'Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in Colonial Australia, 1805–1860' (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
This thesis examines the severity of convict experiences in Western Australia, through an analysis of prisoner health records. It explores convict diets, living conditions, sanitation, work regimes and medical care, at Fremantle Prison and at regional outstations and work camps. It also investigates living standards among ticket-of-leave convicts. In doing so, the thesis integrates Western Australia into broader Australian historical debates about convict labour management, the treatment of secondary offenders, the after-effects of the convict voyage, and the health impacts of physical and psychological punishments. This research challenges the long-established view that convict treatment in Western Australia was relatively benign.
The Same Measure of Justice': Aboriginal Convicts in the Australian Penal Colonies
During the first half of the nineteenth century, one of the uses Britain made of its Australian penal colonies was as a repository for incorrigible indigenes from its various colonies. Included amongst this largely forgotten cohort were several dozen Aboriginal men transported from New South Wales. Sent to such far-flung places as Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island, Aboriginal captives were incorporated into the system and worked as convicts. Factors that set them apart from other convicts include their different pathways into captivity, their different understandings of and responses to imprisonment, and the different rationale informing the punishment meted out to them by the colonial authorities.
Aboriginal convicts: race, law, and transportation in colonial New South Wales
2008
hereby state that this thesis contains no material that has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis.
Convict Transportation to New South Wales, 1787-1849: Mortality Rates Reconsidered
Australian Economic History Review, 2017
Previous research into Australian convict transportation has concluded that a significant downturn in mortality rates occurred with the appointment of naval surgeons as superintendents in 1815. Statistical analysis of convict ships sent to New South Wales between 1787 and 1849 shows a more significant downturn occurred in 1800, following the introduction of closer supervision of ships' surgeons. The contracting system established by the Navy Board in 1786 for the transportation of convicts to New South Wales could be made to work as long as government maintained an effective system of inspection and supervision.
Convict Connections: The Merging of Penal Spheres in Western Australia 1850-68
Convict transportation was an extensive system which many European countries and their colonies used as a form of punishment for convicted criminals. Over centuries the British transportation process was heavily influenced by developments within theories of punishment and the needs of its Empire. i Though Britain's strategic requirements tended to be centred on its sphere of influence, other motivations for transporting convicts were often more complex and ranged from the removal of unwanted criminals, to the use of convict labour and the expansion of the scope of power and control. This essay examines the global integration of convicts transported to Western Australia during the nineteenth century, highlighting the numerous systems of networks, through which beliefs, ideas and people moved. The main focus of this study is drawn from the vast numbers of convicts that were sent to the colony from within the British Empire, including those from Bermuda, India and Singapore.
Sickness and Death on Male and Female Convict Voyages to Australia
2014
The passage taken by convict vessels en route to Australia was one of the longest that any unfree migrants have been subjected to-an average of four months at sea. Only French prisoners shipped to New Caledonia (1864-97) and Russian convicts sent from Odessa to Sakhalin (1879-1905) were moved greater distances. 1 Despite the length of the voyage, monthly mortality on Australian bound convict vessels was not excessive. Between 1788 and 1868 a total of 825 convict vessels sailed from British and Irish ports to the Australian colonies. In the first half of the nineteenth century the thought of spending four or more months at sea was a daunting prospect for most landlubbers. Even free migrants were warned that the distance of Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales from British and Irish ports rendered the voyage a "terrible undertaking". 2 It is thus commonly assumed that the 141,000 male and 26,000 female convicts shipped to Britain's Australian penal colonies suffered great hardships at sea.
The Carceral Colony - Studies in Western Australian History, 2020
A ticket of leave was the third stage of servitude for convicts sent to Western Australia, following periods of separate confinement (in Britain) and hard labour (in Britain or the colony). Unlike other convicts, ticket-of-leave men were allowed to enter the colonial workforce, earn a wage and acquire property, although they remained subject to police surveillance and faced legal disadvantages. Despite the fact that most Western Australian convicts spent longer on ticket of leave than in colonial gaols or prisoner work parties, few historians have examined the ticket-of-leave experience in detail. Many have focussed on the freedoms of ticket-of-leave life described in convict department reports, reaffirming official assurances that 'ticketers' were treated more or less as free men. This article challenges these representations, providing a long overdue systematic exploration of ticket-of-leave standards of living. Through analysis of ticket-of-leave wage rates, living costs and mortality data, it shows that the 'freedoms' ticketers were afforded rarely translated into favourable living standards or work conditions. Not only were most ticket-of-leave holders disadvantaged in comparison to free men, but a considerable proportion were scarcely better off (in terms of living and labour conditions) than incarcerated convicts.