Conditions in gaols and on hulks were poor. Many convicts were already weak and ill before transportation. Convicts travelled on large ships to Australia. Convicts were washed and issued new often inadequate clothes before embarking. Once on board they were divided into messes, given bedding and utensils, and assigned a role. Transportation destinations Prisoners were sent to a range of penal colonies on Mainland Australia and on Norfolk Island. People convicted in free settlements could also be sentenced to transportation to a penal colony.
In some cases convicts sentenced to transportation had their sentenced commuted. The journey to Australia The voyage to Australia could take 4 to 5 months and followed a variety of routes. Convicts were housed below decks on a specially designated prison deck. Designs for this deck changed over the years to seperate different prisoners and to enhance hygiene.
On early voyages illness was rife. Naval doctors surgeons were brought on voyages to address this and kept detailed records. Male convicts outnumbered females 6 to 1. Although none of the women were transported for prostitution, many were forced to become prostitutes after landing in Australia.
Frequently, female convicts ended up as "prisoners of the prisoners" and were sold like slaves. After , about 10 percent of the convicts arriving in Australia worked on government farms and public-works projects, such as roads and harbors.
The other 90 percent were assigned to work for settlers who had received grants of land. The assigned convicts were dispersed throughout the colony to provide free labor until they had served their sentences. How they were treated depended on who they worked for. In general, however, they lived in brutal conditions on meager rations. Even so, the convicts were not considered slaves or "property.
For example, neither the government nor private masters could physically punish a convict without first getting the approval of a judge at a hearing. But approval was routine. Convicts found guilty of minor offenses typically got 25 lashes on the back. More serious offenders drew up to lashes, which would leave them gravely wounded. While flogging kept convicts in line, a reward system also existed. The only restriction was that such a person could not leave Australia until his or her sentence had expired.
Deserving convicts also hoped to be emancipated by the governor. To hold on to such a vast territory as Australia, the British government needed colonists to settle the land. Although it encouraged immigrants from Britain, few came. So the government called upon released convicts, who had served their sentences, to settle the land. It offered former convicts free land, tools, seed, livestock, and even food for one year. In addition, the government assigned newly arrived convicts to them to help work the land.
As it turned out, most ex-convicts never returned to Britain but stayed in Australia to become landowners or wage workers. The number of convicts transported to Australia increased dramatically when more ships became available following the Napoleonic Wars — The peak year was when 36 ships transported nearly 7, convicts.
By this time, areas outside Sydney had been opened up for settlement under the convict assignment system. One of these was the large island south of the mainland, now called Tasmania. Convicted boys aged 9—18 were isolated from adult convicts at Point Puer Latin for "boy". Considered too young or ignorant for assignment, they were given a basic education, taught a trade, instructed in religion, and punished for misbehavior. By contrast, the place of ultimate terror was Norfolk Island , 1, miles east of Sydney.
Set aside for the worst adult criminals, this island prison kept convicts working in chains. Guards unmercifully flogged prisoners for the slightest rule violation. Desperate to get off the island, convicts sometimes would draw lots to kill each other so that the murderer would be taken to Sydney for trial. But even Norfolk Island had its moment of enlightenment. Scotsman Alexander Maconochie came to Australia as a government official in favor of reforming convicts rather than brutalizing them.
He proposed a system of rewarding convicts with "marks" for hard work and good behavior. After earning a certain number of these marks, the convict would be set free. Thus the actual length of time a convict served depended on how fast or slowly he earned his marks. In , Maconochie got a chance to try out his mark system when he was made commandant of Norfolk Island. He immediately ended flogging and gave each convict a plot of land to grow vegetables and tobacco. Much to the surprise of everyone but Maconochie, his system worked.
During his five years as commandant, he discharged almost a thousand convicts. Only 2 percent of them were ever convicted again of a serious crime. But Maconochie had many enemies who wanted to keep the old system. British businessmen obtained contracts for transportation from local sheriffs. Prior to the legal processes behind transportation were obscure, as transportation itself was not a sentence but could be organised by indirect means.
The Transportation Act simplified and legitimised the process: convicts guilty of capital crimes but commuted by the king would receive 14 years transportation while those convicted of non-capital offences could receive seven years.
Returning to England before the sentence was complete was a capital offence in itself. The Act made transportation simpler and increased the number of convicts transported to America. More than 50, criminals had been transported by These convicts were instrumental in the early development of what became the United States of America. With independence, America stopped accepting convicts from Britain.
Comptroler Head of Convict Establishment and Convicts , Transportation from Britain ceased from to and the rapidly growing prison population was housed on ship hulks anchored in rivers and along the sheltered coastline of southern England.
The hulks quickly became disease-ridden, with one third of the prisoners dying while on board. The government investigated transporting convicts to Africa and the Caribbean but neither destination was deemed suitable. Initially, the plan was for the colony to be an asylum for British loyalists who wanted to leave the newly independent America, but after a meeting with Home Secretary Lord Sydney, the scheme was reformulated to comprise mostly convicts instead.
Phillip drafted a detailed outline of his plans for the new colony including:. The laws of this country will of course be introduced in New South Wales, and there is one that I would wish to take place from the moment His Majesty's forces take possession of the country: That there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves. Phillip was an enlightened leader for his time and imagined the colony not just as a British outpost in the South Pacific, but as a place for convicts to rehabilitate themselves.
Within a week the fleet left the bay as Phillip decided it was unsuitable for the establishment of a colony. They sailed north to Sydney Cove, now Circular Quay, where the convicts and marines and administrators disembarked. It was there that Phillip established the settlement. The first free settlers arrived in New South Wales in but convicts remained in the majority until the great influx of people lured by the gold rushes of the s.
Convicts were mainly from England and Wales, with a large contingent of Irish 24 per cent and a much smaller number of Scots five per cent. Most were sentenced in the rapidly growing cities of Britain, where displaced rural populations struggled to find work in an increasingly industrialised world.
Rates of theft increased as people stole food and clothing to survive. A conviction for robbery of these small items could result in transportation for seven years. About 20 per cent of those convicted were female.
A small proportion of convicts were political prisoners, including Irish home rule insurgents, the unionist Tolpuddle Martyrs, anti-industrialising Luddites, Canadian rebels and political reforming Chartists.
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