American Patriots'
Roll of Honour
After a brave but disorganised attempt to spread the gospel of independence from America to Canada in 1838, the British colonial authorities in Canada captured 92 Americans and Canadians, members of the American Patriot Army.
They were banished to Britain’s harsh, remote island colony of Van Diemen’s Land, now the State of Tasmania, south of the Australian mainland.
Their amazing story is little known. They were America’s and Canada’s first foreign prisoners of war. And the deportation and at times brutal treatment of American freedom fighters was illegal.
They were mostly civilian volunteers – farmers, carpenters, clerks, ploughmen, merchants.
Convict-powered railway, Van Diemen's Land
They became convict slaves, treated like beasts of burden, hauling logs, clearing forests, cutting stone, making roads, mining coal and even pushing passenger cars on an early wooden railroad.
Rudeness to a guard brought weeks of hard labour in chains or solitary confinement in total darkness, on bread and water. Trying to escape brought agony on treadmills or bone-baring flogging.
Fourteen Patriots died as convicts; some escaped home on American whalers; pardoned, some married and founded dynasties in Australia.
Other Patriots returned home and have many thousands of descendants in the United States and Canada today.
Are you one of them? Find out with My Word’s special poster honouring the American Patriot Army convict heroes. It includes brief histories of every one of them.
The 85cm x 35cm (34 x 14 inches) glossy colour poster is a must for military historians.
Designed and published in Tasmania by Tasmanians, it helps redress some of history's wrongs.
COST: $A20 each. Including express delivery to any country. Extra posters in same order, $A15 each.
Regional distributorships available. Generous wholesale rates. Contact us.
Bottoms up!
The Revolt of the Flash Mob!
One of the most colourful moments in the world’s long fight for women’s rights took place in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania).
Diaries record how 300 to 400 women convicts imprisoned at the Female Factory were paraded before the island’s Colonial Governor Sir John Franklin, his wife Lady Jane and a gaggle of Colonial dignitaries one sunny afternoon in 1844.
As the Female Factory Chaplain began to address them, the protesting women, as one, silently turned about, hitched up their skirts and bent over, presenting a field of bare, pink bottoms, which they then loudly slapped with her hands in the face of their horrified cleric.
Officially hushed up at the time, the event ranks as one of history’s great insults to authority, organised by a troupe of truculent trollops called The Flash Mob.
After extensive historical research, brilliant Tasmanian illustrator Peter Gouldthorpe is the first, 160 years later in 2004, to capture this moment – exclusively for My Word.
Flash Mob colour postcards are now available for $A3 each, minimum 10. Glossy A4 size prints ready for framing, $A17 each. Superb, numbered prints size A3 (85cm x 35 cm, or 34 x 14 inches), individually signed by illustrator Peter Gouldthorpe, are available (while they last) for $A35 each. Plus cost of prompt air delivery to any country $A15 for one print or 10 cards. Extra prints delivery $A2 each. In Australia, delivery for one print or 10 cards, add $8.50. Extra prints postage $2.
And superb, limited-edition A3 prints, numbered and signed (while they last) by Peter Gouldthorpe for $A35 ($US28). Plus airmail and packaging.$A20 ($US ) outside Australia. Within Australia $10. Generous bulk rates, and regional distributorships, are available. Contact us
