Sephardi convicts in Van Diemen's Land

Among the thousands of men and women transported to Van Diemen's Land was a small though significant contingent of Jews. In a colony where Christianity was assumed as the norm. the religious and cultural heritage of Jewish convicts complicated their lives. This chapter looks at a distinctive group within this religious minority, the Sephardi convicts, and though biographies of a male and female convict considers the pressures of their heritage upon their construction of colonial identity.