Casting a spotlight on the Black convicts of African descent who helped shape Australia

Billy Blue, 1834, by J. B. East. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

It is a new idea to many Australians that their past is connected to the tragic history of transatlantic slavery.

Some aspects of this relationship have begun to be uncovered: for instance when Britain abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies – places such as Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada – it struck a deal with the slave-owners to pay them £20m compensation for the loss of their human “property”.