"'Branded D on The Left Side': A Study of Former Soldiers..." Topic

… and Marines Transported to Van Diemen's Land: 1804- 1854.

"In 1838 Sir George Arthur admitted that the criminal status of a court-martialled soldier was problematic as a soldier was actually transported for a class of offences (such as striking a noncommissioned officer) for which a citizen would incur a trifling penalty. This observation was pertinent. Transportation needs to be understood in relation to other coercive institutions, including both slavery and military service. A small number of convicts had experienced multiple forms of coercion. Three African soldiers, for example were court-martialled and transported from the Caribbean by the West India Regiments. All had quintessential British names but bore country marks on their faces suggesting that they had been born in Africa. While a small number of former convicts had experience of slavery, the number who had served before the colours was substantially larger. Despite this, most convict historians have shunned soldiers. Robson, for example claimed that 'only a handful of men were transported by courts-martial.' Apart from several thousand who were transported to New South Wales and Western Australia, over 3,000 former soldiers were shipped to Van Diemen's Land alone.

Transported soldiers occupy an almost unique position in convict historiography. Apart from former slaves, soldiers were the most substantial convict sub-group to have experienced a coercive disciplinary regime comparable with the convict system. Emerging from this coercive disciplinary regime transported soldiers carried permanent visual reminders of their confrontations with state power. Furthermore, this occurred during a period generally regarded as an era of penal reform. Soldiers' bodies represent this transitional discourse on the changing nature of ritualised state violence. Their experiences are illustrated upon their bodies, perhaps to a greater extent than other convict sub-groups. Hundreds had already been flogged and their bodies carried 'marks of punishment'…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Quite a good sized piece there.

Glad you like it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

I'll have to try and read this.

One of my ancestors was supposed to have been sacked as jailer of the Hobart Jail by Governor Arthur for being too nice to the prisoners. Well that and his drinking…

And consequently former soldiers comprised a decent proportion of early Tasmanian bushranging gangs; a fact that helps to explain the militant and desperate character of such bands.