'Wild Colonial Greeks' by Peter Prineas

  'Wild Colonial Greeks' reviewed by Yianni Cartledge, ‘Journal of Australian Colonial History’, UNE, vol. 23, 2021, pp 235-36. BOOK REVIEWS 235 JACH Peter Prineas, Wild Colonial Greeks, Arcadia/Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020, pbk, ISBN 9781922454133, vii + 322 pp, $34.95. Australia's colonial period, lasting less than 115 years, was a turbulent, transitionary, and unsure time, where the lives of colonisers, convicts, First Nations people and immigrants intersected. Peter Prineas' book, Wild Colonial Greeks, explores this period through the lens of Australia's earliest Greek migrants, unravelling their stories and analysing their interactions with wider colonial Australia. Until this book, there have only been a handful of relevant studies on Greeks during this period, with few written in such an accessible and engaging manner. (Of note is Hugh Gilchrist, Australians and Greeks vol. 1: The Early Years, Sydney, 1992) This is due to scholars of Greek migration ...

  BOOK 'WILD COLONIAL GREEKS' FINDS GREEK MARINER GEORGE EMANUEL or MANUEL ARRIVED IN AUSTRALIA IN 1823          In my book ' Wild Colonial Greeks', published in early December 2020 by Australian Scholarly Publishing / Arcadia , I present evidence that a Greek from Corfu named George Manuel was living in Australia in 1823. This was well before the arrival of the seven pirate-convicts in 1829, considered to be Australia’s first Greeks.   It is hard to believe that no Greek – not even a sailor – set foot in Australia until four decades after the First Fleet, and not surprising that some time and effort has been expended in searching for an Hellene who came to our shores before the seven pirate-convicts of 1829.   Historian Hugh Gilchrist speculated about Greeks who may have come earlier. Effie Alexakis and Leonard Janiszewski kept the hope alive, noting that while the earliest Greek contact with Australia is un...