---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 11:08:52 EDT
From: L.LITVACK <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Dickens and Slavery (fwd)

Jon Varese writes that slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834.
Has he considered the case of Australia, where convicts had a variety of
possible fates:

1. They were assigned on arrival (Magwitch, and, one might think, the
Artful Dodger)

2. They were put on chain gangs for the construction of roads (no definites
here, but possibly John Edmunds ('The Convict's Return' in PP)

3. They were incarcerated at Norfolk Island, Moreton Bay, etc. (Wackford
Squeers?)

4. If they were females, they might have been put in the female factory
at Paramatta (Alice Meynell from D&S?)

I would suggest that each of these is a form of slavery (though probably not
the sort contemplated by Varese).

Leon Litvack
Queen's Univ. of Belfast
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