Lecture four was about the settlement of Australia and New Zealand. We talked about the transportation of convicts from England to Australia. The first fleet did not know how to make a living off the land and as a result starvation approached. It was a mix of willful criminals making their living through crime and petty criminals, political dissenters, and people just down on their luck. We also were given a list of convict vocabulary. Some include bushhangers, which were Australian outlaws. A blunter and a mollie is considered a prostitute. I personally found this funny as I have a best friend/roommate with the name Mollie (spelled the same and all). I told her that her name means prostitute. haha. The government had the convicts working 10 hours a day for a 56 hour week. If the convicts didn’t behave they were sent to distant lands such as Norfolk, Botany Bay etc. This transportation of convicts was eventually stopped as the country wanted to get respectable people to build the nation. I feel that having a history of convicts that started your nation puts a strain on the growth.
The colonization of New Zealand on the other hand was a planned society. They wanted to have a nation of high ethics to prevent the crime like Australia. The role of Edward Gibbon Wakefield was interesting. His story of kidnapping girls and paying off the family sounds all too familiar with Michael Jackson in the US. hmm? The gold rush to Otago and Westland produced unplanned growth for NZ. I found this lecture very interesting; I enjoyed learning about the unique beginnings of these two nations. I was also very amazed to learn that convicts were once shipped to America. I did not know this.
