English passengers (68 page)

A
LL
FICTION—and nonfiction—changes and concentrates what it portrays. This is one of its first purposes. Having said this, I have tried to represent this era as truthfully and precisely as possible. All the major events of the Tasmanian strand of the novel follow real occurrences, from the stealing of aboriginal women by sealers to the massacre on the cliff, the bizarre cruelties of the convict system, the fiasco of the Black Line and the terrible farce of Flinders Island. Likewise some of the characters are closely based on people of the time, including Robson, the various governors and their wives and also Mother (Walyeric). She was inspired by a formidable woman named Walyer, who fought the whites and was greatly feared by them. She knew how to use firearms, was reputed to have cut a new path through the bush to facilitate her campaigns and would swear fluently in English as she launched her attacks. She was eventually captured by the British in late 1831, and at once began trying to organize fellow aboriginals in a rebellion. She died not long afterwards.

Another character based on a real figure of the time is Tayaleah, or George Vandiemen. The real George Vandiemen was a Tasmanian aboriginal child who was found wandering close to New Norfolk in 1821, having become separated from his family. His aboriginal name is not recorded. His discovery came to the attention of a recently arrived settler, William Kermode—oddly enough, a Manxman—who decided to have him sent to Lancashire to be educated. The boy did well in his studies, and was sent back to Tasmania in 1828, only to fall sick and die soon afterwards. His short history was soon forgotten.

Now I’d like to jump forward a little. During the 1850s a quiet revolution was occurring in England. Prior to this time Europeans had frequently treated other peoples with great cruelty—the worst example being, famously, slavery—yet there was little or no attempt in educated circles to justify such behaviour. The biblical notion that all men are roughly equal may have been ignored, yet it had remained largely unchallenged. This was all to change. In 1850 a disgraced surgeon named Robert Knox published
The Races of Men, a fragment
. This was in many ways a precursor of Hitler’s
Mein Kampf
, insisting that all history was nothing more than a process of racial conflicts (rather as Karl Marx, in his
Communist Manifesto
of three years earlier, had declared all history was merely a struggle between economic classes). Knox was among the first writers to claim that the various races of mankind were actually different species (a ludicrous notion in modern scientific terms), while it will come as little surprise that he proposed that the Saxon, of England, was among the most exalted. His book was an immediate best-seller. For the first time it became acceptable, even fashionable, to see the world in these terms. Though such ideas were strongly opposed in some quarters they continued to gain influence, forming a kind of ugly background music to the latter part of the century. Their impact since then is infamous, and we are living with it still today.

If only the Victorian British had troubled to look a little more carefully at the evidence before them. It was widely accepted throughout the later nineteenth century that the most inferior of all races had been the aborigines of Tasmania—how else could they have so foolishly permitted themselves to be exterminated?—who were often depicted as being a kind of halfway house between men and apes, wholly lacking in faculties of reason. Another presumption of the time was that the highest and rarest form of reason was mathematics.

I would now like to include a factual document from that time. This is George Vandiemen’s final school report, written by his teacher in Lancashire, John Bradley. I have reproduced it in full.

Mr. Kermode,

You will perceive, in George’s ciphering book, the easy manner that has been pursued in teaching him Arithmetic, a branch of education that he was
supposed to be incompetent in, but this supposition, I am persuaded, could only have arisen from want of method and experience in those who attempted to teach him, and not from want of faculty in George. His abode with me has been but short, but I am convinced that his good memory, which you will perceive in his repetition of the Psalms and other things which he has got off, must certainly enable him to go through common Arithmetic with as much faculty as boys do in general.

I feel much gratified in having had this boy with me, tho’ but a little time, as it confirms me more in the opinion that I have long cherished: that Man is on all parts of the globe the same; being a free agent, he may mould himself to excellence or debase himself below the brute, & that education, government and established customs are the principal causes of the distinctions among nations. Let us place indiscriminately all the shades of colour in the human species in the same climate, allow them the same means for development of intellect, I apprehend the blacks will keep place with the whites, for colour neither impairs the muscles nor enervates the mind. We know that a black horse can match a white one in the race and that Hannibal and his black Africans contended gloriously with Rome for the Empire of the world. May the revolutions of mind establish the empire of reason and benevolence over the ruins of ignorance and prejudice. But I fear, sir, that I am running from the subject, which is by your desire to say the method that I would recommend to be pursued in the passage.

Arithmetic
may be followed up by selecting the easy examples out of a printed one (?) which he has with him; but care should be taken that he do not disfigure his ciphering book, as it may be shown to the Governor, so that if he should write down any sums let it be on common paper, these may be at some future time transcribed, if it should be thought necessary.

The
Psalms
. Repeat one daily so as to keep in most those which he has already got off.

Read a lesson daily
in the Juvenile Reader and commit a portion of it to memory.

Say the multiplication and pence tables frequently, also a portion of the Geography and write a lesson out of the Orthography & get the Rule connected with the lesson.

I refer to your judgment for the next. May the Giver of Intellect bless your endeavours and make you happy in the exercise of benevolence. I also pray that our Nation may be
just
as it is
great
and secure to George a
portion of the
land
that gave him birth, that our Rulers may in this instance be governed by
justice, let the Native have what the voice of reason and equity adjudge to him,
and not let power supersede right.
Accept my wishes for your own and George’s prosperity & a pleasant
voyage to the other side of the globe.

Your humble servant,
John Bradley

T
HE
M
ANX SPOKE
a Celtic language closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It gradually declined during the nineteenth century, and the last native Manx speaker died in the 1970s (though recently there has been a move to teach it in Manx schools). As the old language faded, there grew up what became known as the Anglo-Manx dialect. This was a form of English but was peppered with Celtic words and thoughts, and grammar was often a literal translation from Gaelic. Thus Manxmen would not say
he has a new hat
but
there’s a new hat at him
, and the definite article (
the
) could be used for emphasis, as in the phrase
the hot I am
.

Sad to say, the Anglo-Manx dialect has, like the old Gaelic language before it, largely vanished now, apart from the odd word or phrase, but fortunately a full record was made when it was still widely spoken, at the beginning of this century:
Vocabulary of the Anglo-Manx Dialect
by A. W. Moore, Edmund Goodwin and Sophia Morrison, which offers an intriguing picture of past Manx preoccupations. The sea, herring and superstition all figure strongly. So do various types of character, all of them viewed with disapproval. Smooth, slippery people are represented by no fewer than nine words (
Creeper, Click, Clinker, Cluke, Crooil, Reezagh, Shliawn, Slebby
and
Sleetch
). Showy, boastful people get ten (
Branchy, Filosher, Feroash, Gizzard, Grinndher, High, Neck, Snurly, Stinky
and
Uplifted
). Large, blundering people get fifteen (
Bleih, Bleb, Dawd, Flid, Gaping, Glashan, Gogaw, Gorm, Hessian, Kinawn, Looban, Ommidhan, Slampy, Sthahl
and
Walloper
), while peevish people—especially small, scolding women—get as many as eighteen (
Borragh, Coughty, Crabby, Cretchy,

Corodank, Gob-mooar, Gonnag, Grangan, Grinnder, Grouw, Huffy, Mhinyag, Pootchagh, Scrissy, Scrowl, Smullagh, Spiddagh
and
Targe)
.

There is also a wealth of words concerned with beatings, inheritance and small amounts of money. Most of all, though, the dialect gives an impression of a people who delighted in playing games with language. I have used it sparingly, so it does not become too much of a distraction, and have tried to make the meaning of words apparent from their context. In case any have proved puzzling, though, I offer a glossary.