Freedom on the Fatal Shore: Australia's First ColonyFreedom on the Fatal Shorebrings together John Hirst's two books on the early history of New South Wales. Both are classic accounts which have had a profound effect on the understanding of our history. They also have long been unavailable, either new or second-hand. This combined edition includes a new foreword by Hirst. These are works that bring to vivid life the early days of convict Australia. They change our sense of how a colony that was also intended to be a prison actually worked, and how Australian democracy came into being, despite the opposition of the most powerful. Hirst overturns the standard picture, arguing- "This was not a society that had to become free; its freedoms were well established from the earliest times." "Colonial Australia was a more 'normal' place than one might imagine from the folkloric picture of society governed by the lash and the triangle, composed of groaning white slaves tyrannised by ruthless masters. The book that best conveys this and has rightly become a landmark in recent studies of the System is J. B. Hirst's Convict Society and its Enemies." - Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore"Anyone with an interest in Australian political culture will find The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracyinvaluable." - Professor Colin Hughes, former Chief Electoral Commissioner for the Commonwealth. |
Contents
Preface | 3 |
Masters and servants | 22 |
Convicts and society | 71 |
The shame of Botany Bay | 176 |
The strange birth of colonial democracy | 205 |
A BRITISH DEMOCRACY | 221 |
Betrayed by the British | 235 |
Making Britain democratic | 248 |
Bushmen and bushrangers | 307 |
Attacking the rich | 321 |
Excluding the Chinese | 341 |
Disgust | 354 |
DEMOCRACY AND AUTHORITY | 373 |
Police and bushrangers | 393 |
Local authority | 414 |
the unwanted | 435 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
appointed Assembly Australian Bathurst became Ben Hall Bentham Bigge evidence bill Botany Bay Bourke Britain British government bushrangers Camden cattle Charles Harpur Chartists Chinese claim colonists colony’s commissioner conservatives constables constitution convicts court Cowper crime Darling defended democracy democratic Deniehy diggers elected electorates emancipists Empire England English ex-convicts favour flogging force Gazette gentlemen gold goldfields governor Governor Bourke Harpur HeraldHeraldHerald honour Hunter Valley James Macarthur labour Lambing Flat land Legislative Council liberals licence London Lord John Russell Macquarie magistrates manhood suffrage masters Melbourne ment Molesworth native-born Norfolk Island NSWA offences Parkes parliament penal settlements police political punishment reform selection before survey sent sentence Sept servants settlers slave social society South Wales squatters Sydney Sydney Morning Herald ticket-of-leave tion took town transportation upper house victs vote wanted Wentworth