visit ‘The Old Bailey Online’ and create a timeline of the evolution of transportation. Why do you think it eventually ended choose one of the statements on the next slide

and explain your answer using evidence from today’s lesson?

Your taskYour task

Why did transportation end. Use the Why did transportation end. Use the evidence provided and categorise it evidence provided and categorise it accordingly:accordingly: Attitude of governmentAttitude of government Seen as an opportunity not a punishmentSeen as an opportunity not a punishment Attitudes of AustraliansAttitudes of Australians

Which reason do you think prevailed?Which reason do you think prevailed? Can you indentify other factors that are Can you indentify other factors that are

linked to the ending of this punishment?linked to the ending of this punishment?

Was transportation Was transportation really such a really such a

terrible terrible punishment?punishment?TBAT to evaluate the nature TBAT to evaluate the nature of transportation as capital of transportation as capital

punishmentpunishment

To explore what it reveals To explore what it reveals about popular attitudes to about popular attitudes to

C&PC&P

Learning objectives

Key words: Van Diemen’s Land ticket of leave