Making the south pacific white

Why convicts?

Why transportation?

Why Australia?

Once you begin to chart the world,

it only makes sense

18C Geopolitics

‘the Defeat of the French Fireships attacking the British fleet at Quebec, 1759’ Serres (Library and Archives Canada,C-4291)

• necessitates: expenditures

Sergeant James Thompson (Fraser’s Highlanders) claymore carried into battle on the plains of Abraham

(CWM 19720103-006)

administrative and legislative power

Looking further: geopolitical posturing

commercescientific query

“... farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go.”

James Cook(1728-79)

First Voyage (1768-71) - as Lieutenant Cook

the Admiralty and the Royal Society sponsored jointly

• a scientific voyage to observe the transit of the planet Venus from Tahiti

• search for the believed to be ‘great southern continent’, Terra Australis Incognita (looked for since the 16C)

• on a converted Whitby collier, the Endeavour

Second Voyage (1772-75)- as Commander Cook on the Resolution scientists and artists and chronometers practical solution to the problem of determining longitude at sea closer to the South Pole than any previous navigator, touched on Tahiti and

New Zealand Easter Islandthe Marquesas Islands Tonga

New Hebrides

Third Voyage (1776-80) Fellow of the Royal Society and Copley Prize

North Pacific navigable NW passage?charted NW coast‘discovered’ Hawaiian Islands

killed on his return, at Kealakekua Bay 14 February 1779 perhaps regarded the god Lono and broke traditionperhaps due to his nasty temper

argument on beach and stabbed

Consequences

• study ‘natives’ → uneasy relationships and misunderstanding

broke local customs bought venereal disease, alcohol and

guns

• new standards → extent and accuracy of his surveys natural history astronomy oceanography philology and much else new disciplines of

ethnology/anthropology

• protected crew → cleanliness and ventilation cress, sauerkraut, orange extract exacting science

Settler identities in Australia

1. Gendering transportation2. Criminalizing poverty3. Race and nation

Transportation

1. Many more men than women2. Property crimes >> personal injury3. Political prisoners4. All trades represented [including

architects]necessary to build a colony

1. Terrible corporal punishment

Add pictur here

But eventually, land grant‘man’ in society

Convict women“the pest and gangrene of colonial society”• Convicted for:

• their transportation/work experience:

• Described as:

• Disciplined by:

‘Rajah’ QuiltNational Gallery of

Australia

And resisted:Parramatta Female Factory

• literate, 180 trade skills• 60% - 1st offence

• 1200 women in factory built for 300• stone-breaking, spinning, needlework and

laundry• gagging; head-shaving

• 1827 – Australia’s first Industrial Actionfood riot

• remembered

Role of women

• work

• at home‘she carried out her duties as mistress

of a small family with ‘piety, patience, frugality and industry’’

• either m.c. women were that, or w.c. women worked at jobs that used those skills

‘by the 1740s over half the laboring pop. had shifted to some form of manufacturing…’

‘use of steam only relative to manual labor’

steam not the prime energy source for manufacturing until the 1870s

Bryant and May Match Factory

workers, 1888

‘Making’ the perfect worker

The Poor Lawscontrol, reform and utility of person

Witham parish workhouse (2002), 1714 Birmingham workhouse

(1860s)‘archway of tears’

Charles Booth In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890)

East London Estimate Rest of London Total

PAUPERSInmates of Workhouses, Asylums, and Hospitals 17,000 34,000 51,000

HOMELESSLoafers, Casuals, and some Criminals 11,000 22,000 33,000

STARVINGCasual earnings between 18s pw and chronic want 100,000 200,000

300,000

THE VERY POORIntermittent earnings 18s. to 21s. pw 74,000 148,000

222,000Small regular earnings 18s. to 21s.pw 129 000 258 000

387 000

TOTAL 331,000 662 000 993,000

Booth’s Poverty Mapstreet-by-street maps drawn to represent levels of poverty and wealth found by survey

investigators YELLOW: upper-middle and upper classes. wealthy.

RED: middle class; well-to-do

PINK: fairly comfortable. good ordinary earnings

BLUE: poor. 18s. to 21s. pwfor a moderate family

BLACK: very poorvicious, semi criminal

Bamstead Cottage Homes

A Nova Scotia ConnectionQuarriers Village Bridge of Weir,

Renfrewshire, Scotland

And other ‘waifs and strays’?

Rockwood Mill, est. 1867

The ‘real’ Australiawasn’t emptyKate Grenville The Secret River (2005)

400+ indigine groups 250 languages

evidence to 40 000 BCE +

1/3 to 9/10 deathsResidential School

history1967 enumeration to

vote

Aboriginesless than human

Why?enlightenment thinking (theory)experiential observation

Early: kidnapping for observation, sex, work

raidsdisease and malnutrition

1850s: Aboriginal Protection Societies Responsible Governance way of life destroyed: economic,

cultural official policies to de-populate to

1960sDifferent: Maori

Māori and tā moko

See: Once Were Warriors (1994)

Whale Rider (2002)

Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata

Nā te pū ka toa tētahi, ka taurekareka tētahi. The musket determined who was warrior and who was slave.

The Treaty of Waitangi (1842)kawanatanga vs. tino rangatiratanga

Maori Wars/New Zealand Wars (1845-82) pa

pākehā

ANZAC Day, April 2007

Subsequent imperial policy in the southern hemisphere

From 19Cterritory for production, trade and controlCeylonStraits Settlement (Penang and then Singapore)Cape ColonyFalklandsjumping off point: Gibraltar

Multicultural indentured labour moved throughout as necessarycolour barnot necessarily citizens, as necessary

The ‘Scramble’for Africa

Imperialism in Africa1875 to 1914: the Scramble

1807 Abolition of slave trade1820-23 Egyptians push into Sudan1830s French in Algeria; w.

African tradeBoer push north

1850s/60s European explorationsBritish occupy Lagos

(commercial)1865 Leopold II succession1869 Suez Canal opened1874 British involved on East

Coast1884 Egyptian financial crisis

Berlin Conference