TOPIC: "Escaping Ancestors from colonial Sydney, 1788-1818: how did the early convicts escape from Port Jackson during the first 30 years of European settlement"
This presentation will deal with specific examples from Spanish archives of convicts, mariners and soldiers who escaped from Sydney and turned up in Spanish America as individuals attempting to return to Europe. The “route home” to Europe will be discussed.
Chris Maxworthy reveals the convicts, soldiers, mariners and stowaways who exited Sydney illicitly. In this rich tale are former soldiers of the Sydney garrison escaping debts, time-expired convicts joining up in visiting Cape Town privateers, and ship-wrecked crews that all variously trans-shipped across the Americas (Mexico, Panama, Peru and Chile) as part of their long way home.
Chris' discussion will feature particular ships and individuals of the period, and even examples of those who chose to remain in South America, converting to Catholicism and integrating into Spanish colonial society in the Americas.
About the presenter:
Chris Maxworthy is a Maritime historian and naval officer; he is a graduate of the RAN College at Jervis Bay and also of the University of NSW where he graduated in both Electrical Engineering and a BA in History.
Chris Maxworthy’s family history research began in the 1980’s where he located an ancestor who arrived in Sydney aboard a British privateer in the year of the Rum Rebellion, 1808. This research has since broadened into the early maritime history of Australia and Spanish America.
In 2011 Chris was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to pursue his research across Spanish language archives in South America, Mexico and Spain. This in turn led to his discovery of a Spanish plan of 1796 to attack Sydney from Chile, Buenos Aires and Mexico in order to eliminate the British colony in the south western Pacific Ocean at Port Jackson.
Chris Maxworthy’s special interest has been the privateering, smuggling, whaling and sealing in the Pacific Ocean region from 1788 to the advent of Spanish American emancipation in 1820.
Chris’s research has turned up valuable Prize Court records dealing with both British and Spanish privateers.
Chris has also served as a Councillor of the RAHS, and Secretary of the Australian Association for Maritime History (AAMH).
This event will be held via the ZOOM Platform.
This webinar will be recorded, so you can either watch it live or watch it later.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
