Punishment In The Australian Colonies

In 1788 the first fleet disembarked on the shores of Botany Bay. Shortly thereafter Australia became the first colony founded entirely upon the work of convicted felons. The traditional interpretation of the Australian colonies is that, it was a period of harsh and brutal forced labor, where convicts were treated as human commodities and labor was extracted by punishment. Convicts were subjected to various types of reprimands such as shortened rations, leg-irons, being placed on treadmills, head shavings, floggings, execution and forced transportation to penal stations, which was a place of secondary punishment. These punishments meted out in the Australian colonies came in various forms and extremities, which will be discussed throughout this essay. The traditional interpretations of the Australian colonies and its punishments have produced an ideological judgement, that convicts whilst in servitude were fundamentally slaves and New South Wales was a jailed slave society. However, this depiction of colonial Australia has come under considerable debate. It is important to consider that Australian convicts had to be sent before a magistrate before a punishment could be administered by a constable. Many of the constables were ex convicts, this statement in itself brings to light the opportunity and
It is important to consider that flogging was prescribed in England as punishment the same as in New South Wales. Masters were not allowed to beat the convicts themselves, only a court could inflict a flogging. The convict’s subordination was the result of a sentence handed down from a court, specifying the nature and duration of the convict’s punishment. Sometimes punishments would take a long time to be handed down, masters saw that in some cases the threat of corporal punishment didn’t guarantee high productivity and quality of