Dark Convicts

It is a little known fact that eleven African American convicts arrived in Australia on the First Fleet in 1788. Two of these ex-slaves were the author's ancestors. In extensively researched poems, award-winning writer Judy Johnson vividly portrays scenes from her black forebearers' lives, both before transportation and afterwards, in the fledgling colony of New South Wales. Dark Convicts uncovers a little known aspect of Australian colonial history, told from the unique vantage point of a ...