Australian History Help Please :)?

Question

Hi.

I am looking for some primary sources which infer that the treatment of Convicts was too harsh in Australia's early days.

Thank You. :D

Answer 1

My response does not pretend to be a direct or exhaustive answer to your quest for primary sources. It is a list of some probably profitable sites for you to dig.

[1] I suggest that you browse the "hotkey" site, listed first below. It consists mainly of 1820's / 1830's newspaper reports on convict conditions in Australia, but does not focus exclusively on harsh treatment. There are also contemporary letters, etc., prescribing conditions of convict assignment to settlers as laborers and servants.

[2] The second site listed below is limited to the treatment of convicts on Norfolk Island. It is not in itself a primary source. It is an argument that alleged abuse of convicts by Joseph Foveaux while in charge of the penal colony on the island was based mainly on fiction. But it could well lead you to some good primary sources via name searches, etc.

[3] Site 3 below does not detail mistreatment of convicts either. But it may give you some follow-up clues for convict treatment while being transported to Australia. For example, look at the statistics on the ship Neptune (2nd Fleet): a very high proportion of deaths.

[4] Site 4 is a dissertation on the treatment of women convicts. Again, not a primary source, but a great deal of material that should yield some useful primary sources.

[5] Site 5, janesoceania, gives a vivid account of both the transportation journey and the severe treatment accorded to convicts in Australia. It has some of the appearance of an "eyewitness" account. But it lacks any indication of its sources. It may, therefore, be mere fiction.

[6] Site 6 is also from janesoceania, and again does not list its primary sources. But it does contain an explanation of why the Neptune (see 2 above) was such a hell-hole of a ship.

[7] Site 7 contains a large number of short biographies of convicts (ordered in groups under the ship that transported them), supplied by their descendants in modern Australia. I doubt that there is anything in this to help you, but it could be worth browsing.

[8] Also from within Site 7 (Convictcentral) I suggest that you click on "The Scholarly Electronic Text and Imaging Service" (University of Sydney Library). From this you can view facsimiles of letters, reports, etc. from the 1st Fleet onwards. Primary sources, for sure: but maybe none revealing harsh treatment of convicts.

[9] This site describes an exhibit at Hyde Park Barracks Museum (Sydney) from June 2005, detailing the punishment of convicts in Australia, including a section on "Secondary Punishment" stations such as Coal River(nowadays = Newcastle) where convicts undoubtedly were treated with extreme harshness. The problem is, the exhibit may well have closed by now.

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One last thought ... it is my belief that political prisoners (typically Irish Catholics, following insurrections against British rule) were often singled out for persecution by the authorities and settlers in Australia. The infamous "flogging parson", Samuel Marsden, comes to mind as one who set out to make the lives of convicts even more miserable than it was supposed to be. Maybe that should be a special line of enquiry for you.

Answer 2

Gday. Primary sources are pretty hard to come by, very few of the early records have been made available on the internet. If you wanted a 'close to primary source' on the brutality of the treatment of convicts, then I'd recommend Robert Hughes 'The Fatal Shore'.

Just an example he uses. Convicts on Norfolk Island would draw straws which resulted in one agreeing to be 'murdered' (actually a form of suicide). The 'murderer' was also selected using straws, and would 'do the deed' and then 'give himself up', and be sent to trial in Sydney (a trip that involved a very small chance of escape) to a certain hanging. The other convicts who 'witnessed' the 'murder' would also be sent to Sydney as for the trial, again with a small chance of escape. Heres the thing though... the guy who was murdered, and the guy who was hanged counted themselves 'lucky'. The others would go back to a regime which included daily floggings, which done by expert hands (and they had plently of practice), would always stop 'just short' of killing the victim.

But 'too harsh'? The British didn't think so, and there were no repercussions, nobody cared about whether convicts lived or died. It would only have been a problem if so many had died that there was no labour force, and that situation never arose because there was a constant source of new 'recruits' coming in from England (and Ireland) all the time.

Eventually more liberal minded British administrators stopped the most brutal practices (see Hughes's book), but nobody was ever punished or demoted for them. The only authority figure who was punished for being 'too harsh' was a Governor who allowed two misbehaving soldiers to be tortured and had the misfortune to have one die. But generally - at the time - the harsher you treated the convicts the better you were regarded by your peers and superiors.

There were two rebellions (Castle Hill and Norfolk Island) that could be attributed to the harsh treatment, but they were put down effortlessly by the British, who might have regarded them as an 'inconvenience', but little more. They in fact gave the British an excuse to 'clean out' troublemakers.

Answer 3

Best idea would be to go to the local library, look into accounts left by convicts or even the first governors of New South Wales/Tasmania. The history of Port Arthur in Tasmania and the stories about convict treatment will be enough to send a shiver down your spine.....

Maybe also look at accounts of the life of convicts aboard British ships and the voyage from Britain to Australia. Things such as suffering from mal-nutrition - scurvy, diseases such as lice and dysentry, to the thrashings and whippings from the famous whip - Cat o' nine tails, to the poor sanitary conditions, the hard labour in the construction of sydney's earliest roads and the sand stone quarries, the heat, the flies, separation from any family back in England, loneliness, mental cruelty and torture by sadistic british troops....and the very very slim chance of earning their freedom before dying.

There is a wealth of information out there - you could also try reading the accounts of governors such as Philip, settlers such as Macarthur and Macquarie.