Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 112

Macquarie was keen to introduce orderliness to all aspects of colonial life, and so he encouraged the general population to settle down in their behaviour and lives.

Hundreds of men and women were living in ‘common-law marriages’, or what are known today as de facto relationships (and what shocked Evangelical ministers at the time called the keeping of ‘concubines’!). Macquarie tried to get men and women to make it all official, in a church, with the registry. This was part of his plan to make the whole colony more settled, along with his building of churches and encouragement of schools.

Macquarie was also strict in his treatment of convicts. Even though he liked nothing more than helping ex-convicts attain the social prominence that their material wealth and industrious activity had (in his eyes at least) earned them, that didn’t mean he thought convicts should be allowed to do whatever they wanted.

In 1814, Macquarie declared sternly that convicts could no longer swap between masters. If a neighbouring settler offered you a better deal, more free time or more pay, tough — you had to stick with the master you’d been assigned to.

Macquarie took his control of convicts further in 1819 when, to groans from convicts all round, the Hyde Parke Barracks opened.

In a pretty clear illustration of the power dynamics in the early colony, Macquarie couldn’t just order the convicts into the new barracks. Many convicts would have preferred to continue living wherever they’d already found lodgings — staying with their mates or a nice landlady perhaps. So Macquarie threw a big feast — offering the convicts a party, with plenty of rum — and the convicts fell for it. In they went, with the big door locked behind them.

For those who Macquarie coaxed into the Hyde Parke Barracks, there was no more task work and knocking off when the job was done at about midday. Now work would continue from sunrise to sunset, with two short meal breaks. Finally, 30 years after the so-called prison colony was founded, something resembling a prison to put the convicts in was opened. Convicts were still allowed out on weekends, and they made the most of it — thefts and arrests for drunkenness rose steeply at the end of each week.