English

Alternative forms

• emancipatist (relatively rare)

Noun

emancipist ‎(plural emancipists)

1. (Australia, historical) In penal colonies of early Australia, a convict who had been pardoned for good conduct; sometimes inclusively a convict whose sentence had completed, though one such was more usually called an expiree.
   • 1827, P. Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, The London Magazine, page 520,

     On Governor Macquarie′s departure the emancipists were again thrown into the shade, and not one ever visited the succeeding governor at a party of any description, nor did he ever dine even in company with a single emancipist, until the very close of his administration.

   • 2002, David Neal, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Politics in Early New South Wales page 100,

     Macquarie′s position on the emancipist issue was made abundantly clear almost from the outset by his appointment of three emancipists to the magistracy.

   • 2008, John Bradley Hirst, Freedom on the Fatal Shore: Australia's First Colony,

     In his reports Bigge did not totally oppose Macquarie′s policy of restoring emancipists to ‘society’. He criticised the governor for forcing the pace and in fact for giving greater countenance to his emancipist protégés than to free emigrants whose claims should have been treated far more sensitively.

References

• Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia, chapter V .