9781422285800

x 1

CHAPTER

Title H story, Religion, and Tradition O nce she realized what the judge had in mind, Elizabeth Beckford might have wished that the executioner had tied a noose around her neck and sent her falling from the gallows. Elizabeth, seventy, stood before the English magistrate expecting to be executed for stealing twelve pounds of Gloucester cheese—a hangable offense. The judge, in an apparent show of mercy, ordered Elizabeth to be sent halfway around the world to the desolate British penal colony called New South Wales, in what is today Australia. In 1770, James Cook, a British naval officer and explorer, landed on the continent, claiming it for England. Eventually, the English were looking for a place to send their convicts and relieve the country’s overcrowded prisons.

9

CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY, RELIGION, AND TRADITION