individual narratives alone – instead it was built by collective action by people demanding to be heard. By the late 19th century, thanks to its rapidly forming democratic institutions and progressive social policies,Australia could be known as the social laboratory of the world. In the eyes of the Australian Chartists, democratic constitutions were achieved well in advance of those in Great Britain. Many of the freedoms and institutions appreciated by the citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia today can be traced back to the often-forgotten resistance efforts of former convicts, some already radical, some radicalised upon arrival after spending their time in the repressive system. Despite the political successes pioneered by the convicts, the plight of the Indigenous people in the identical period was their principal failure. Laws specially intended to deny the vote to Aboriginal people were introduced in Queensland in 1885, in Western Australia in 1893, and in the Northern Territory in 1922 (Acton Peninsula, 2020). Suttor (1967) explains how the reformist attorney general John Plunkett (an Irish lawyer and politician), was a key figure in helping to correct the ill-treatment of the Aboriginals through legal compensation. He sought to apply Enlightenment principles to governance in the colony, following the establishment of equality before the law, first by extending jury rights to emancipists, then by extending legal protections to convicts, assigned servants and Aboriginal people. Plunkett twice charged the colonist perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre of Aboriginal people with murder, resulting in a conviction, and his landmark Church Act of 1836 disestablished the Church of England and established legal equality between Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians and, later, Methodists in Australia (Suttor, 1967). It tended to be officials and governors that limited Australia’s scope to develop politically. They diminished the rights of the Indigenous people so severely that they lost the authority of choosing who they could marry.As criminals, the convicts would have been used to being held under a dictatorship. Perhaps because the reins were always held so tightly, once they were released, convicts fought for democracy even harder and, hence, achieved it much faster. Were convicts responsible for political developments in the penal colonies? My theory that convicts were more liberal thinkers than their free English counterparts of the 19th century, regarding democratic developments, again appears true.As some convicts had been transported to Australia after being involved in industrial and political dissent, or to prevent the spread of radical political
Chartism In 1793, the Scottish radical,Thomas Muir, was sentenced for sedition, or incitement to riot, and was consequently transported to New South Wales for 14 years.Watson and Arnold (2019) highlight how his previous occupation as a gifted lawyer gave him the appropriate skills to make the case for freedom and liberty in the primitive legal systems of the colonies. His rhetoric and advocacy enabled him to plant a democratic seed in the, (at that time), unconstitutional colony. Back home in Britain, his radical proposals of universal suffrage and working-class inclusion helped to give rise to a political reform movement known as Chartism. Chase (2007) explains that Chartism was the movement for political reform in Britain that existed in the mid-18th century. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement. Chartists saw themselves fighting against political corruption and for democracy in an industrial society. It was largely considered a failed movement in England, but the program flourished in Australia, and Chartist demands meant that the nation was one of the first to introduce the secret ballot, and was an early adopter of male suffrage and wages for members of parliament (Moore, 2019). William Cuffay was included under this branch of political activists. Sentenced to 21 years following his accusation of ‘conspiring to levy a war’ against Queen Victoria, he became one of Australia’s first trade unionists following his transportation to Tasmania in November 1849 (Moore, 2019). His most influential campaign was against the Master and Servant Act, which ‘tethered a free labour force to their employers’ and limited their rights, according to Moore (2019). His sentence was terminated after three years and Cuffay made it his duty to continue to organise and agitate for democratic rights for convicts decades after he was pardoned.As a result of his, and the actions of other revolutionaries, the colonies began to grant universal male suffrage in the late 1850s, compared to 1918 in England (Archives, 2018). Chartism was not the sole cause that brought about the arrival of political convicts to Australia. Other exiled political prisoners included more than 2,000 Irish revolutionaries and resistors (Moore, 2019). Conspicuous Irish radicals also featured in the convict colonies, notably Kevin O’Doherty in 1848, who questioned many issues of colonisation, including criticising the treatment of Indigenous Australians from an early date and simultaneously helping to correct the social imbalances of the time. He eventually became the first Health Minister of Queensland, following his acquittal. Whilst such key figures were useful contributors to the fight for Australia’s democratic rights, democracy in Australia cannot be attributed to
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