The Life of a Convict at Koonya It is a tourism orthodoxy that the best place to experience, albeit vicariously, how convicts lived in Van Diemen’s Land in the 1840s, is Port Arthur. This is almost certainly not true. Port Arthur is a showcase. It does not have a dirty, 19th century coal mine (they were considered to be the most severe punishment a convict could suffer). It does not hint at the convict-powered railways (surely a form of human slavery?) that were used at both Taranna and Koonya. It gives no idea what it must have been like to row eight miles (12.9 km) and then spend the day cutting down trees before rowing back to Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour. And it presents no unadorned image of what the primitive convict outstations at places like Koonya were like or how soul destroying it must have been to break stones while dragging around iron chains weighing 40 pounds. In comparison Port Arthur was “modern”, industrial-style convict labour and lifestyle. It boasted superior accommodation and refined conditions compared to life in bark huts at the outposts. We do have records of the convict life. In the obscure Experiences of a Convict, which was written in 1864, a convict named John Frederick Mortlock describes the lifestyle at Kooya: “standing on a narrow, shallow inlet, hemmed in by almost impervious, thickly wooded, broken ranges, I soon found myself hard at work, felling an enormous gum-tree, two hundred feet high, whose hollow base would have sheltered a dozen men. This, with digging up of potatoes, and the carrying bundles of shingles (a small, narrow, thin piece of wood used instead of slates, for roofing) some miles through the rugged bush down to the jetty, was my first experience of Van Diemens Land.” In 1853 a local named Fredrick Mackie recorded in his diary: “We met the heavy-ironed gang returning from their day’s work [in the Stone Quarry]. It was 5 o’clock. About 50 men were in it, some having chains weighing as much as 38 or 40 pounds. The effort to walk was evident …” Today it is possible to stay at Kooya and, with all the modern creature comforts, experience convict life – “sort of”. Mind you … if the ghosts of the convicts could return what would they say about the spa cottage; the huge open fires; the well-maintained lawns; the museum and the pleasant bushwalks. aussietowns.au/town/koonya-tas
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:05:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015