Builders of Empire by Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs

Author:Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs [Harland-Jacobs, Jessica L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2007-04-23T03:00:00+00:00

Moving Up Down Under

New South Wales shared with Upper Canada the distinction of being a relatively young colony, built from the ground up in the aftermath of the American War. It too experienced population growth, though not on the scale of British North America (getting to Australia was of course a more daunting proposition than crossing the Atlantic). The overall numbers were smaller but the demographic shift underway was nevertheless profound. Arriving convicts outnumbered free immigrants by a ratio of ten to one in New South Wales during the 1810s. The ratio dropped to three to one in the next decade. Growing opposition to transportation and the effects of assisted migration schemes tilted the balance in the 1830s, with 40,300 settlers to 31,200 convicts. Imperial duty, the chance to be reunited with transported family members, and, increasingly, economic opportunity beckoned many. The influx of free settlers complicated an already unusual society. It remained an overwhelmingly male environment, though gender ratios began to balance as the century proceeded. And of course the well-established racial order that put Europeans in a position of dominance over Aborigines was only reinforced. It was in the makeup and dynamics of the “free white” population that the colony’s atmosphere grew more complex and, as a result, divisive. A colonist living in New South Wales from the 1820s on was classified according to his legal status (exclusive vs. emancipist), social position (whether or not he was a landholder and, if not, his occupation), and place of origin (“sterling” vs. “currency”).42

Conflicting interests created differing visions about the direction the colony should take: whether it would be an economy based on wool and dominated by large estate-owning magnates lording over convict and emancipist laborers, or a more diversified economy that presented opportunities for small-scale proprietorship and gave all white men a “fair go.” The establishment of a free press allowed for the expression of discontent, especially from emancipists who sought more rights and opportunities. The 1823 Act for the Better Government of New South Wales set up civil courts to replace the military tribunals that had dispensed justice to this point, but did not grant emancipists the right to trial by jury. The act also established a Legislative Council appointed by the governor, which was only a tentative move toward representative government (a partially elected legislative council did not operate until 1842). As in British North America, a brotherhood that was initially identified with prominent men gradually broadened its appeal once rising men began to see membership as facilitating their upward mobility. But the penal settlements in the antipodes posed a problem that Masons in other parts of the empire would have found inconceivable: should former convicts be admitted to lodges? Not surprisingly, we see local Masons attempting to regulate their brotherhood by sifting not Scots and French Canadians, but Irishmen and emancipists.

Both emancipists and Freemasonry found an ally in the fourth governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie arrived in the aftermath of the disastrous administration of

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