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Black Convicts: How slavery shaped Australia
Shortlisted for the 2025 Queensland Literary Awards, The University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award
Shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize
Readings Best Books of 2024, Non-Fiction
The story of Australia’s Black convicts has been all but erased from our history. In recovering their lives, Santilla Chingaipe offers a fresh understanding of this fatal shore, showing how empire, slavery, race and memory have shaped our nation.
'The defining read of the decade. This is a work of global significance.' Meanjin
On the First Fleet of 1788, at least 15 convicts were of African descent. By 1840 the number had risen to almost 500. Among them were David Stuurman, a revered South African chief transported for anti-colonial insurrection; John Caesar, who became Australia’s first bushranger; Billy Blue, the stylishly dressed ferryman who gave his name to Sydney’s Blues Point; and William Cuffay, a prominent London Chartist who led the development of Australia’s labour movement. Two of the youngest were cousins from Mauritius—girls aged just 9 and 12—sentenced over a failed attempt to poison their mistress.
But although some of these lives were documented and their likenesses hang in places like the National Portrait Gallery, even their descendants are often unaware of their existence.
By uncovering lives whitewashed out of our history, in stories spanning Africa, the Americas and Europe, Black Convicts also traces Australia’s hidden links to slavery, which both powered the British Empire and inspired the convict system itself. Situating European settlement in its global context, Chingaipe shows that the injustice of dispossession was driven by the engine of labour exploitation. Black Convicts will change the way we think about who we are.
Shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize
Readings Best Books of 2024, Non-Fiction
The story of Australia’s Black convicts has been all but erased from our history. In recovering their lives, Santilla Chingaipe offers a fresh understanding of this fatal shore, showing how empire, slavery, race and memory have shaped our nation.
'The defining read of the decade. This is a work of global significance.' Meanjin
On the First Fleet of 1788, at least 15 convicts were of African descent. By 1840 the number had risen to almost 500. Among them were David Stuurman, a revered South African chief transported for anti-colonial insurrection; John Caesar, who became Australia’s first bushranger; Billy Blue, the stylishly dressed ferryman who gave his name to Sydney’s Blues Point; and William Cuffay, a prominent London Chartist who led the development of Australia’s labour movement. Two of the youngest were cousins from Mauritius—girls aged just 9 and 12—sentenced over a failed attempt to poison their mistress.
But although some of these lives were documented and their likenesses hang in places like the National Portrait Gallery, even their descendants are often unaware of their existence.
By uncovering lives whitewashed out of our history, in stories spanning Africa, the Americas and Europe, Black Convicts also traces Australia’s hidden links to slavery, which both powered the British Empire and inspired the convict system itself. Situating European settlement in its global context, Chingaipe shows that the injustice of dispossession was driven by the engine of labour exploitation. Black Convicts will change the way we think about who we are.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 30, 2024
51 people are currently reading
556 people want to read
About the author
Santilla Chingaipe
2 books2 followersSantilla Chingaipe is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. She spent nearly a decade working for SBS World News, which saw her report from across Africa and interview some of the continent’s prominent leaders. Her work explores contemporary migration, cultural identities and politics. Santilla is currently developing several factual and narrative projects. She writes regularly for The Saturday Paper and is a member of the federal government’s Advisory Group on Australia–Africa
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
January 8, 2025
What a grappling with the archive. Academic in nature and tone, Chingaipe fills in some gaps on colonial history in terms of black convicts and the links between the convict penal system and slavery. I found it fascinating.
December 6, 2024
This must have been frustrating to research, constantly chasing shadows for the tail to completely disappear. Unfortunately that doesn’t really make for good reading and I wasn’t interested in the over-psychologising where there wasn’t any underlying evidence. I feel I learnt more about the black convict experience by reading Tommo & Hawk.
The more interesting story that this book tells is the linkages between the colonies with the history of slavery. This belies the common Australian myth that there was no slavery in Australia’s history. Chingaipe shows us that it certainly existed under different names and there were many rich slavers that were able to become even richer and more politically influential moving around the colonies.
Looking forward to a collab between Chingaipe and Tony Birch on Prince Moody 🤞🏻🤞🏻
The more interesting story that this book tells is the linkages between the colonies with the history of slavery. This belies the common Australian myth that there was no slavery in Australia’s history. Chingaipe shows us that it certainly existed under different names and there were many rich slavers that were able to become even richer and more politically influential moving around the colonies.
Looking forward to a collab between Chingaipe and Tony Birch on Prince Moody 🤞🏻🤞🏻
March 3, 2025
History Matters! I want to be writing histories like this.
May 18, 2025
2025 Stella Prize Longlist
A hard one to rate, between a 4 and a 5.
Well researched, however, it is such a sad litany of peoples lives.
Black Convicts often seemed to move from slavery on the plantations of the West Indies, back to Britain and then off to the Australian Colonies for another hard life.
Very pleased to have listened to the audiobook. It's past time these lives were acknowledged.
A hard one to rate, between a 4 and a 5.
Well researched, however, it is such a sad litany of peoples lives.
Black Convicts often seemed to move from slavery on the plantations of the West Indies, back to Britain and then off to the Australian Colonies for another hard life.
Very pleased to have listened to the audiobook. It's past time these lives were acknowledged.
April 13, 2025
A necessary intervention into convict history showing how Australia was intimately linked to the transnational slave trade through the Empire. From formerly enslaved convicts to related systems of punishment and the movement of goods, this is a captivating story. I'm reviewing this book for one of my coursework units.
February 26, 2025
I went into this thinking I knew a fair bit about African and African Diaspora peoples who were transported to Australia, but I really didn't. This is a meticulously documented record of many really interesting stories I - and I am guessing you - were never told. Chingaipe has dug up the stories of African leaders, Carribean revolt leaders, queer Indigenous Khoisan, and people who lived through chattel slavery as well as convict systems. There are sex workers and children who fought back against their abuse. Chingaipe gives all her subjects attention, noting the frustrations of trying to tell lives through scant archival records, but never trying to intepret them beyond what is reasonable, speak for them, or sanitise them. This is such a varied cast of people, and cannot but shift your view of what Sydney and Hobart looked like in the early days of the colony, and only wonder at how we create myths that erase.
May 20, 2025
This book was impeccably researched and I learnt so much about the topic of convicts of African descent. Inevitably, the topic of slavery, particularly in British colonies, and its aftermath is also front and centre here too. I feel much better-informed now. I also really appreciated that the author only very occasionally attributed feelings, etc to historical subjects in the archival gaps, preferring to contextualise instead, which I think is a preferable approach. I’m very glad to have read this one! 4.25 stars
July 30, 2025
3.5 stars from me.
Great research but quite dry writing. I wish it was slightly more focused on storytelling so my interest could follow at all times.
Great research but quite dry writing. I wish it was slightly more focused on storytelling so my interest could follow at all times.
July 2, 2025
For once I have no notes.
This is a MUST READ for everyone, not just Australian's but everyone who has benefited from colonialism. And finally a book about Black history written by a Black person! I'm so sick of reading books about Black and Indigenous history thats written by a white person who has directly benefited from the oppression of the same people they write about.
This book is an incredibly well-researched piece. I'm actually astounded at the length Chingaipe went to find already very limited information for this book. As an Australian, I didn't even know there were Black convicts sent to Australia as a part of the slave trade - and an incredibly diverse group of people as well. This is history that has been totally erased and NEEDS to be taught and spoken about in schools and mainstream media! It's interesting, heartbreaking, horrifying all at once, but most importantly, it gives a voice to all those lost to the whitewashing of history.
I can't express enough how much this is a must-read!
No quotes, listened on audio.
This is a MUST READ for everyone, not just Australian's but everyone who has benefited from colonialism. And finally a book about Black history written by a Black person! I'm so sick of reading books about Black and Indigenous history thats written by a white person who has directly benefited from the oppression of the same people they write about.
This book is an incredibly well-researched piece. I'm actually astounded at the length Chingaipe went to find already very limited information for this book. As an Australian, I didn't even know there were Black convicts sent to Australia as a part of the slave trade - and an incredibly diverse group of people as well. This is history that has been totally erased and NEEDS to be taught and spoken about in schools and mainstream media! It's interesting, heartbreaking, horrifying all at once, but most importantly, it gives a voice to all those lost to the whitewashing of history.
I can't express enough how much this is a must-read!
No quotes, listened on audio.
April 24, 2025
3.5 stars
March 19, 2025
Overall, it’s fine.
BUT a lot of us didn’t know which convict we came from in the 1990s. It’s only for ancestry.com which actually know who came from whom. And that’s why many Aboriginals have found their mob also.
Overall great work but it needs to be recognised to also call white folks slaves - if we’re going to put people into the slave category from convicts
BUT a lot of us didn’t know which convict we came from in the 1990s. It’s only for ancestry.com which actually know who came from whom. And that’s why many Aboriginals have found their mob also.
Overall great work but it needs to be recognised to also call white folks slaves - if we’re going to put people into the slave category from convicts
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2024
Black Convicts explores the lives of the 15+ convicts of African descent who were on the First Fleet, and the 500+ more who were transported to Australia in later years.
On my way to the Avid Reader launch of this book, I thought about what I might ask in the Q&A. I was curious to know, ‘Were any Black convicts transported to Tasmania?’ Then I thought, maybe that’s a dead-end question, if the author has to say, ‘No, not really’.
That goes to show how little I knew, and I love history, especially Tasmanian history. One of the goals of this extensive research by historian Santilla Chingaipe is to challenge the assumption that all convicts were white and British.
There were a variety of people sent to Australia from British colonies all over the world, but Chingaipe focuses on those of African descent: people who were enslaved, free, or descended from enslaved people. They were transported for offences ranging from petty theft to political rebellion.
Across Tasmania, from Ben Lomond to Bagdad, Norfolk Plains to Devonport, interesting stories emerge. Following a controversial Barbadian legal case, Robert James was sent to Van Diemen’s Land in 1835. He married Lucinda Linn from St Helena and they had eight children. Robert opened a lodging house in Collins Street, Hobart, which was a gathering place for people of African descent. He died in 1896; his gravestone remains in Cornelian Bay Cemetery in Hobart. His friend Mary Jane Burrows, born enslaved in Barbados in 1816, was transported to Hobart in 1838 aboard the convict ship the Atwick for the crime of ‘wounding’ the child of her ‘master’. She was sent to the Cascades Female Factory, assigned as a nursemaid, married a cook and sailor from Bermuda, had several children, and worked at the Bowling Green Hotel in Hobart. Her children resided at Robert’s lodging house, and Robert was the informant on her death certificate in 1857, presumably while her husband was away at sea.
These stories emerge from the scraps of information Chingaipe uncovered, in research that took her from old prisons in Tasmania to museums in Barbados and UK archives. There are curious side stories, such as that regarding Maria Middleton, a 17-year-old girl from British Honduras who was found guilty of murdering her husband and transported for life to Hobart in 1828. She married a free Black man who was a whaler, and she was assigned a white female convict as a servant. This situation, a Black woman in charge of a white woman, was unusual enough to be written up in the local newspaper.
Chingaipe interviews First Nation’s writer Tony Birch, who has a Barbadian ancestor called Prince Moody who was sentenced to transportation for life for burglary. Prince Moody arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1836 and was a bricklayer, stonemason and ploughman.
One challenge for the historian is archival silence. Many factors contribute to this: some people’s lives were not recorded to the same degree as others, the anglicising of enslaved people’s names has misled some historians, powerful people adopt the achievements of convicts as their own etc.
Another challenge is the violence contained in the archives. Chingaipe writes:
‘I am struck by the irony of my 21st century Black hands, in white cotton gloves, delicately holding a document about 18th century Black people, whose hands were in manacles…The pamphlet is an instruction manual about how to manage humans as though they were livestock.’
The influence of slavery on Australia’s convict system is evident in the language of the convict administration – the ticket of leave, convicts leased to ‘Masters’ – as well as sexual and labour exploitation, the legal systems designed to control people, the whippings and punishments, among other things.
‘The slave trade redefined the world order and created the racial hierarchies that we still find ourselves tethered to today,’ Chingaipe writes. She follows the sugar trail, showing how wealth was redistributed from West Indies’ plantations to Australia, and revealing that the first person to make rum in Australia was James Williams. He was born into slavery in Antigua’s sugar plantations in 1796, and transported for theft in 1819. At NSW’s Port Macquarie penal settlement, from one sugar plant, he grew four hundred more in six months and used his skills to process the cane into sugar and rum. For a long time, in official records, a Scottish Antiguan-plantation owner laid claim to this achievement.
This is a book where you learn as you unlearn. Here, history is rewritten, as Chingaipe debunks the stories that we associate with Australia’s national identity, demonstrating how these mythologies contribute to the erasure of facts and people. At this time, as we witness the horrific legacies of colonial violence across the world, this is an important and timely read. It’s also easy to read, compassionate and engaging.
On my way to the Avid Reader launch of this book, I thought about what I might ask in the Q&A. I was curious to know, ‘Were any Black convicts transported to Tasmania?’ Then I thought, maybe that’s a dead-end question, if the author has to say, ‘No, not really’.
That goes to show how little I knew, and I love history, especially Tasmanian history. One of the goals of this extensive research by historian Santilla Chingaipe is to challenge the assumption that all convicts were white and British.
There were a variety of people sent to Australia from British colonies all over the world, but Chingaipe focuses on those of African descent: people who were enslaved, free, or descended from enslaved people. They were transported for offences ranging from petty theft to political rebellion.
Across Tasmania, from Ben Lomond to Bagdad, Norfolk Plains to Devonport, interesting stories emerge. Following a controversial Barbadian legal case, Robert James was sent to Van Diemen’s Land in 1835. He married Lucinda Linn from St Helena and they had eight children. Robert opened a lodging house in Collins Street, Hobart, which was a gathering place for people of African descent. He died in 1896; his gravestone remains in Cornelian Bay Cemetery in Hobart. His friend Mary Jane Burrows, born enslaved in Barbados in 1816, was transported to Hobart in 1838 aboard the convict ship the Atwick for the crime of ‘wounding’ the child of her ‘master’. She was sent to the Cascades Female Factory, assigned as a nursemaid, married a cook and sailor from Bermuda, had several children, and worked at the Bowling Green Hotel in Hobart. Her children resided at Robert’s lodging house, and Robert was the informant on her death certificate in 1857, presumably while her husband was away at sea.
These stories emerge from the scraps of information Chingaipe uncovered, in research that took her from old prisons in Tasmania to museums in Barbados and UK archives. There are curious side stories, such as that regarding Maria Middleton, a 17-year-old girl from British Honduras who was found guilty of murdering her husband and transported for life to Hobart in 1828. She married a free Black man who was a whaler, and she was assigned a white female convict as a servant. This situation, a Black woman in charge of a white woman, was unusual enough to be written up in the local newspaper.
Chingaipe interviews First Nation’s writer Tony Birch, who has a Barbadian ancestor called Prince Moody who was sentenced to transportation for life for burglary. Prince Moody arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1836 and was a bricklayer, stonemason and ploughman.
One challenge for the historian is archival silence. Many factors contribute to this: some people’s lives were not recorded to the same degree as others, the anglicising of enslaved people’s names has misled some historians, powerful people adopt the achievements of convicts as their own etc.
Another challenge is the violence contained in the archives. Chingaipe writes:
‘I am struck by the irony of my 21st century Black hands, in white cotton gloves, delicately holding a document about 18th century Black people, whose hands were in manacles…The pamphlet is an instruction manual about how to manage humans as though they were livestock.’
The influence of slavery on Australia’s convict system is evident in the language of the convict administration – the ticket of leave, convicts leased to ‘Masters’ – as well as sexual and labour exploitation, the legal systems designed to control people, the whippings and punishments, among other things.
‘The slave trade redefined the world order and created the racial hierarchies that we still find ourselves tethered to today,’ Chingaipe writes. She follows the sugar trail, showing how wealth was redistributed from West Indies’ plantations to Australia, and revealing that the first person to make rum in Australia was James Williams. He was born into slavery in Antigua’s sugar plantations in 1796, and transported for theft in 1819. At NSW’s Port Macquarie penal settlement, from one sugar plant, he grew four hundred more in six months and used his skills to process the cane into sugar and rum. For a long time, in official records, a Scottish Antiguan-plantation owner laid claim to this achievement.
This is a book where you learn as you unlearn. Here, history is rewritten, as Chingaipe debunks the stories that we associate with Australia’s national identity, demonstrating how these mythologies contribute to the erasure of facts and people. At this time, as we witness the horrific legacies of colonial violence across the world, this is an important and timely read. It’s also easy to read, compassionate and engaging.
February 24, 2025
The history of the colony of Australia holds much legend, but never have I imagined that Black men and women were part of such crucial moments as the arrival of those First Fleet ships full of convicts, of meetings with the original First Nations people on this land, becoming soldiers and law enforcement, to key moments in the Eureka Stockade. We were just never taught that, the history books never mentioned it.
Initially included as a last minute entry into the book Growing Up African In Australia, I recall hearing about, and then reading the contribution that was the beginning of this research. The presence of around 15 Black convicts on the First Fleet was mind blowing.
The lineage of these people, and then the flow of further convicts in years to come, in Australia trace back to West Indian slavery, South African uprisings, displacement and racial profiling. The colonial outposts, and it's flow into the new island prison, which again inforced indentured servitude, to build the colony. Men who arrived as slaves of some of the most well known first white settlers. Women sent on the flimsiest of charges, to the harsh conditions.
The language used in the historical records to describe echoes the racist tropes today. The petty crimes committed, mostly out of poverty, seem so minuscule given the complete removal to another part of the world, to a place where their labours were once again used to further the white settlement of a land.
Bushrangers, pioneering ferry drivers, rebels. Children. The beginnings in the Australian population of so many, including one of our most celebrated authors interviewed here, and probably of many of us.
The research, and personal coverage conducted is impressive, diligent and vast. Chingaipe has travelled far and wide for these histories, these stories, to alter what has previously been recorded in the standard history books written by old white men.
This is a history changing work, shifting what we were told about white settlement in Australia, the development of the White Australia policy and it's origins, and the legacy of the first settlers. It colours us all, as a nation, and such understanding has the potential to rearrange so much in today's so called Australia.
Initially included as a last minute entry into the book Growing Up African In Australia, I recall hearing about, and then reading the contribution that was the beginning of this research. The presence of around 15 Black convicts on the First Fleet was mind blowing.
The lineage of these people, and then the flow of further convicts in years to come, in Australia trace back to West Indian slavery, South African uprisings, displacement and racial profiling. The colonial outposts, and it's flow into the new island prison, which again inforced indentured servitude, to build the colony. Men who arrived as slaves of some of the most well known first white settlers. Women sent on the flimsiest of charges, to the harsh conditions.
The language used in the historical records to describe echoes the racist tropes today. The petty crimes committed, mostly out of poverty, seem so minuscule given the complete removal to another part of the world, to a place where their labours were once again used to further the white settlement of a land.
Bushrangers, pioneering ferry drivers, rebels. Children. The beginnings in the Australian population of so many, including one of our most celebrated authors interviewed here, and probably of many of us.
The research, and personal coverage conducted is impressive, diligent and vast. Chingaipe has travelled far and wide for these histories, these stories, to alter what has previously been recorded in the standard history books written by old white men.
This is a history changing work, shifting what we were told about white settlement in Australia, the development of the White Australia policy and it's origins, and the legacy of the first settlers. It colours us all, as a nation, and such understanding has the potential to rearrange so much in today's so called Australia.
June 22, 2025
An eye-opening examination of Australia's convict transportation past and how it linked to the slave trade. Santilla Chingaipe has clearly spent many hundreds of hours in research archives in Australia, the UK, and the Caribbean in order to track the people of African descent who came to Australian shores as convicts. There are people who arrived with the first fleet and have been here from the start of the Australian colony but we have never heard about in history class. People who started out as slaves, who (they themselves or their ancestors) having been transported from Africa to work sugar plantations on places like Dominique or Barbados, found themselves transported again on conviction of a crime - major or minor- first to England and then on to build colonies in Tasmania, New South Wales, or further north.
Chingaipe shows the connections between slavery and convict transportation, explores the rules and laws that were used to force and subjugate people to labour in horrendous conditions - as slaves or convicts, and shows clearly how the same tactics used in slavery were used for prisoners.
Many of these stories are harrowing, some are inspiring and if you have any interest in Australian colonial history, racial history in Australia, convict, or slave history then this book needs to be on your radar.
I learned more about the Atlantic slave trade and convict life in details I had never heard before. There are parts of history that should appal anyone with with any degree of empathy, and there will be parts of history that you'd rather not face, but to move forward as a nation we need to, at the very least, acknowledge that these things happened. And if there is one take-away from this book it is that Australia has never been a land colonised only by white people, no matter how much the British and Australian governments have pretended otherwise in the 250-odd years since Cook first landed. Right from the very start there have been many races and religions forging lives in Australia, whether they wanted to come here or not.
Chingaipe shows the connections between slavery and convict transportation, explores the rules and laws that were used to force and subjugate people to labour in horrendous conditions - as slaves or convicts, and shows clearly how the same tactics used in slavery were used for prisoners.
Many of these stories are harrowing, some are inspiring and if you have any interest in Australian colonial history, racial history in Australia, convict, or slave history then this book needs to be on your radar.
I learned more about the Atlantic slave trade and convict life in details I had never heard before. There are parts of history that should appal anyone with with any degree of empathy, and there will be parts of history that you'd rather not face, but to move forward as a nation we need to, at the very least, acknowledge that these things happened. And if there is one take-away from this book it is that Australia has never been a land colonised only by white people, no matter how much the British and Australian governments have pretended otherwise in the 250-odd years since Cook first landed. Right from the very start there have been many races and religions forging lives in Australia, whether they wanted to come here or not.
August 30, 2025
I really enjoyed this book. What an eye-opener for me to discover that people with very similar African ethnicities and ancestry to myself had arrived in Australia with the First Fleet! Mind-blowing! It completely revolutionised the way I think about myself in Australia today.
Australia's colonial past was brutal and decimated the original cultures of this land. This book draws the parallels between that system and slavery; an earlier brutal system which decimated many African cultures and displaced millions from their original lands.
I have read criticism of this book (and the SBS series that proceeded it) that it takes the colonial view and does not foreground the indigenous perspective. To me this is an unfair criticism as the author addresses very specifically the challenges of working with inherently racist and colonial source material to draw out a largely untold story. She also acknowledges the discomfort of uncovering tensions between early Black settlers and Aboriginal peoples (in some instances). These are uncomfortable truths, but does that mean that this story should not be told?
I say that this story needs to be told. It challenges the mainstream colonial narrative and sheds light on a group of people who have been left out of Australian history.
At a time when we are grappling with questions of identity and belonging in Australia, this book comes as a timely reminder of the complexity and nuance in all of our migration stories.
Australia's colonial past was brutal and decimated the original cultures of this land. This book draws the parallels between that system and slavery; an earlier brutal system which decimated many African cultures and displaced millions from their original lands.
I have read criticism of this book (and the SBS series that proceeded it) that it takes the colonial view and does not foreground the indigenous perspective. To me this is an unfair criticism as the author addresses very specifically the challenges of working with inherently racist and colonial source material to draw out a largely untold story. She also acknowledges the discomfort of uncovering tensions between early Black settlers and Aboriginal peoples (in some instances). These are uncomfortable truths, but does that mean that this story should not be told?
I say that this story needs to be told. It challenges the mainstream colonial narrative and sheds light on a group of people who have been left out of Australian history.
At a time when we are grappling with questions of identity and belonging in Australia, this book comes as a timely reminder of the complexity and nuance in all of our migration stories.
July 12, 2025
Picture Australia in the 19th Century, and you may very well imagine convicts, probably English or Irish. If there are people of colour in the picture, they might be Aboriginal people watching from the distance in the colonial landscape, painted into the background of their own land. That’s certainly the depiction I was familiar with until reading Santilla Chingaipe’s Black Convicts. In 2018 Chingaipe learned that the 1788 First Fleet, the landing of which is commemorated on January 26, included convicts of African descent. It inspired her to revisit the archives, revealing that Australia's depiction of the transportation era has been whitewashed. It complicates our understanding of the atrocities in Australia’s foundations, the genocides and dispossession of Aboriginal people, and the transportation of people as punishment, showing how they belong to the same imperial project. It exposes connections between these systems of violence, exploitation, coercion and unfreedom. Read more on my blog.
June 25, 2025
A very important read, particularly for those living in Australia, to understand the involvement of the British Empire, which includes those foundational in Australia's colonialist history, had in chattel slavery. It was obviously very well researched, it must have been a painstaking task to undertake. I found the stories of black convicts interesting; however, I felt like a lot of this was just a recounting of how they came to be convicts in Australia, a lot of time focusing on their times in other British colonies, moreso than the overall impact of slavery and black convicts on Australia. This was still interesting, but I went in with an expectation that we would get a bit more analysis on how these convicts and systems shaped the Australia we see and live in today based upon the subtitle, and I don't think that expectation was upheld. I still think this is an important read and really opened my eyes to the way slavery played a role in Australian history, despite claims it didn't happen here.
May 15, 2025
3.5
...to confront some of the ugly truths of our history–slavery, colonialism, racism and sexism–and seek to correct their legacies.
More of a resource than anything else, Black Convicts is an all-encompassing history and spotlight on individual convicts of African descent who are often left out in historical archives, or when thinking about Australian colonialism and dispossession. I enjoyed more when Santilla Chingaipe wrote about her own experiences visiting the archives or attending a memorial service for John Joseph and found some of the information pretty difficult to get through for different reasons. However, I don't really think she set out to write a memoir of any kind. She is doing very important work - the sources and even an extensive list of Black convicts at the back of the book not only acknowledges and personifies the numbers of people and families affected, it acts as an accessible resource for people looking for answers.
...to confront some of the ugly truths of our history–slavery, colonialism, racism and sexism–and seek to correct their legacies.
More of a resource than anything else, Black Convicts is an all-encompassing history and spotlight on individual convicts of African descent who are often left out in historical archives, or when thinking about Australian colonialism and dispossession. I enjoyed more when Santilla Chingaipe wrote about her own experiences visiting the archives or attending a memorial service for John Joseph and found some of the information pretty difficult to get through for different reasons. However, I don't really think she set out to write a memoir of any kind. She is doing very important work - the sources and even an extensive list of Black convicts at the back of the book not only acknowledges and personifies the numbers of people and families affected, it acts as an accessible resource for people looking for answers.
July 7, 2025
Amazing. The way history is written is so incredibly biased and it drastically twist the truth to suit the perspective in power. And this is the way Australian history has been written for far too long.
Books like Black Convicts are needed to rip off the skewered recounts and hidden truths. I knew about the blackbirding but not about slaves from Africa brought to Australia. The shocking research brought forward is hard to read but so important to reveal.
My only issue is how all of Europe or white people are blanketed with the involvement of slavery concerning black people. Only Western Europe was involved in this. Eastern Europe did not participate or benefit from slavery or colonisation.
This book is a must read. It is well written and even the audiobook voice is Santilla Chingaipe! Very profound and a massive eye opener. Definitely recommend.
Books like Black Convicts are needed to rip off the skewered recounts and hidden truths. I knew about the blackbirding but not about slaves from Africa brought to Australia. The shocking research brought forward is hard to read but so important to reveal.
My only issue is how all of Europe or white people are blanketed with the involvement of slavery concerning black people. Only Western Europe was involved in this. Eastern Europe did not participate or benefit from slavery or colonisation.
This book is a must read. It is well written and even the audiobook voice is Santilla Chingaipe! Very profound and a massive eye opener. Definitely recommend.
February 19, 2025
Painstakingly collates the trails and details of Black convicts, most of whom have unfortunately gone under the radar to the common man, in Australia's history.
This is an important archive with stories of individuals and even an impressive tabulation of every known name, the crime they were charged with, their sentencing and which part of Australia they wound up in.
Black Convicts crushes the skewed, wishy-washy perspectives of colonial records and prevents history from fading into oblivion with time. It leaves a tangible, indelible mark up on your shelf for the world to remember.
The language used in this book is modern and it is easy-going with its structure. However, reading everyone's stories back-to-back will likely wear out most readers so be prepared to give yourself a breather or two.
This is an important archive with stories of individuals and even an impressive tabulation of every known name, the crime they were charged with, their sentencing and which part of Australia they wound up in.
Black Convicts crushes the skewed, wishy-washy perspectives of colonial records and prevents history from fading into oblivion with time. It leaves a tangible, indelible mark up on your shelf for the world to remember.
The language used in this book is modern and it is easy-going with its structure. However, reading everyone's stories back-to-back will likely wear out most readers so be prepared to give yourself a breather or two.
December 13, 2025
Fascinating history. I was not aware that we had black convicts in NSW, VICTORIA & TASMANIA. At the same time it was a great history of the links of slavery to convicts and how over history, white man has recorded history with little knowledge of the black African descendants from Africa and Barbados who ended up in our colonies. Saltillo Chingaipe, who was recognised by the United Nations as one of the most influential people of African descent in the world in 2019. She was born in Zambia, a former British Colony.
February 6, 2025
What a fantastic read. Story never been shared or highlighted. Author has done an extensive research and travel to piece together findings from archives to produce this work. Heartbreaking at some places and their souls might be crying out for justice or some recognition in this society. “Why don’t we know” chapter should be taught at every high school here to open eyes of today’s generation for inclusiveness and openness. A must read.
September 12, 2025
An incredible amount of research and work has gone into this, I can only imagine how difficult it was to piece together the lives of the black convicts detailed in this book. I wasn’t aware that convicts were sent to Australia from Africa and the Caribbean so this was an eye opening account of a history that is often whitewashed.
November 6, 2025
Dynamite and needed historian. The reader is implored to continue on the journey of digging, one that would have been deeply challenging for Santilla herself. How one keeps the academic curiosity to dig into spaces untouched, knowing the evils that lie on the other side of the door, is awe-inspiring. I am a fan. 🎉
January 3, 2025
I found this had less of a narrative than I was hoping for, meaning it does read more like an academic text, but overall this is a fascinating and well researched exploration of yet another part of Australia’s history which has been written out by racism.
April 5, 2025
A very good historical account of convict history and transportation. This book would indeed be an excellent resource for Australian schools to foster a deeper understanding of this significant period in the nation's history. Great author/historian
April 29, 2025
I only read this because it was nominated for the Stella, but I'm so glad I did! It is a great example of historical non-fiction. Very well written and fascinatingly informative. It explores broad world-wide issues while telling close up stories of a few individuals.
June 11, 2025
This is more like a thesis than a book. The author has a lot of information, but doesn’t integrate it into a coherent book. Perhaps it would have been better if she had concentrated on fewer people, and put some of the information into footnotes or appendices. It is read, not performed.
February 18, 2025
An important correction/addition to the historical record. Thank you Santilla for your passion and attention to detail.
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