Now, Australia has long become the most ideal immigrant country in people's minds. It not only has a good ecological environment, but also has a vast land, sparse population and relatively developed technology, and there are all kinds of daily necessities. These factors are attracting people to settle here.
As a British colony, Britain naturally contributed to the fact that Australia can develop into what it is today. In fact, the construction of Australia is indeed inseparable from the help of the UK, but the way of helping the UK is very different from what people imagined.
The British's attitude towards Australia was initially just used it as a place of exile to exile all kinds of criminals. When an warship, , came to this continent with 200 female prisoners, what happened was even more surprising because many female prisoners were pregnant.
So, what kind of story is there? Let’s talk about it today.
The consequences of overbirth
As we all know, in the 1970s, the population problem became the first major problem that my country needs to solve. The excessive population has made jobs scarce, and people’s employment pressure has increased sharply.
In order to alleviate this pressure, family planning has become a basic national policy in our country, thus effectively controlling population growth.
In fact, our country is not the first country to encounter population problems. After completing the industrial revolution , the country's national strength has increased sharply. Factory large and small have been built like mushrooms after a rain. The roar of machines is endless, and the smoke and dust discharged from the factories has also earned London the title of fog .
Under the dividends of the Industrial Revolution, capitalists made a lot of money, and the living standards of ordinary British people have also improved significantly.
At the same time, Britain's powerful maritime military power also allowed Britain to expand rapidly, constantly establishing colonies around the world, thus giving birth to the empire that never sets.
The strength of military and industry has made the British people full of confidence. They feel that life has never been as beautiful as it is now, and they are full of hope for their future life.
Under such an environment, the British began to give birth to children unscrupulously, hoping that their children can enjoy a happy life in the future. According to some records, there are five children per family in the UK and Britain, and there are also many families with seven or eight children.
Seeing this situation, capitalists were even more happy because they knew that when these children grew up, a huge demographic dividend would come.
As capitalists expected, when these children began to become short of jobs when they became adults, they had to accept lower wages to get a job, and gradually people found that life began to become less beautiful.
While lowering wages, capitalists frantically opened new factories to expand production to make greater profits. The huge employment pressure has made many people unemployed vagrants, and workers who originally had jobs were replaced by cheaper and stronger young people.
There are also a large number of young people who cannot find jobs at all. These large number of unemployed people can only wander on the streets every day, and these people have become an unstable factor in the streets in the UK.
In order to survive, they have to do everything they can to cheat and steal. It can be said that they are doing everything.
There were even many people forming criminal gangs, causing the crime rate in Britain to rise sharply. At that time, British police were almost at full capacity. In order to maintain social order, they kept arresting these restless criminals back to prison.
But soon they discovered another problem. The prison could not accommodate so many prisoners. In order to solve this problem, the British began to find a new solution. It was during this period that the vast land of Australia entered the British's sight.
18th century Australia's huge prison
1769, the famous British navigator Captain Cook discovered the "Southern Continent", which later became Australia.
According to his description, the British learned that this was a wild continent, full of snakes, insects, poisonous ants and strange creatures, and the local indigenous people were still in the Stone Age.
Although this continent failed to arouse the interest of capitalists, British politicians' eyes lit up after hearing the news. In their opinion, this is the most ideal place to resettle prisoners.
1784, Australia officially became the place for British exiled prisoners. Two years later, 736 prisoners became the first group of exiled to Australia, and the escort prisoners Navy Colonel Arthur Philip became Australia's first governor.
The prisoners were all excited after learning the news. After all, being able to move freely is much better than being locked up in prison, but when they embarked on a journey to Australia, they found that the situation was not as they imagined.
The bumps on the sea are unbearable, and at the same time they are threatened by various diseases, the most terrible of which is scuremia. After a long journey of 252 days, the prisoner finally set foot on the land of Australia.
But the scene in front of them once again made them fall into despair. Australia was not as prosperous as it is now. How to survive a desolate land here was a huge test for them.
Many criminals have never done agricultural labor and know nothing about land reclamation. In order to solve the survival problem, Philip tried his best to maintain good relations with the local indigenous people.
They hope to get some help from them. On the other hand, he kept asking the British government for help. While the UK was transporting more criminals to Australia, it also transported a lot of food.
However, since most of the prisoners were men before, the male-female ratio of these prisoners was severely unbalanced, resulting in serious physical and psychological problems in the prisoners.
As the governor, Colonel Philip also reported these situations to the British government truthfully. The British government learned about these situations quickly selected 200 female prisoners and allowed them to board a warship called "Madam Julian" and head to Australia to start their new lives.
A ridiculous journey
These selected female prisoners, with an average age of about 27 years old, did not commit any serious crimes like the previous prisoners, and most of them were caught for theft.
Before boarding the ship, these women knew very well that their situation was only worse than that of male prisoners. After getting on board, the female prisoner quickly understood a truth that if he wanted to survive, he could only rely on those crew members.
Their methods to please the crew can only rely on their own bodies. In this way, the female prisoner completely became a toy in the hands of the crew members of the "Lady Julian".
During the long journey on the sea, the female prisoners kept having sex with the crew in order to survive, and they received only a meal or a glass of rum . Not only that, during the journey to Australia, the "Madam Julian" will dock at all ports passing by.
According to the original plan, the warship does not need to be docked so frequently, and the reason is that the crew members hope to earn more extra income. Under the pressure of the crew, the female prisoners had to start a flesh-and-skinned business.
originally warships have become entertainment places where anyone can go as long as they spend money. All the income obtained by these female prisoners went into the pockets of the crew members. In this way, the female prisoners also set foot on the land of Australia.
Results These unmarried female prisoners all had big belly when they got off the boat, and some even got off the boat with their children in their arms. No one can tell who the fathers of these children are.
Although it ended the suffocating journey, these female prisoners just jumped from one fire pit to another.
200 After the female prisoners got ashore, the young and beautiful ones were first picked by the officials, and then the soldiers were asked to choose mistresses for themselves, and the rest were assigned to other male prisoners.
It can be seen that human rights are not worth mentioning in the face of interests. Even though Britain, which always claims to be the benchmark of contemporary civilization, did not treat these female prisoners as one person at all when dealing with them. They were completely materialized and turned into a commodity for people to choose from.
At the same time, the number of male prisoners in Australia has reached 6,000. The arrival of these 200 female prisoners has not solved any practical problems, but has made the situation even more chaotic.
Male prisoners fought each other for the female prisoners, while female prisoners wandered among different men to gain more survival resources for themselves. An Australian official at that time wrote in his diary:
"The arrival of female prisoners did not improve the situation here, and their depravity also made people feel deeply desperate. Here, male prisoners can be redeemed as long as they reform, but female prisoners are hopeless."
As time goes by, more and more female prisoners are sent to Australia, and the problem of male-female ratio has gradually been alleviated, which has gradually stabilized the situation here.
With the strong support of the UK, not only can it be self-sufficient, but the animal husbandry industry has also achieved unprecedented development. Seeing that Australia has great potential, the British government decided to rebuild order here and make it a civilized and prosperous colony.
Therefore, the British government issued a decree that as long as a female prisoner can marry herself, she can regain her freedom, but if she is unfaithful to her husband, she will be imprisoned again.
In order to get free, the female prisoner changed into a thick skirt to dress herself up. She hoped that someone would be willing to be married to her, but even so, it was still difficult for them to establish their own marriage.
Because of the previous experiences of these women, although men are very willing to let them be their mistresses, no one is really willing to marry them, so there are very few female prisoners who have gained freedom through marriage.
Most of them ultimately failed to find a partner that suits them and died in loneliness. Many of them set out on a miserable road just because of hunger and stole a piece of cheese, and eventually died in a foreign land.
Although Australia is now very developed, this miserable history is a dark history that cannot be erased no matter what. It can also be seen from this history that the colonial invasions of many European countries during the voyage period were so dark, based on countless bloody things.
not only triangle trade , but also the development of the Australian mainland. What do you think about this?
