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In 1787, the British government made the audacious decision to send its prisoners to a continent on the other side of the globe about which very little was known. In this new colony, a motley crew had to learn to live together: military men, who were determined to make their unlucky posting pay off; the convicts, who found themselves exiled from their families and homes most often for petty crimes of poverty; the female convicts, who served primarily to fulfill the sexual needs of the men; and the Indigenous peoples, who were deemed absolute "savages" by their invaders. Through early starvation days, rebellions, and frontier wars, a new society was contentiously formed, as various groups battled for supremacy, status, or simply survival and norms of race, class, and gender adapted to a unique environment. In this hands-on IntroSem, we will do the work of the historian: read and interpret primary sources. During class time, we will work in groups, essentially crowd sourcing primary research, in order to piece together what life was like on the ground. We will debate the extent to which we can trust the sources and how best to use "biased" reports. We will also read the interpretations of historians and decide whether or not we agree with them. In doing so, we will see that the writing of history is never complete.