Year 4/5N Convict Recounts

In 1788 the First Fleet arrived in Australia and

with it so did many of our students from 4/5N. Here they will tell you about just some of their

own personal recounts and how they came to be a convict from England living in Australia.

What have we been researching?

GEORGIA

4/5N

Hello to whom it may concern, my name is Jane Creek I am 21 and was doing life pretty easy without my dad until my mum passed away then life felt like a gun shooting me. I was 21 and desperate for food so I decided to steal a loaf of bread. Well yeah, it’s bad and wrong but my 3 sisters and 2 brothers were sitting in the gutter crying with sadness, loneliness and hungriness. We would have died if we didn’t have food but we could drink out of the puddles we had to think about the positives.

My life as a convict

And of course I got sentenced it was for 7 years but at least my family had food. I was so shocked! I got transferred to the hulk on the ship called Friendship, I was so cramped, so hungry, so desperate for anything. When I got to the hulk it was different than I expected, people were working as a brick maker, charwoman, chimney sweeper, farmer, weaver and hawker. I thought that the guards wouldn’t trust people that stole things. Anyway I'm now 23 and I've been put to work as a charwoman and as long as I'm living I will never ever steal a thing again trust me I've learnt my lesson.

On the kings birthday we all collect wood for the bon fire then we got 510ml of rum. It was the best! Then we all sat around the bon fire and started chatting about random things. Once when I went to get a jumper I saw someone trying to steal things out of someone else's hut, luckily they got caught and got 200 lashes across the bum, then got hanged we couldn’t stop laughing over the lashes but nearly cried when he got hung.

The kings birthday

When I'm cleaning I always think of my family and if I get angry I think what mum and dad would say. Because I am the oldest I keep writing letters and hoping everything will be ok but I don’t think it will. 2 more years to go, now I'm 26 and my 3 sisters, 2 brothers and close friends have been sending me letters its really nice but it makes me feel sad that I can’t be with them. In the end I realise we will be together soon.

Back to life

I received lots of letters of course, its nice but they say lots of things like I really miss you and hope to see you soon it makes me cry, then people tease me and bully me and say what happen to you big fatty, Turbo was the one that teased me.

It was July 2nd 1796 I was going home in one week I was a little bit nervous and very exited. I couldn’t stop telling my hulk neighbour about it, but he just blocked his ears, and again turbo teased me but this time he got lashes because the guard heard him saying mean things.

Nervous

I can remember on my way back to my family and I loved the fact that I could see my town London. I could also remember when I stopped and my family and close friends were standing there dancing in happiness and crying of joy I was also crying of joy. Then we went to my cousins house, I never stole a thing again just like I said before my family were happy for the first time in 7 years.

Leaving

Ricky

RecountI was born in England and my name is James. When I was 15 years old, I was working on a farm just outside my town. It was scary because the farm owner was always angry and would never pay us our money. I lived in Yorkshire the house was old and broken down, my family was poor. I was caught stealing money and warm clothes the police caught me. I went to court then went to the prison. The cells were full, so they sent me on the Alexander to Australia.

Day 2

I didn’t know where I was going. When I got there we had to build a hut, then collected some sticks, made a campfire and then we went to sleep. The next day I started working on the farm, I didn’t expect it. I had to pull logs it was very hard I had to work till lunch then have a couple hours break then work till five pulling logs then go home. I had to stay there for 7 whole years. The next day we had to pull a horse cart.

7th year

When I got back to England I was good.

Dana

I was a convict When I was a little girl I did something very very bad. I stole silk

that was valued at 90 shillings. I felt so bad for what i did but it was only because I was poor and if I didn’t steal how was I

supposed to live. I was sentenced to be hung but they had changed so I was sentenced to be transported to Australia, the hulk for 10 years. On the ship to Australia I met a boy called Biscuit. Biscuit was 11 years old, the same age as me. Because of his name he got teased a lot by everyone, but he got teased the most by someone particular and his name was Turbo Henderson. Turbo was not just mean to Biscuit he was mean to everyone but just worst to Biscuit. Turbo Had brown curly hair and blue eyes, he was always saying that me and biscuit were going out but we didn’t listen. Me and Biscuit were so lucky because we were side by side in our cells. I don’t think you want to know what they fed us for breakfast, lunch and tea, but I will tell you anyway. We got rotten, slimly discussing slop. It was so bad it didn’t even have a name.

It was so bad

Some of us ate it, some of us didn’t. The cells were like a petting zoo for insects. There were cockroaches, flies, maggots from the food, and slim because of the condition it was in. I can’t believe how disgusting it was in the sells. But me and Biscuit didn’t care, we were tough and strong and didn’t disobey any of the guards or the boss. In winter it was freezing and I tell you what they didn’t give us very sensible clothes to wear. The only thing we got to wear was a singlet and shorts. Me and Biscuit of course we chose the same job. We chose the hardest job ‘farming’. There were all different kinds of jobs like pulling logs, char woman, chimney sweeper, brick maker, a carpenter, a weaver, a miller and a labour.

It was hard work

We had to work very very hard in farming. We had to sow the crop, harvest and pick them by hand. The bosses and the guards worked us like pit balls. The boss was never happy, there was always something wrong, weather someone isn’t doing it right or if they just don’t do it at all. The only time we were let out of our sells were when it was breakfast, lunch or tea. I didn’t really want to because I knew what the food was like. It wasn’t really fun but it was the most fun I have ever had since I have been here. It had been 9 years and 10 months since I was in Australia.

The tough days

I was lucky that I only had 2 months. But the bad thing was Biscuit had already left. He only had 9 years and 9 months, so I was left with the one and only Turbo Henderson. But after Biscuit had left things got a little bit better for me but certainly not for Turbo. Turbo had disobeyed the guards and the bosses, which I wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing like that. You know the old saying about if you did something bad there were bad consequences, well he got the worst consequence you can think of. He had to get wiped with a hard rope 49 times. As I said before I didn’t like him because of his personality but I actually felt bad for him. Sadly all the convicts had to watch his red fire face going red every time the rope struck him.

The unexpected thing

After that we became friends and he was very very nice to me. My two months were up and I was free. When I got out I had enough money to be shipped back to New Zealand my home town. It was one in a million chance to see Biscuit again but then while I was walking down the street ii bumped in to the unexpected person that you wouldn’t have guest. I helped him pick up all the things he dropped and then he said hi and I said hey and then we realised who we were. After that we hugged each other and then we lived next door to each other and every one was happy expect Turbo. I don’t really know what happened to Turbo but I hope he changed his personality.

Jace

life as a convictI was a little boy back then. I was 10 when chimney swept to get money for my family. My dad lost his job and mum never worked. It wasn’t enough to keep us alive in the horrible house in Britain, so I stole food and clothes so we could survive. I did it for a month until I got caught. I got sentenced for transportation to Terra Australis. We all didn’t know anything about the country we were going to and the ship called the Lady Penbryn was rough but it was good enough for my liking. For all we knew we could have been going into a mine field but we arrived in Botany Bay on the 18th January 1788. There were no houses. We were all horrified to hear that we had to build them out of stick leaves and whatever else we could find. we had to eat the maggot-crawling food. We all tried to build fishing rods out of sticks but only the carpenter’s fishing rod worked. Over night when we were sleeping in our falling down house someone stole our rations of food for the week. Later that night I heard sticks whack together. CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! I could barely see them because they have clay and really dark skin with feathers and leaves for clothes. Well I guess they are better than my old dirty ragged ripped pieces of junk. But then this weird animal came flying out and they through something at it and it made a silly noise.

The next day, I tried to throw stick to copy the people that came last night. But I only hit the guards. I got in trouble but I didn’t get the 50 lashes luckily. I was in the saw pit and all the saw dust when into my eye. Hauling logs made me see people die from the heat, exhaustion and straps. When cutting down trees you were given useless tools that either broke, bent or came of and whacked you or your friend in the head. I think that the job wasn’t that harsh apart from the sowing by hand it was terrible. I shouldn’t be complaining because I’m alive and I will keep on surviving I hope. Today we had to fix our hut and by we I meant me, all the other convicts either died were playing or just being lazy. My years were up I decided to just stay till, I earned enough money for the normal life in England so I could have a job and a good life. I came when I was 10 and left when I was 21.

Jordan

My life as a convict Hello my name is Jordan and I'm going to tell you about my life as a convict.

It was quite some time ago I was a young lad, living in London I was ten years old I was an orphan desperate for food so I just decided to try and sneak a small, harmless snack BUT! I was caught red handed they said I had to be sentenced for transport to Australia for 14 years on the Alexander. I was scared they said the boat ride was going to be 5 hours but then I knew I wasn’t alone. I met a friend and his name was Henry, he was the same age as me, 10. We started to play a few games like guess the animal and cards. Also we both got sea sick just sitting around there, we also played with the other convicts but just as we were having fun we had to do work like washing the floors and hoisting the sails and stuff like that. But just as we were chatting it up the captain said“Come on you lot we've arrived.” Henry and I went off first, the captain said when we all got off“Ok now you guys are going to stay here, no excuses and you’re going to survive whether you like it or not.”So Henry and I just went along like we were told but then we knew we weren't all alone there were creatures which snap, trap and kill so because it was late by the time we got there we went to sleep like everyone else.

The next day making friends

We woke up and we saw someone else sleeping right next to us we told him go away but he was still asleep. Eventually he woke up he said he had no friends so we decided he can be friends with us. We asked what his name was and he said“I'm Brayden Gibson, who are you?”“I'm Jordan and this is Henry.““Hi” said henryWe said we were going to be best friends and then someone else came over he asked if he could join us as well we asked what his name was and he said“I'm Alex Gillard, who are you?”“I'm Jordan and here is Brayden and this is Henry” we agreed to let him join then the leader said“OK I'm in charge so you listen to me. First I want you lot to gather wood and you guys to do construction and you four get me a snack”We did get him a snack but because he was being a little lazy bully we got him rotten fish’ vegetables and fruit by the time we all got back we took so long everyone fell asleep and the huts were built in so we thought we would just sleep outside because we didn’t know if we had huts chosen for us or not.

Day 2 sneaking around

We’ve woken up earlier than we thought we usually would, “I wonder if we went out to gather wood we would get a cabin to our selves”? So we went but then we saw smoke coming from a distance, we hurried over to check it out then Alex said“Wait we don’t know if it’s a forest fire, we don’t know what's out there we could be killed or something like that, maybe we should warn the others?”“Alex stop being such a hypochondriac.” said Henry“How about we just go over have a quick peek and just tell the other convicts?”We went over and just as we peeked through the bushes there were other people that were dancing near a fire.“What do you think we should do?” asked Henry“We warn the others.” said AlexSo we went back, told the others and gotready for attack but bythe time we got readyit was night so we wentback to the cabins and Me Alex, Brayden & Henry got our own cabin.

Day 3 friend or foe?

We've woken up ready with our weapons. We went out to find the people but we were alone. The other convicts were still asleep so we decided to go alone but by the time we got there they were ready for war too. “They must have heard us sneaking through the bushes” said Alex “Yeah good thinking lets just use these weapons to good use.” said Jordan “WAIT”! Shouted Henry“Shh” said everyone“What if we just try to make friends and live the life they live it’s a really good idea who's with me?”“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” said Jordan so we went out and they starred at us but in a good way they greeted us and we asked if we could become friends with them and live there life so when we asked they said we had to dress like them and behave like them so we did and by the time we were done there wasn’t a fight at all.