- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Briony Neilson
The University of Sydney, History, Department Member
- Criminal Justice History, French History, History of Crime and Punishment, History of Criminal Justice, Settler colonialism, French colonialism, and 17 moreConvict Transportation, Juvenile Justice, Sociology of Crime and Deviance, Critical Criminology, HISTORY OF CRIME AND LAW, Art Brut, Outsider Art, History of Crime, History of Reading and Writing, New Caledonian history, History of Childhood and Youth, Carceral Geography, Nineteenth Century Studies, French Colonial History, Sociology of Children and Childhood, History of prisons, and Policing Studiesedit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the two convict-built European settler colonial projects in Oceania, French New Caledonia and British Australia, were geographically close yet ideologically distant. Observers in the... more
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the two convict-built European settler colonial projects in Oceania, French New Caledonia and British Australia, were geographically close yet ideologically distant. Observers in the Australian colonies regularly characterized French colonization as backward, inhumane, and uncivilized, often pointing to the penal colony in New Caledonia as evidence. Conversely, French commentators, while acknowledging that Britain's transportation of convicts to Australia had inspired their own penal colonial designs in the South Pacific, insisted that theirs was a significantly different venture, built on modern, carefully preconceived methods. Thus, both sides engaged in an active practice of denying comparability; a practice that historians, in neglecting the interconnections that existed between Australia and New Caledonia, have effectively perpetuated. This article draws attention to some of the strategies of spatial and temporal distance deploy...
Research Interests:
This article explores the entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia as settler colonies with convict histories. Existing historiography focuses on the importance of the Australian model in inspiring the French to transport convicts to... more
This article explores the entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia as settler colonies with convict histories. Existing historiography focuses on the importance of the Australian model in inspiring the French to transport convicts to settler colonies, and has explored the moral panic that erupted over the menace of escaped French convicts invading the Australian colonies after the abolition of British convict transportation. My analysis shifts the focus onto the construction of settler colonial authority, analysing the ways in which comparisons drawn by contemporary observers of New Caledonia and Australia served primarily to solidify the legitimacy of settler rule in Australia and increase its regional hegemony into the first few decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on original French and English language sources, including the writing of the obscure French convict poet Julien de Sanary, this article makes the case for understanding New Caledonia and its bagne not as unwanted reminders of Australia's penal origins, but rather as useful sites of projection for settlers in Australia. Constant arguments about the archaic and authoritarian nature of French penal policy and colonialism helped erase the memory of convictism and strengthen settler authority and legitimacy in Australia and internationally. By considering the trans-imperial entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia, we can further reveal the dynamics of settler colonialism and the processes of disavowal and disassociation that sustain it.
Research Interests: Geography, French History, Pacific Island Studies, Criminal Justice History, Political Science, and 9 moreFrench colonialism, Australian History, New Caledonia, Pacific History, Settler Colonial Studies, British Imperial and Colonial History, French Colonial History, Convict Transportation, and Historical Studies
Research Interests: Sociology, French History, Nineteenth Century Studies, Sociology of Crime and Deviance, Criminal Justice History, and 11 moreCritical Criminology, History of Childhood and Youth, History of Reading and Writing, Art Brut, Outsider Art, History of Crime, History of prisons, History of popular culture, Histoire du droit, Historical Studies, and History of Adolescence
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the two convict-built European settler colonial projects in Oceania, French New Caledonia and British Australia, were geographically close yet ideologically distant. Observers in the... more
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the two convict-built European settler colonial projects in Oceania, French New Caledonia and British Australia, were geographically close yet ideologically distant. Observers in the Australian colonies regularly characterized French colonization as backward, inhumane, and uncivilized, often pointing to the penal colony in New Caledonia as evidence. Conversely, French commentators, while acknowledging that Britain's transportation of convicts to Australia had inspired their own penal colonial designs in the South Pacific, insisted that theirs was a significantly different venture, built on modern, carefully preconceived methods. Thus, both sides engaged in an active practice of denying comparability; a practice that historians, in neglecting the interconnections that existed between Australia and New Caledonia, have effectively perpetuated. This article draws attention to some of the strategies of spatial and temporal distance deployed by the Australian colonies in relation to the bagne in New Caledonia and examines the nation-building ends that these strategies served. It outlines the basic context and contours of the policy of convict transportation for the British and the French and analyses discursive attempts to emphasize the distinctions between Australia and New Caledonia. Particular focus is placed on the moral panic in Australian newspapers about the alleged dangerous proximity of New Caledonia to the east coast of Australia. I argue that this moral panic arose at a time when Britain's colonies in Australia, in the process of being granted autonomy and not yet unified as a federated nation, sought recognition as reputable settlements of morally virtuous populations. The panic simultaneously emphasized the New Caledonian penal colony's geographical closeness to and ideological distance from Australia, thereby enabling Australia's own penal history to be safely quarantined in the past.
Research Interests:
In March 1818, Congress passed into law a bill that seemed to mark a watershed moment in the contest over public memory of the Revolutionary War. The Pension Act finally recognized and rewarded the services of rank-and-file war veterans... more
In March 1818, Congress passed into law a bill that seemed to mark a watershed moment in the contest over public memory of the Revolutionary War. The Pension Act finally recognized and rewarded the services of rank-and-file war veterans from the conflict that gave birth to the new nation. Historians have generally seen the Pension Act of 1818 as a marker of a transformation in public sentiment over the memory of the Revolutionary War. While the legislation no doubt reflected a shift in sentiment, especially toward the “suffering soldiers” of the Continental Army, the inclusiveness of the legislation has been overstated. While the 1818 Act did extend benefits to an important group of soldiers, it nonetheless continued to exclude tens of thousands of veterans of the Revolutionary War who did not meet the requirements of the legislation. However, while the 1818 Pension Act may not have reflected a radical transformation in public sentiment over the memory of the Revolutionary War, it did help initiate a more widespread change in official and public memory of the war. As this article will argue, the legislation gave veterans a platform on which to share their stories. And although veterans were forced through the Act's provisions to recount their tales in a particular and narrow manner, they found ways to challenge received wisdom about the nature of their services and even the war itself. Moreover, their visible presence, efforts, and collective indignation about the injustices of the non-inclusiveness of the legislation fostered widespread public sympathy, and gave their stories oxygen that they might not have otherwise had. Ultimately, through their demands for pensions, veterans managed to convince the broader public of the important role of ordinary people in securing victory in the Revolutionary War. They also compelled governing elites to admit that victory was the work of a wide range of new citizens, not just heroic leaders. And they did so not just as long-serving soldiers in the Continental Army, but in irregular and auxiliary companies, in the state services, and in the militia.
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This article offers a contextualised analysis of the published writing of the French convict-poet Julien de Sanary. Transported from France to the penal colony in New Caledonia in 1881, Sanary spent almost forty years of his life... more
This article offers a contextualised analysis of the published writing of the French convict-poet Julien de Sanary. Transported from France to the penal colony in New Caledonia in 1881, Sanary spent almost forty years of his life incarcerated in the archipelago before his case was taken up by an Australian woman, Wolla Meranda, who successfully petitioned for his release in 1920. Here I offer the first extended study of Sanary’s life and work, and provide the first ever translation of Sanary’s poetry into English. I discuss the meaning of the act of writing for the French convict and provide an analysis of some of the major themes of his poetry. In addition I point out the greater significance of Sanary’s life and poetry to the histories of New Caledonia and Australia as European settler colonies, arguing that his experiences and relationship with Meranda are illustrative of a prevailing trope in the early twentieth century concerning the backwardness of New Caledonia as a European settler colony relative to Australia.
Research Interests:
This article explores the entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia as settler colonies with convict histories. Existing historiography focuses on the importance of the Australian model in inspiring the French to transport convicts to... more
This article explores the entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia as settler colonies with convict histories. Existing historiography focuses on the importance of the Australian model in inspiring the French to transport convicts to settler colonies, and has explored the moral panic that erupted over the menace of escaped French convicts invading the Australian colonies after the abolition of British convict transportation. My analysis shifts the focus onto the construction of settler colonial authority, analysing the ways in which comparisons drawn by contemporary observers of New Caledonia and Australia served primarily to solidify the legitimacy of settler rule in Australia and increase its regional hegemony into the first few decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on original French and English language sources, including the writing of the obscure French convict poet Julien de Sanary, this article makes the case for understanding New Caledonia and its bagne not as unwanted reminders of Australia's penal origins, but rather as useful sites of projection for settlers in Australia. Constant arguments about the archaic and authoritarian nature of French penal policy and colonialism helped erase the memory of convictism and strengthen settler authority and legitimacy in Australia and internationally. By considering the trans-imperial entanglements of Australia and New Caledonia, we can further reveal the dynamics of settler colonialism and the processes of disavowal and disassociation that sustain it.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
France’s decision to introduce penal transportation in 1854 at precisely the moment that Britain was winding it back is a striking and curious fact of history. While the Australian experiment of penal colonization was not considered a... more
France’s decision to introduce penal transportation in 1854 at precisely the moment that Britain was winding it back is a striking and curious fact of history. While the Australian experiment of penal colonization was not considered a model for direct imitation, it did nonetheless provide a foundational reference point for France and indeed other European powers well after its demise, serving as a yardstick (whether positive or negative) for subsequent discussions about the utility of transportation as a method of controlling crime. The ultimate fate of the Australian experiment raised questions in later decades about the utility, sustainability and primary purpose of penal transportation. Drawing on the records of both French and international penal reform organizations, this paper reflects on the legacy that the British experiment was seen to provide in the decades after convict transportation to Australia ended, while French transportation took off. In so doing, it casts light onto the expectations of and rationale for penal colonization held by its practitioners—past, present, and aspiring. Even if penologists saw penal transportation as serving some useful role in tackling crime, the experience of the British in Australia seemed to indicate the strictly limited practicability of the method in terms of controlling crime. Far from a self-sustaining system, penal colonization was premised on an inherent and insurmountable contradiction; namely, that the realization of the colonizing side of the project depended on the eradication of its penal aspect.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: French History, Nineteenth Century Studies, Sociology of Crime and Deviance, Criminal Justice History, Critical Criminology, and 9 moreHistory of Childhood and Youth, History of Reading and Writing, Art Brut, Outsider Art, History of Crime, History of prisons, History of popular culture, Histoire du droit, and History of Adolescence
Skilfully set within its historical context by Fornasiero and West-Sooby, Péron’s Memoir provides us with a wider perspective into the history of Australia’s colonization by Europeans, as well as a window into the codes of seafaring... more
Skilfully set within its historical context by Fornasiero and West-Sooby, Péron’s Memoir provides us with a wider perspective into the history of Australia’s colonization by Europeans, as well as a window into the codes of seafaring during the volatile post-revolutionary period. Péron’s insights stretch our picture of events and motivations to encompass more than just official British perspectives. The Memoir reveals the intensity of competition between European powers for access to trading ports and the tactical considerations lying at the heart of the diplomatic codes of civility governing relations at sea and in far-flung settlements. Reading the account, one cannot help but be struck by the contrast between the belligerent language Péron uses throughout and the civility that is said to characterize encounters between French and British. Adhering to the script of diplomatic interaction was crucial not only for ensuring a smooth passage through areas controlled by foreign powers, but also in the interests of assembling the most reliable information on those places which could then be used against them. Tensions were high and overseas possessions jealously guarded and enviously coveted. Nothing on the surface during the visit of the Baudin expedition pointed to any overt ambitions of the French to gazump the British in their takeover of lands in the antipodes.