American Citizens, British Slaves

Yankee Political Prisoners in an Australian Penal Colony 1839-1850This book tells the strange story of almost a hundred United States citizens who were transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1839-40. As members of the Patriot Army that had conducted border raids into the colony of Upper Canada in 1838, they saw themselves as courageous republican activists, impelled by a moral duty to liberate their northern neighbours from British oppression. Instead of herioic liberators, they became political prisoners of Her Majesty’s government.