Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black SettlersIn this compelling new book, distinguished historian and writer Cassandra Pybus reveals that black convicts were among our first fleet settlers - a fact which profoundly complicates our understanding of race relations in early colonial Australia. Most of these black founders were originally slaves from America who had sought freedom with the British during the American Revolution only to find themselves abandoned and unemployed in England when the war was over. Pybus' stories include the notorious runaway 'Black Caesar', who became our first bushranger, and the wonderfully subversive Billie Blue, who was the first ferryman on Sydney Harbour, after whom Blues Point is named. |
Contents
Liberty or death | 11 |
Fleeing the founding fathers | 26 |
Starving in the streets of London | 40 |
Back to Africa | 56 |
Bound for the fatal shore | 74 |
Recalcitrant convicts at Sydney Cove | 87 |
The dread of perishing by famine | 106 |
An incorrigibly stubborn black | 120 |
Sportsman to General Grose | 136 |
The Old Commodore | 164 |
Afterword | 179 |
Bibliography | 201 |
Common terms and phrases
Aborigines African Alexander American April army arrest arrived Atkins black convicts Black Jemmy black refugees Bligh Blue's Botany Bay British Caesar Campbell Captain cargo Ceres Collins colony commodore constable Cornwallis court Deptford Dunmore Easty England enslaved Eora felons ferry fleet forced gaol George Gordon governor Grose HRNSW hulk Hunter John Macarthur John Martin John Moseley John Randall Johnston judge advocate labour land lashes later London Lord Loyalist Macarthur Macquarie magistrate March marines Mary McKay months Negroes Nepean Newgate Norfolk Island Nova Scotia officers Old Bailey Papers Parramatta Pemulwuy petition Phillip Phillip Gidley King plantation prison Quote Randall's rations Records recruits regiment returned River runaways sailed sailors scurvy seamen sentence servants settlement settlers ship Sierra Leone slaves soldiers South Wales Corps SRNSW stealing supplies surgeon Sydney Cove Sydney Gazette Tench Thomas Orford tion trade transportation Virginia Washington Watkin Tench wife William Blue women York