Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis
The property consists of eleven complementary sites. It constitutes
an outstanding and large-scale example of the forced migration of
convicts, who were condemned to transportation to distant colonies of
the British Empire; the same method was also used by other colonial
states.
The sites illustrate the different types of convict settlement
organized to serve the colonial development project by means of
buildings, ports, infrastructure, the extraction of resources, etc. They
illustrate the living conditions of the convicts, who were condemned to
transportation far from their homes, deprived of freedom, and subjected
to forced labour.
This transportation and associated forced labour was implemented on a
large scale, both for criminals and for people convicted for relatively
minor offences, as well as for expressing certain opinions or being
political opponents. The penalty of transportation to Australia also
applied to women and children from the age of nine. The convict stations
are testimony to a legal form of punishment that dominated in the 18th
and 19th centuries in the large European colonial states, at the same
time as and after the abolition of slavery.
The property shows the various forms that the convict settlements
took, closely reflecting the discussions and beliefs about the
punishment of crime in 18th and 19th century Europe, both in terms of
its exemplarity and the harshness of the punishment used as a deterrent,
and of the aim of social rehabilitation through labour and discipline.
They influenced the emergence of a penal model in Europe and America.
Within the colonial system established in Australia, the convict
settlements simultaneously led to the Aboriginal population being forced
back into the less fertile hinterland, and to the creation of a
significant source of population of European origin.
Criterion (iv): The Australian convict sites
constitute an outstanding example of the way in which conventional
forced labour and national prison systems were transformed, in major
European nations in the 18th and 19th centuries, into a system of
deportation and forced labour forming part of the British Empire’s vast
colonial project. They illustrate the variety of the creation of penal
colonies to serve the many material needs created by the development of a
new territory. They bear witness to a penitentiary system which had
many objectives, ranging from severe punishment used as a deterrent to
forced labour for men, women and children, and the rehabilitation of the
convicts through labour and discipline.
Criterion (vi): The transportation of criminals,
delinquents, and political prisoners to colonial lands by the great
nation states between the 18th and 20th centuries is an important aspect
of human history, especially with regard to its penal, political and
colonial dimensions. The Australian convict settlements provide a
particularly complete example of this history and the associated
symbolic values derived from discussions in modern and contemporary
European society. They illustrate an active phase in the occupation of
colonial lands to the detriment of the Aboriginal peoples, and the
process of creating a colonial population of European origin through the
dialectic of punishment and transportation followed by forced labour
and social rehabilitation to the eventual social integration of convicts
as settlers.
Integrity and authenticity
The structural and landscape integrity of the property varies
depending on the site, and on the type of evidence considered. It has
been affected by local history, at times marked by reuse or lengthy
periods of abandonment. The integrity varies between well preserved
groups and others where it might be described as fragmentary. Apart from
certain visual perspectives in urban settings, the level of the
property’s integrity is well controlled by the site management plans.
Despite the inevitable complexity of a nomination made up of a series
of eleven separate sites with more than 200 elements that convey the
value of the property, the authenticity of the vast majority of them is
good.
Protection and management requirements
All the sites forming the property are inscribed on the National
Heritage List. They are also protected by the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
There is no direct major threat to the sites forming the serial property.
The general protection and management of the property are
satisfactory. Conservation is articulated around a positive dynamic
driven by the application of the conservation plans at each of the
sites. The Brickendon and Woolmers Estate domains are an exception, and
require ongoing assistance, both in terms of protection and
conservation.
The management systems of the sites forming the property are
appropriate, and they are adequately coordinated by the Strategic
Management Framework for the property and its Steering Committee. For
the sites involving the participation of private stakeholders for
visitor reception, improved interpretation is however necessary; that
includes the common objectives outlined in the Strategic Management
Framework. It is also important to consider visitor reception facilities
and their development in a way which respects the landscape
conservation of the sites.
Historical Description
The transportation of people for forced labour is a system
shared by many human societies, at various periods of history and in
many civilizations. Most often, it involved slavery or the deportation
of people following war. However, in the modern and contemporary eras,
convict colonies were used as a place for prisoners to serve their
sentences in a distant land, where they were generally used for forced
labour.
Penal colonies were initially for the imprisonment of criminals,
coupled with forced labour. In Europe they were concentrated in military
ports, for example, to provide labour to work on galleys or for hard
labour in arsenals, building infrastructure, etc. In times of war,
forced-labour prison camps are similar in terms of their organization
and objectives.
A new form of penitentiary combined with a colonial project appeared
in the early 17th century in European countries, involving the permanent
transportation of prisoners to new territories. Under the
Transportation Act of 1718, England organized just such a system for its
criminals in its North American colonies. France did the same after
closing its galleys in 1748. Being condemned to a convict colony is in
theory a severe prison sentence, for a serious crime. In reality,
however, because of the colonies’ need for labour, all sorts of crimes,
often relatively minor, led to transportation for more or less lengthy
terms. The expression of certain opinions or membership of a banned
political group were also punishable in this way.
In 1775 England stopped transporting its criminals to America,
because of the upheaval that eventually led to these colonies gaining
their independence. Australia became the replacement destination
starting in 1778 with the gradual organization of many convict colonies.
Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) was the first place where convicts were
landed.
Transportation to Australia reached its maximum between 1787 and
1868, with 166,000 prisoners sent to its many convict stations.
Australia was at the time a vast area, inhabited only by Aboriginal
peoples, who were rapidly forced away from the most sheltered and most
fertile coastal areas. From the point of view of the colonists,
everything had to be built, starting with ports, houses, roads, colonial
farms, etc. The convicts were often from the lower classes; women
accounted for 16% of the total, and there were also quite a few
children, who could be punished with transportation from the age of
nine.
The Australian convict system took different forms in order to meet
its many objectives. It evolved out of a great debate in Europe at the
turn of the 19th century about how to punish crime and the social role
to be given to the transportation of prisoners. The discussion included
on the one hand the notion of punishment and on the other the desire to
discourage crime through the idea of rehabilitation of personal
behaviour by means of work and discipline. Transportation of a labour
force to serve colonial development, especially in the more distant
lands, was seen as a useful and effective response to these various
social issues in England, as well in other European countries such as
France and Russia.
In the Australian case, the convict system was in practice also
designed to make the prisoners fully fledged colonists once they had
served out their sentences. The considerable distance between Europe and
Australia meant that that the convicts almost always remained after
their release.
The Australian convict system included a variety of prison systems,
ranging from outdoor to indoor work, from probationary transportation to
simple imprisonment; it included convict stations for women or children
(Cascades Female Factory and Point Puer). In some convict stations, the
prisoners lived alongside free settlers (Brickendon and Woolmers
Estates). Living conditions were naturally very strict, but they were
variable in terms of their harshness, depending on the site and
function.
Overseeing and transporting the convicts also required the presence
of a sizeable prison administration, the organization of a specialized
fleet, the presence of numerous guards, etc.
The most harsh stations, for those prisoners considered to be the
most dangerous, included a prison, hard and often dangerous labour,
corporal punishment, such as lashes or deprivation, and solitary
confinement. Most sites had a prison and a solitary confinement area;
but others were punishment stations, such as Norfolk Island, Port
Arthur, and the Tasman Peninsula Coal Mines. These stations were
renowned throughout the entire British Empire for their harshness, in
order to maintain the fear of transportation among the population and so
reduce crime in Great Britain and its colonies.
The convict gang system was used for public works, especially for
roads and port facilities. They were generally very strict and the work
was hard. Examples include Old Great North Road, Hyde Park Barracks,
Port Arthur, Coal Mines, Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area, and
Fremantle Prison.
There were also labour convict stations for those prisoners
considered to pose less of a threat, where the convicts were made
available for private projects, often farming. The entrepreneurs used
them at their own risk. Examples include Brickendon and Woolmers Estates
and Old Government House. Female labour was more of a manufacturing
nature, such as Cascades Female Factory, a textile mill. These were, of
course, still prisons with a system of punishment and rewards. Some
convict stations used women as servants - for example, on farms and Old
Government House.
Those convicts who behaved themselves could earn a lighter sentence,
gradually leading to their early release. In the very vivid minds of the
social reformists of prisoners, the aim was to establish a probationary
path that would gradually lead to social rehabilitation through labour
and, finally, to the status of fully fledged colonial settler.
The creation of convict stations in Australia, at the heart of the
programme of creating colonies, had particularly negative effects on the
Aboriginal peoples. This led to social unrest, forced migration, and
the loss of fertile land, as well as devastating epidemics because of
their lack of immunity. Conflict and resistance were frequent
occurrences as settlers and convicts arrived, often resulting in death.
The penal settlements continued for quite a long time after the
transportation system was abolished, up until the eve of World War II,
driven by their own dynamic of prisoner management and similar
practices, though applied on a far lesser scale, such as exile.
The last of the sites to remain in active use was Fremantle Prison, which closed in the early 1990s.
Today, most of these sites are entirely or in part places of remembrance, museums, or parks.
Source: Advisory Body Evaluation
