This book at first seemed to be packed with information and names and seemed like it was going to be difficult to read- but as you read more, the more everything became more clear. The book jumps right into how penal colonies were established and what types of people were 'shipped off' and what they were shipped off for. If you ask me- kind of ridiculous. Like how Richard, who killed someone had the same fine against him as a guy who stole a handkerchief. Also, that they would let you off sometimes if you were good looking enough. I did figure that they were just trying to get rid of people in England due to a rapidly growing population, because sooo many of the crimes that people got sent away for were very petty. Also, because the people in the jails had access to prostitutes and alcohol it just seemed like they were a little lean-ant with the convicts.
The way the natives of Australia were portrayed was quite negative. Obviously, because this was Keneally's description of Philips account, the natives weren't 'represented' well. You could kind of maybe pick up the tone of how they must of been feeling though when you read about what they named their land.... so they seemed quite territorial. Because of this and other accounts of natives we've learned in class about, im sure that they had a negtive gestalt about the new penal settlers. I do kind of wish that the book had more about the interactions between the natives and the settlers.
I feel like the way the exploring happened was also 'morally questionable'. Its not like they were just trying to explore land and resources- they were kind of using people to just randomly test things out. "lets dump all of these convicts in a bay in Australia and see how they survive, and adjust from there". for example, poor soil conditions wouldn't allow for growing food that was needed to sustain life- but that came to be known after people were dumped there. It just seemed like these people were at the expense of philips, which they were, but no prior, proper exploring was going on.
We dabbed on this in class as well, but how the women were portrayed was interesting as well. They were pretty much just baby makers and are kind of the 'glue' in these new societies. They were pretty much around, in my opinion, to make everything more 'homey'. Taking care of kids, having children- building families so that colonization would expand faster. From what we learned about in class, i thought that it was supposed to be a negative thing to have 'convict blood' children, but i guess not in this book. It seemed as though the women didn't mind, but this book is quite skewed when it comes to points of view.
Overall, this book was a good read. Def got more interesting as the book progressed. I was kind of skeptical at first, esp after the first few chapters with all the names and everything that was going on. I started taking notes though, so that helped. So did the notes in the back of the book :)
That was very true what you said about the women. I felt that it was the same like this in the other societies we talked about in lecture. I too was surprised that the children of the convicts weren't seen as a terrible thing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the fact that the women were basically baby makers. It was not a point that I put in my own blog but it is definately a very valid point that shows the role of women in these times. They were greatly undervalued and the fact that many of them were prostitutes also was like a loop in the fact that the children that these women gave birth to were probably the ones that were bieng sent out on these ships as prisoners.
ReplyDeleteWith the convicts I do feel their crimes were very small. However at the time I would imagine most crimes were of a small stature. It is hard to compare to now stealing food or a piece of clothing because of the government aid available. One doesn't necessarily have to steal food because of food stamps and other aid programs. However, in our society today crimes are much different. One might say our 'small crimes' are punished to harshly.
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