Australian convicts have significantly impacted the development of Australia in both the long and short term. Some examples include Australian cultural language, the population of aboriginals and free forced labor. These examples, represented through sources and evident has helped develop Australia to what it has become today.
The cultural language has had a long impact on the development of Australia’s language. Due to the large number of convicts, language has had an immense impact on the Australian language which has been adapted to what we speak today. Convicts would have their own slang language which was referred to as the “flash” language to undermine their authorities as a way of communicating towards each other without anybody else having knowledge of what they were saying. In source 1, the word “scamp” meaning a man who commits robbery on the highway, is an example of a slang word they used making it hard to be detected and understood by others. This suggests that convicts didn’t want their authorities to understand some things they said. Through time, adaptations have been made to the convict slang language developing into some words we use
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An example of this is the decrease in aboriginal population which can be seen as a long and short term impact. There were around 1 million aboriginals during the time the first fleet arrived. However, the population gradually decreased over time due to many factors. Many ships carried convicts and free settles who were tightly compacted together allowing for as many people as they could to possibly fit. The consequences of this caused diseases such as the flu and small pox which meant there were many deaths of convicts, free settlers and aboriginals due to the lack of carelessness and spreading of the diseases. Convicts have hugely effected the aboriginal population negatively through the spreading of illnesses amongst each