Story and photo by Marc Glass (Winter 2008 Issue)

Jenna Morency ’07, who graduated magna cum laude with a degree in history, has been awarded a Fulbright Full Grant to conduct research at Australia’s University of Tasmania and the Archives Office of Tasmania from February to November 2008. Morency, who is now earning a master’s degree in history at the University of Maine, will research the plight of U.S. citizens imprisoned by British forces at a Tasmanian penal colony in 1839 for participating in the Canadian Rebellion.

“Some of the Americans were pardoned, some were sent to the penal colony and some were executed,” said Morency, who began researching the incarcerated U.S. citizens for her senior capstone research project at UMF advised by Ken Orosz, associate professor of history. “The British couldn’t decide what to do with them, so they did a little bit of everything to them.”

After poring over the memoirs of some penal colony survivors during her senior year at UMF, Morency challenged the central thesis of Cassandra Pybus and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, authors of the book American Citizens, British Slaves: Yankee Political Prisoners in an Australian Penal Colony 1839-1850.

While Pybus and Maxwell-Stewart argue that the Americans received the same treatment as the general prison population, Morency believes otherwise.

“Some of the Americans received preferential treatment from a sympathetic overseer, while others were worked to death. The lieutenant governor of the colony, who happened to be Benjamin Franklin’s nephew, was particularly harsh with the Americans, ordering that they were to be made an example of in order to crush their rebellious spirit,” she said.
Morency may have challenged his assertions about Tasmanian penal colony life, but Maxwell-Stewart bears no grudge. In fact, as associate lecturer in the University of Tasmania’s School of History and Classics, he’s agreed to supervise Morency’s Fulbright research.

Orosz, himself a Fulbright honoree, couldn’t be happier for his protégé.

“Being awarded a Fulbright is a testament to Jenna’s academic abilities and shows the real value of undergraduate research,” he said.

“I would never have won the Fulbright without Ken. He was a mentor, who encouraged me to pursue the Fulbright and was supportive through every step of the long process,” Morency said. “I look forward to other UMF students receiving Fulbrights so they can be as thrilled as I am.”