From slave in Jamaica to convict in Australia: uncovering one man's extraordinary journey'

Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images An engraving depicting a Jamaican sugarcane plantation during the sugar boom. 

Born a slave on Jamaican plantation in 1800, William Buchanan’s life was remarkable. After taking part in the 1831 rebellion that catalysed the end of slavery in his country of birth, Buchanan’s tragedy was that he never got to reap the benefits – instead he was imprisoned and sent as a convict to Australia, never to return.
Sienna Brown came across his story while working as a guide at Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks, which in the early days of colonial New South Wales housed convicts. Though raised in Canada, Brown was born in Jamaica. “I thought, let me just see if any of my fellow countrymen were actually there,” she says. Research uncovered a handful – but it was Buchanan’s story that stood out.
Brown’s debut novel, Master of My Fate, gives a fictionalised look into Buchanan’s life, tapping into some uncomfortable truths from Australia’s history that are often overlooked: that much of colonial Australia was built by convict labour; that Australia has its own quiet history of abusing an unpaid workforce; that slavery isn’t that far in the past.
Buchanan took part in the 1831 Slave Rebellion led by Samuel Sharpe, and this was ultimately why he was sent to Australia as a convict.

Though this was a great catalysing event in his life, it isn’t the book’s focus. The bulk of the novel centres on his life on the plantation, showing us exactly what drove this man to risk his life for freedom. “The real intention of the book wasn’t to talk about the big global thing of slavery,” Brown says. “It was to talk about the human side.”
Brown points to an unintentional ignorance of history – both her own, prior to researching the novel, and that of the general public. “I don’t think people realise, if you’re walking along Macquarie Street for instance, all of those colonial buildings … they were all built by convict labour.”
It wasn’t just a handful of Jamaicans; Brown points out that large numbers of South Sea Islander people were kidnapped too, and brought to work on the sugar plantations in Queensland. Their descendants are still fighting for recognition.
“It’s always an assumption that [slavery is] an African American/North American thing,” she says. “But really, the British had slavery all within their colonies.”
The novel also touches on the treatment of Australia’s Indigenous peoples by the colonising forces. “I did want to acknowledge it,” Brown says. “I felt that was an important point to make even though I don’t go into it.”
Brown originally intended to write a more academic book, but fiction gave her the freedom to depict William’s life through his own eyes. Humanising William was important to her.
“When we think about slaves we have this picture of just these bodies of people that horrible things were imprinted on. Whereas they had a life outside of being enslaved,” Brown says. “That was really what I was trying to get across … that understanding that they’re human beings.”
Master of My Fate takes readers through the experience of living as a slave on Jamaica’s sugar plantations, detailing the rampant sexual assault, the beatings, the callous separation of families. This isn’t the most harrowing aspect of the book, however; that’s its undercurrent of us and them, of lack of empathy. “It was deep and dark,” Brown says of the research. “There were some days I was so depressed reading about what people did to each other.”
Power dynamics are a chief concern of the novel. Brown doesn’t simply focus on the bludgeon of slavery, but also teases out the implications of those more subtle shifts: the semi-sympathetic whites toying with the idea of abolition, but who are not quite ready to accept the blow to their wealth; the sailors who prioritise money over the health of the convicts; and the slaves who turn on one another – testifying untruths in court, whispering lies to the master.
Asked what all this says about human nature, Brown pauses. “It’s always the same no matter what the circumstances,” she says eventually.
“There would have been always a power struggle within those communities because obviously everyone’s wanting to survive … Everyone’s wanting to get as much power as they can to keep their family safe, which would have set up a terrible situation.”
Stripping someone of their humanity because of the colour of their skin, because they have a criminal record, because they were born into the wrong family – as much as Master of My Fate is a book about the past, its themes are disturbingly relevant. So, too, is fighting back. “I’m amazed [William] survived to be honest,” Brown says. “Psychologically, I can’t imagine. That’s what kept driving me through the story.”
• Master of My Fate by Sienna Brown is out now through Vintage