My Idea = Add 'banishment' to prison sentences.

[bluesdave]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

What's wrong with admitting your country was also the destination of convicts?

Because they like to keep their heads in the sand. It makes the Yanks (and the Poms), feel good to continually say that we Aussies are all descended from convicts, in spite of the fact that this is not true - as you know, convict descendants are a minority of the Australian population. All of my ancestors were free settlers - not that this matters. I don't hold people accountable for what someone did 200 years ago, and many of the convicts were guilty of being poor. Not being guilty of committing a serious crime.

Quite a bigoted post.
Thanks for showing us your colors.
Good to know.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by suncrafter

. . . a convicted felon must leave the state and is bard from ever retuning or risk going back . . .

And the verses once written must be sung, ever more off-key.

Not sure about cruel, exactly, but it sure is unusual punishment.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by bluesdave

Because they like to keep their heads in the sand. It makes the Yanks (and the Poms), feel good to continually say that we Aussies are all descended from convicts, in spite of the fact that this is not true - as you know, convict descendants are a minority of the Australian population. All of my ancestors were free settlers - not that this matters. I don't hold people accountable for what someone did 200 years ago, and many of the convicts were guilty of being poor. Not being guilty of committing a serious crime.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Quite a bigoted post.
Thanks for showing us your colors.
Good to know.

I'm torn as to whether it was a bigoted post. Bluedave's only anti comment is about people who deny facts and/ or people who seriously believe that Australia is populated by Britain's offcasts. Personally I don't take offense because I know what the rest of the post states is true - there is a minority of convict descendants and even if there was a majority it's 200 freaking years ago.

Although Bluesdave, you seemed to imply that the people of two nations held this view and expressed it continually - untrue and pretty damning.

I've been unfortunate in meeting some pretty dreadful people from Australia, but I don't judge a country on them - there are dreadful people here too. And I certainly wouldn't judge a nation on what it's inhabitants were doing 200 years ago. Not even the French.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

What's wrong with admitting your country was also the destination of convicts?

Nothing. The fact is many of the people that came here were not criminals only because they got away before they could be apprehended.

My problem is with the numbers and the dubious claim that America was, or even contained, penal colonies.

Convicts were sent to nine of the American settlements. According to one estimate, about 2000 had been sent for many years annually. Dr. Lang, after comparing various estimates, concludes that the number sent might be about 50,000 altogether.”

Then you start getting into the evidence, actual happenings.

After the defeat of Charles II. at Worcester, his soldiers who were seized on that occasion were disposed of to merchants, and at least sixteen hundred were thus conveyed to America. The Parliamentary fleet in which they were transported sailed first to Barbadoes. . . . We have certain information of the arrival of only one hundred and fifty Scotch servants in the Colony when the fleet arrived in 1651.

They don't know if it was 1600 or 150? Or exactly which Country (colony) they went to? Plus the fact that they weren't criminals at all.

As Bristol, according to Macaulay, was specially infamous for kidnappers, so it shared largely in an allied branch of business, the traffic in convicts. Hunt, the historian of that city, remarks (p. 142), “Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Bristol aldermen and justices used to transport criminals and sell them as slaves or put them to work on their plantations in the West Indies.” A writer in Notes and Queries3 holds this Bristol industry to have arisen still earlier, saying, “When Cromwell [and William, as well] had conquered Ireland, the Irish officers sought safety on the continent, while the rank and file were pressed to enlist in foreign service. As many as 34,000 men were thus hurried into exile. Widows and orphans the government shipped wholesale to the West Indies — the boys for slaves — the women and girls for mistresses to the English sugar-planters. The merchants of Bristol — slave-dealers in the days of Strongbow — sent over their agents to hunt down and ensnare the wretched people. Orders were given them on the governors of jails and workhouses, for ‘boys who were of an age to labor and women who were marriageable, or not past breeding.’”4 In the foregoing notice of Bristol exports, the words “West Indies” probably mean the best American market, no matter where.

I don't see many criminals there.

After 1727 no printed notice of transports is known to the present writer till the Gentleman’s Magazine was started in 1731. The record there on Tuesday, March 9,1 is: “Upwards of a hundred convicts were removed from Newgate to be transported to America.” Other periodicals gave more particulars. Thus in the London Magazine of 1732 (I. 368) we read: “October 26, sixty-eight men and fifty women felons convict were taken from Newgate, and put on board a lighter to be carried down the river, to be shipped on board the Cæsar off Deptford, for transportation to Virginia.”

"Gentleman's Magazine" is their historical reference? Will future generations discover we were anally probed by aliens as reported in the National Inquirer?

Then there a scraps of information on individual groups of "convicts", a surprizingly (to me) large percentage of them women... breeders, I suppose. But most of these people were "convicted" of being poor or having a bad attitude.

There were certainly criminals deported because they could be sold as slaves for a profit rather than hanged at the crowns expense. But the percentage of real criminals was minicule. And more importantly, there were no penal colonies.:p

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

there is a minority of convict descendants and even if there was a majority it's 200 freaking years ago.

Sort of like being black in the USA and being a descendent of slaves?

[Aliantha]

I can understand why BD suggests some people have their heads buried in the sand. From all the information available, it's quite plain that convicts were sent to America. In fact, that was a large part of the reason the country was settled in the first place. It wasn't until those pesky rebels got together and foiled that plan that they started sending their convicts here.

As to being embarrassed or not about being descended from convicts well, I'm quite happy to claim a convict heritage. In fact, my great...grandfather was transported to Australia on the first fleet and when his time had been served, he because a free man and ended up being the mayor of the town he lived in.

As I said, I just don't understand the denial of obvious facts. This idea of convicts being sent to America is part of the basic curriculum in our primary school classrooms. It's part of history and no amount of postulating about what you call your convicts changes the fact.

[bluesdave]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Although Bluesdave, you seemed to imply that the people of two nations held this view and expressed it continually - untrue and pretty damning.

I should have said some Yanks and Poms, I know that most do not hold this view. It was clumsy wording on my part. I worked with a young British guy many years ago who used to take great delight in telling everyone he met who was not born in Australia, that this would be a great place if "we" could just get rid of the Aussies. He was an arrogant son of a bitch, but I should not generalise. My apologies to all my Yank and Pom friends (and I do have many). I just get tired of the convict heritage being brought up all of the time.

[bluesdave]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Quite a bigoted post.
Thanks for showing us your colors.
Good to know.

I am not a bigot, and I have just apologised to SG, and now I will apologise to you. I do not really believe that you feel we are all convicts. Sorry.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by bluesdave

I should have said some Yanks and Pom, I know that most do not hold this view.

I really appreciate you clarifying rather then getting snarky. Yes, people can be arses and will anything to get under your skin.

I apologise for the Brit if you apologise for P. Except he had an English Dad, and jis Dad was an arsehole too. And my issues with P were nothing to do with him being Australian... Okay, I forgive you P. Even if you didn't realise he was being held against you anyway.

[lumberjim]

i think we should tax all people standing in water

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

As I said, I just don't understand the denial of obvious facts. This idea of convicts being sent to America is part of the basic curriculum in our primary school classrooms. It's part of history and no amount of postulating about what you call your convicts changes the fact.

Just because you were taught it in grade school doesn't make it true. They were trying to assuage the children's inferiority complexes, being the spawn of criminals and remaining pussy whipped by a Queen. :p

The "New World" was wide open and heavy competition between the European powers was developing to grab as much as they could. the didn't want land, territory, they wanted the wealth that could be milked from it.

Various wealthy people or pooled wealth groups, schemed to make a killing from the opportunity. The first Jamestown settlement, many were expecting to pick up gold on top of the ground, while somebody else did the work....they died.

Many groups came to settle, start new, to communities and prosper, rather than send wealth back to Europe. there were others, however that came, especially to the more temperate south, to amass a fortune to send or carry back to Europe. They has no intension of relocating, just take the money and run.

Some others, hired and financed, younger/bolder/poorer people to come over and make money for them. They built huge plantations on Kings grants and produced tidy chunks of wealth to send back to sponsors or family.

The only restriction on the size of the plantations and the earning potential was not land but labor. Since the owners of these plantations were rich and connected, they could gain the ear of the king.

The king could cut his expenses hanging, or worse feeding, everyone locked up for transgressions against the crown or the wealthy. Ship these undesirables to the friends plantations to grow them and their output of goods and wealth.

Why stop there? POWs, former residents of conquered lands like Ireland, religious wackos like jacobites, landless poor, women on the street after 10pm, they were all sent as labor to the "New World". "NewWorld" meaning two continents and all the surrounding islands. Those Islands growing most of the sugar and making oceans of rum.

While a few were actually criminals, most of them were just a nuisance to the crown. Regardless, they were sent to work the big plantations and farms, not settle the "New World" like the ones paying their own way.

No penal colonies.

[Aliantha]

Whatever you think Bruce. It's quite obvious that regardless of what facts are presented you're going to go on believing in this magical noble begining you've been taught.

Are you aware that there were also free settlers on the first fleet to Australia? Are you aware of exactly how a penal colony works or worked in Australia at any rate? Do you realize that once the majority of the convicts arrived here, they lived under almost exactly the same conditions as the soldiers sent here to guard them? Do you realize that even though these people were sent here for stealing a loaf of bread, a great number of them were just ordinary people?

I'm pretty sure this is what BD was on about when he posted earlier in this thread. The double standards and hypocrisy shown by our 'allies'.

While it's fun for you to crack jokes about us being inferior because of our beginings; beginings which are remarkably similar to those of Americans; you don't mind using our soldiers on the front line. You don't mind using our soil for testing vile weapons. You don't mind using us as a jumping off point for your conflicts.

You might think we come from less than favourable beginings, but I can assure you that most Australians are fed up to the eye teeth with the colonial views of our 'allies'.

Pardon us for saying so.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh get off your high horse, for Christs sake. I'd heard that once the ships got to Australia, everybody was in the same boat.(no pun) Sometimes it wasn't a very pleasant boat either, but everybody shared the predicament. I didn't look into it, but had assumed that most of the "convicts" were not criminals in the true sense of the word. In merry old England being convicted had no bearing on guilt, only wealth and social standing. Most of them were convicted of being in the way. If they kept them in jail it cost money so most everything was a hanging offence.

What possible difference could it make 200 years later? Somebody picking on you? It's a fucking joke, get over it. You take way more shots at the US than everybody here, put together, takes at Australia. So you don't have a leg to stand on, no sympathy for you.

penal colony
pe·nal col·o·ny (plural pe·nal col·o·nies)
noun
Definition: prison at remote location: a place of imprisonment and punishment at a remote location

penal colony
noun ~a penal institution where prisoners are exiled (often located on an island from which escape is difficult or impossible)

Devil's Island was a penal colony.

[Aliantha]

'You take way more shots at the US than everybody here,'

This is bullshit Bruce, and I think it's inappropriate to suggest it. Certainly I express my opinion in the context of the political and current events threads on this boards, but in no way are my views singular on any of the threads.

I don't require your sympathy. That would imply that I consider myself somehow disadvantaged from your perspective.

Why is it that some members of this forum are admired for stating the facts as they see them (calling a spade a spade I think is the phrase of choice) while others are condemned for it?