The author acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and communities. This writer also pays her respect to Aboriginals and Torres Strait cultures and Elders past and present.
‘Let no-one say the past is dead, the past is all about us and within’ (Oodgeroo, Kath Walker, Aboriginal poet)
Between 27 and 29 April 1835, four women, Isabella Watt, Ann Balfour, Isabel Cruickshank and Margaret Miller, were sentenced at the Aberdeen high court of justiciary to ‘transportation beyond the seas’ to Van Diemen’s Land (VDL), now Tasmania. All, apart from Isabella Watt, were given a seven-year sentence, the minimum for the crime of ‘theft, habite and repute’. ‘Habite and repute’ was a Scottish term used to indicate a convict had previous offences and was already known as a thief. Following three guilty verdicts in police courts, Scottish convicts’ cases were most often sent to the high court. When found guilty there, convicts were sentenced to be ‘transported beyond the seas’. There is evidence to suggest that in some cases, leniency was being shown to young or widowed
