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Added 2022-07-16 23:09:28 +0000 UTCAh the stain, the stain. Convict ancestry was a pretty big soft spot for much of modern history even up to fairly recently. Families were ashamed and would conceal it (along with indigenous heritage) easily into the early 90s and some I am sure have beyond. This has changed with the cultural climate and now it's more often seen as a badge of honour, but especially at a time when the colony was so young, the free-persons (more often than not previously incarcerated themselves) would be fearful to use the word in polite conversation. This was doubly true in Tasmania where the vast majority of people wanted to pivot the islands image. In letters and books by Tasmanian's of the time you will find a conspicuous lack of reference to their situation. Or at most spoken of with innuendo or misleading half-truth.
Transport ended in New South Wales in 1840, but not for another twelves years in poor Tasmania.
