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shelleyrae's review against another edition
4.0
The Convict Valley by Mark Dunn is a fascinating examination of New South Wales’ Hunter Valley region covering approximately a 60-year span from the late 1790’s to the early 1850’s.
“Outside of Sydney, the Hunter Valley was the first region to be explored in any detail by the British....”
Dunn utilises meticulous research to uncover the history of the region’s early development, and makes a sincere attempt to include the experience of the Aboriginal people in the narrative.
“From the very first years a complex, interwoven history emerged between the Aboriginal people and the British in the Hunter.”
Essentially stumbling on what is now known as Newcastle during the pursuit of five runaway convicts, the British were quick to recognise the region’s potential to provide coal and timber for the burgeoning colony of Sydney. Beginning as an unspoiled wilderness, home to the Wonnarua people, the Hunter Valley became the site of the state’s second penal colony in 1804, mainly to provide free labour to exploit its natural resources in a systematic manner, before the land was opened to free settlers in 1822. Largely an agricultural landscape, dominated by farms and estates, Newcastle (briefly renamed Kings Town) slowly became an urban center by default as new colonial settlements began to develop in Wallis Plains (Maitland), Green Hills (Morpeth) and Patrick Plains (Singleton).
“...as the population rose, and the stakes over land and property grew, class and racial tensions began to manifest themselves in what for a time became a landscape of violence.”
Detailing the physical, economic and social growth of the Hunter Valley in an accessible manner, enhanced by paintings, maps, sketches, and photographs, The Convict Valley makes an important contribution to the historical record of Australia
“Outside of Sydney, the Hunter Valley was the first region to be explored in any detail by the British....”
Dunn utilises meticulous research to uncover the history of the region’s early development, and makes a sincere attempt to include the experience of the Aboriginal people in the narrative.
“From the very first years a complex, interwoven history emerged between the Aboriginal people and the British in the Hunter.”
Essentially stumbling on what is now known as Newcastle during the pursuit of five runaway convicts, the British were quick to recognise the region’s potential to provide coal and timber for the burgeoning colony of Sydney. Beginning as an unspoiled wilderness, home to the Wonnarua people, the Hunter Valley became the site of the state’s second penal colony in 1804, mainly to provide free labour to exploit its natural resources in a systematic manner, before the land was opened to free settlers in 1822. Largely an agricultural landscape, dominated by farms and estates, Newcastle (briefly renamed Kings Town) slowly became an urban center by default as new colonial settlements began to develop in Wallis Plains (Maitland), Green Hills (Morpeth) and Patrick Plains (Singleton).
“...as the population rose, and the stakes over land and property grew, class and racial tensions began to manifest themselves in what for a time became a landscape of violence.”
Detailing the physical, economic and social growth of the Hunter Valley in an accessible manner, enhanced by paintings, maps, sketches, and photographs, The Convict Valley makes an important contribution to the historical record of Australia
kimswhims's review against another edition
3.0
Found the early history chapters of European and Indigenous contact more interesting than later parts of convict settlement but it's an excellent history of the Newcastle/Maitland/Hunter region.
Read it on my ereader borrowed on borrowbox from the library, would have been better as a physical book, to check chapter notes etc.
Read it on my ereader borrowed on borrowbox from the library, would have been better as a physical book, to check chapter notes etc.
archytas's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
A straightforward history covering Newcastle from 1790ish through to about 1840 in detail, with a chapter moving beyond that. It seems kind of incredible that it hasn't been done before, but Dunn does a good job. His focus here is very much on the nature of the convict/settler relations, and the Aboriginal/British relations. He builds here on recent scholarship in establishing an overall framework for these dynamics - the influence of Grace Karskens and Paul Irish, in particular, is noticeable and well acknowledged. He accepts at the outset that these were complex and varied dynamics and that they were largely driven in both cases around the dynamics of access to land.
Stylistically, Dunn is a straightforward writer, with a gift for describing his hometown, and the location of place is a strength - I think this will be loved by Novocastrians, and although I left two decades, I could smell the sea spray off Nobby's reading this.
Dunn is dispassionate but clear in approaching the history of violence against Aboriginal residents and visitors, and also in looking at the violence visited on convicts. He is also forthcoming in pointing that the contemporary understandings of this were sharper than many today would like to admit to: "
In 1833, William Breton, while travelling through the Hunter, bluntly summed up the result of the years of violence: We have taken possession of their country, and are determined to keep it; if therefore they destroy the settlers or their property, they must expect the law of retaliation will be put in force, and that reprisals will be committed upon themselves."
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide
Descriptions of violence as you would expect as per the above, including brief summaries of massacres of Aboriginal people.
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