4 ms·

Australian convict pirates in Japan: evidence of 1830 voyage unearthed

146 points by jwfxpr 9y ago

RangerScience 9y ago
TL;DR - Amateur historian connects the dots between some Australians (who escaped from Tasmania as pirates) and a bunch of Japanese records of what appeared to be a British ship, by realizing the Japanese records indicated the ship was probably a pirate vessel, and (literally) googling "mutiny 1829" (since most pirate vessels were from mutinies). What's really neat is how detailed the Japanese records were, and that they were made by Samurai, and incorporated watercolor illustrations. I didn't realize (or, it never sunk in) the variety of work they were responsible and trained for.
- douche 9y ago
  If you haven't yet, read some of James Clavell's novels. Shogun was fascinating, as was Tai-Pan - I've been meaning to get through the rest. The shogunate and the Meiji period are very, very interesting periods of history, and under-represented.
  - a_bonobo 9y ago
    For a Japanese twist, read Eiji Yoshikawa's novels - he fictionalized historical accounts into novels, Taiko is set before Shogun and is about the rise of Oda Nobunaga, who was succeeded by Clavell's Tokugawa Ieyasu. Musashi is about the famous swordsman's life.
  - foxh0und 9y ago
    I read Shogun whilst traveling all over Japan at the beginning of last year, amazing book and really added to the experience?
- twblalock 9y ago
  By that time, the samurai were the administrative and bureaucratic class. They were doing pretty much everything you would expect government officials to be doing. Most samurai who lived between the mid-1600s and the mid-1800s never experienced combat, except for practicing sword fighting.
- netcan 9y ago
  The obvious analogy is knights. We have a lot of iconic depictions of circa 13th century knights from works in later periods. Small feudal chiefs or mounted warriors. That depiction is a particular fictionalization of a particular periods from a particular period. Knights actually date back to early roman times where they were a mounted warrior class and other European predecessors. Today, they still exist in some form. In between, they were all sorts of things. Even during that iconic late medieval period, knightly orders were responsible for a lot of unexpected stuff. Knights ran an international bank service, for example.
kapauldo 9y ago
What a great story, thanks for sharing.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
femto 9y ago
The Australian classic novel, "For the Term of His Natural Life" by Marcus Clark (1874) contains a fictionalised account of this mutiny and convict life. It's a good read. The novel in turn draws from Clark's earlier piece "The Seizure of the Cyprus" [2]. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3424 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3424 [2] http://www.telelib.com/authors/C/ClarkeMarcus/prose/OldTales/seizurecyprus.html http://www.telelib.com/authors/C/ClarkeMarcus/prose/OldTales...
aaron695 9y ago
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8644472 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8644472 (1829) Original account of how they took they ship.
- eddy_chan 9y ago
  Thanks for posting that. It's amazing how accessible the english language was (190 years ago) to a reader today. Spelling and vocabulary are pretty much the same. Compare that with a period 190 years before 1829, 1639 and you'd almost be back in Shakespearean England.
  - kwhitefoot 9y ago
    English from 1639 is much more accessible to English speakers than texts from that period in many other languages are to their speakers now. What often makes Shakespeare difficult is that he and his audience had a shared background so a lot of allusions are lost on a modern audience. Even Chaucer has a lot of quite readable passages. Take a look at this side by side original and modern English versions of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales: http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para.html http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para...
  - wycx 9y ago
    Early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society [1] (starting from 1665) are surprisingly readable. [1] http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/by/year http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/by/year
- jdright 9y ago
  > A remarkable instance of the presence of mind in a female occurred. The Serjeant's wife, during the confusion rolled up the Government dispatches, intended for Macquarie Harbour, and actually succeeded in bringing them safe off in her apron ! Interesting times indeed.
i_feel_great 9y ago
“It is very strange that everyone who goes out for a closer look returns feeling very sorry for them. I feel sorry for them from what I know about convict history and penal colonies in Australia. The British authorities were very nasty. You could be sent to the penal colonies with hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread to feed yourself. Patrick Logan, the commander of the Moreton Bay penal colony here in Brisbane, was a very vicious man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Logan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Logan
- flukus 9y ago
  So that's who Logan City is named after? Seems fitting.
- robotmay 9y ago
  There's a folk song about Moreton Bay that details some of the horrible things Logan did. Here's a pretty recent rendition by a couple of British folk musicians (apologies to any Australians who know of good Aussie versions): https://saulrosejamesdelarre.bandcamp.com/track/moreton-bay https://saulrosejamesdelarre.bandcamp.com/track/moreton-bay. Although lyrics change over time, folk songs are often a good record of events as they were usually created by less literate people and you get the working man's viewpoint essentially by word-of-mouth.
  - lawless123 9y ago
    There is an Irish one.(actually this seems to ahve been written in the 1970s) The Fields of Athenry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry Though it's been co-opted and changed into a sports song by some football clubs.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    > Although lyrics change over time, folk songs are often a good record of events On the other hand, these songs could be disingenuous romanticizing of criminal lifestyles. Just look at the narcocorrido genre in Mexico -- two centuries from now, do you think it would be reasonable for people to examine then and think that their subjects were decent, hardworking folk being unnecessarily hassled by The Man?

146 points by jwfxpr 9y ago

TL;DR - Amateur historian connects the dots between some Australians (who escaped from Tasmania as pirates) and a bunch of Japanese records of what appeared to be a British ship, by realizing the Japanese records indicated the ship was probably a pirate vessel, and (literally) googling "mutiny 1829" (since most pirate vessels were from mutinies). What's really neat is how detailed the Japanese records were, and that they were made by Samurai, and incorporated watercolor illustrations. I didn't realize (or, it never sunk in) the variety of work they were responsible and trained for.

douche 9y ago
If you haven't yet, read some of James Clavell's novels. Shogun was fascinating, as was Tai-Pan - I've been meaning to get through the rest. The shogunate and the Meiji period are very, very interesting periods of history, and under-represented.
- a_bonobo 9y ago
  For a Japanese twist, read Eiji Yoshikawa's novels - he fictionalized historical accounts into novels, Taiko is set before Shogun and is about the rise of Oda Nobunaga, who was succeeded by Clavell's Tokugawa Ieyasu. Musashi is about the famous swordsman's life.
- foxh0und 9y ago
  I read Shogun whilst traveling all over Japan at the beginning of last year, amazing book and really added to the experience?
twblalock 9y ago
By that time, the samurai were the administrative and bureaucratic class. They were doing pretty much everything you would expect government officials to be doing. Most samurai who lived between the mid-1600s and the mid-1800s never experienced combat, except for practicing sword fighting.
netcan 9y ago
The obvious analogy is knights. We have a lot of iconic depictions of circa 13th century knights from works in later periods. Small feudal chiefs or mounted warriors. That depiction is a particular fictionalization of a particular periods from a particular period. Knights actually date back to early roman times where they were a mounted warrior class and other European predecessors. Today, they still exist in some form. In between, they were all sorts of things. Even during that iconic late medieval period, knightly orders were responsible for a lot of unexpected stuff. Knights ran an international bank service, for example.

kapauldo 9y ago

What a great story, thanks for sharing.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

femto 9y ago

The Australian classic novel, "For the Term of His Natural Life" by Marcus Clark (1874) contains a fictionalised account of this mutiny and convict life. It's a good read. The novel in turn draws from Clark's earlier piece "The Seizure of the Cyprus" [2]. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3424 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3424 [2] http://www.telelib.com/authors/C/ClarkeMarcus/prose/OldTales/seizurecyprus.html http://www.telelib.com/authors/C/ClarkeMarcus/prose/OldTales...

aaron695 9y ago

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8644472 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8644472 (1829) Original account of how they took they ship.

eddy_chan 9y ago
Thanks for posting that. It's amazing how accessible the english language was (190 years ago) to a reader today. Spelling and vocabulary are pretty much the same. Compare that with a period 190 years before 1829, 1639 and you'd almost be back in Shakespearean England.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  English from 1639 is much more accessible to English speakers than texts from that period in many other languages are to their speakers now. What often makes Shakespeare difficult is that he and his audience had a shared background so a lot of allusions are lost on a modern audience. Even Chaucer has a lot of quite readable passages. Take a look at this side by side original and modern English versions of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales: http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para.html http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para...
- wycx 9y ago
  Early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society [1] (starting from 1665) are surprisingly readable. [1] http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/by/year http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/by/year
jdright 9y ago
> A remarkable instance of the presence of mind in a female occurred. The Serjeant's wife, during the confusion rolled up the Government dispatches, intended for Macquarie Harbour, and actually succeeded in bringing them safe off in her apron ! Interesting times indeed.

i_feel_great 9y ago

“It is very strange that everyone who goes out for a closer look returns feeling very sorry for them. I feel sorry for them from what I know about convict history and penal colonies in Australia. The British authorities were very nasty. You could be sent to the penal colonies with hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread to feed yourself. Patrick Logan, the commander of the Moreton Bay penal colony here in Brisbane, was a very vicious man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Logan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Logan

flukus 9y ago
So that's who Logan City is named after? Seems fitting.
robotmay 9y ago
There's a folk song about Moreton Bay that details some of the horrible things Logan did. Here's a pretty recent rendition by a couple of British folk musicians (apologies to any Australians who know of good Aussie versions): https://saulrosejamesdelarre.bandcamp.com/track/moreton-bay https://saulrosejamesdelarre.bandcamp.com/track/moreton-bay. Although lyrics change over time, folk songs are often a good record of events as they were usually created by less literate people and you get the working man's viewpoint essentially by word-of-mouth.
- lawless123 9y ago
  There is an Irish one.(actually this seems to ahve been written in the 1970s) The Fields of Athenry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry Though it's been co-opted and changed into a sports song by some football clubs.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > Although lyrics change over time, folk songs are often a good record of events On the other hand, these songs could be disingenuous romanticizing of criminal lifestyles. Just look at the narcocorrido genre in Mexico -- two centuries from now, do you think it would be reasonable for people to examine then and think that their subjects were decent, hardworking folk being unnecessarily hassled by The Man?