The Rebecca Riots is known for its dramatic imagery of men dressed in women’s clothing, brandishing weapons and tearing down tollgates in an attempt to right a wrong against the hardworking and poorest of Welsh society. For those caught one form of punishment included transportation to countries such as Australia. Forced to leave their homeland for a strange country, in the nineteenth century, was a cruel fate for those who worked the land, who were majority Welsh-speaking, and for those who were a part of a strong sense of community and who knew only of their homeland.
Being forced into exile is not only a physical punishment, but a mental and spiritual punishment. They must live years on foreign, and strange, soil where their identity is no longer their own; they are now citizens or prisoners of another country. This can be both a benefit and a burden; in the former, it can provide these men with a new start; in the latter, it means losing their family, the familiarity of a close-knit Welsh village life, and the loss of their Welsh identity.
In this paper I wish to discuss the sense of loss brought on by exile from their home country, by looking specifically at texts that refer to the Rebecca Riot, including Amy Dillwyn’s The Rebecca Rioter, and Alexander Cordell’s Hosts of Rebecca. In a century where Welsh families escaped to America and started their own society, this paper will look at what it means to lose your homeland, and subsequently, your identity in the process.