The British penal colonies of Australia relied heavily upon a system of punitive labour. Convicts labour was not only seen as an important element in the rehabilitation of the criminal, but also provided the colonies with its first workforce. While such harsh labour was arguably slave-like, convicts were significantly better of than ordinary slaves.
As John Hirst explains in the readings, “outwardly similar physical conditions can have radically different social meanings.” Despite their laborious punishment and the slave-like manner in which they were worked, unlike slaves, these penal workers were still perceived as human in a legal sense. Convicts were not owned by there masters and still retained basic legal rights. A master required court approval before he could lash his workers in punishment. Children of convicts were born free for having not committed a crime themselves – children of slaves however were born to suffer the same degradation of their parents. Convicts were emancipated after completing their sentence and could look forward to the future as a free man.
While convicts may have experienced greater freedom in the Australian colonies than these slaves, convicts however were not ‘free’; they were in fact still prisoners. Transportation found convicts on an eight month journey across the oceans before landing in the penal colonies of Australia. Mostly there was no need for the fences and walls or prison uniforms. In Australia the continent itself was the prison, an ‘open air gaol’ which even without walls or bars was impossible to escape. Even after emancipation most would never be able to leave and return to the lives they had known back in England.
Despite this, I would like to argue that convicts faired much better off in the new colonies, than the existence they may have had in back in England. Many convicts had in fact received the death sentence for their crimes, which may have been carried out if it were not instead commuted to transportation. On the other hand, those who survived the deplorable conditions may have still been detained in the overcrowded gaols or prison hulks which plagued the Motherland.
In the colonies a future of freedom was an ever possible reality. Convicts could be released from there sentences early for good behaviour and after completing their sentences, the newly emancipated were free to start a new livelihood and exist freely in society. Emancipists were able to work and own land without discrimination, sharing the same legal rights as the free settlers in the colonies.
Conditions inside Prison Hulks
Prison Hulks were an early solution to overcrowding in England’s prisons. Convicts were housed in these cramped and often unsanitary floating prisons, rife with disease. As seen in the picture above, many even perished. Many of the prisoners on the hulks would be eventually transported to Australia. It can be argued that the most of the Australian convicts were considerably better off than in overcrowded and unsanitary hulks, often rife with disease.
Image credits: 'Death of a Convict on the Hulk' at www.nla.gov.au/.../2003/mar03/article5.html, accessed 28 August 2009.
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