September 17, 2020

Was modern Australia really founded by convicts?

Happy Thursday guys!

For some reason I was thinking about the myth (?) that Australia as we know it today was founded with a prisoner population. I had images of Britain just being fed up with their convicts and shipping them off to fend for themselves in some perilous far-off land... Turns out my belief wasn't too far-off...

Finding Australia

So for a long time European thinkers suspected that there had to be land below the Indian Ocean to balance out the land on the northern hemisphere. While the logic may not have been on point, they weren't wrong about there being a hunk of "undiscovered" land 🧭

Europeans first (knowingly) arrived in Australia in 1606. It was the Dutch who found it first but the often violent native aborigines, venomous animals and intense climate made it pretty unappealing to cross the world to colonise.

So instead, it was the British who claimed Australia for themselves but with a very interesting intention 💡

 Australia as a penal colony

By 1788 Britain had lost the American War of Independence which was a blow to the empire for many reasons... including the fact that they used to ship a load of their convicts there 🤷‍♀️

"Transportation to" was a popular sentence for prisoners of varying levels of offense. They would be sent off for 7 years hard labour in America rather than cramping up british prisons.

At the same time, the death penalty was becoming less popular back home and with crime running rife in impoverished cities, prisons were becoming more crowded.

That's where Australia comes in...

Britain saw an opportunity to continue the "transportation" sentence as well as colonise a new land. Having ports in India, China and Singapore didn't make Australia seem as far away as it was for the Dutch. So on 26th January 1788, the first ship of convicts, military personnel and traders arrived in Botany Bay ⚓️

So, what could land you in an Australian penal colony?

It could be as little as stealing a days worth of wages, fraud, public drunkenness or even habitual tardiness at work! It was more of a myth that Australia was founded on murders since most of them were still getting the death penalty back in Britain... although many had their sentences commuted from death to transportation to Australia...

The life of a convict

Convicts in Australia were made to clear land, construct government buildings, build roads and farm the land. Later on, when more "free settlers" started arriving the state started to assign prisoners to these settlers for labour 🛠

Skilled convicts were sent to work with sellers or made to train other convicts to increase the overall skill set of the workforce, while dangerous convicts were kept under the watch of the state.

Overall conditions for prisoners were very poor (unless you got lucky with your assignment) and historians compared their situation to that of slaves in America. They were subjected to intense forced labour, physical beatings and lashings with a cat o' nine tails for laziness or poor behaviour. Solitary confinement could also have easily become a death sentence in small rooms with no ventilation in the Australian heat 🥵

As more free settlers arrived, the state provided the convicts with a uniform to distinguish themselves from the "innocents". Before this they had been allowed to wear their own clothes. The uniform they chose was half black, half yellow as pictured below, and was intentionally made to look like a court jester to humiliate the convicts.

 Life after prison

The sentence of "transportation" was a 7 year sentence, although many were given a ticket of leave after 4 years for good behvaiour.

After they were released, the ex-con had 2 choices; set sail back to England penniless or stay in Aus and make a new life for themselves. The latter was a popular choice, especially when the journey back to Britain itself was a risk, with up to a third of passengers not surviving the voyage 🤯

So all in all, I'd say the myth that Australia was founded with prisoners is pretty accurate! I was surprised by the sheer number of prisoners transported to Australia while this policy was in place (an estimated 165,000 between 1788 and 1868!) as well as the low level of offense that could land you there.

I hope you enjoyed this week's edition of History Tapas. See you again next week! 👋

Hannah