PAST CRIMESUnited States would no longer accept Britain’s criminals. Convicts were
instead housed in decaying ships, called‘hulks’, at Portsmouth, Plymouth or
in the Thames, awaiting a new destination. That destination came in 1787,
when the government decided to send convicts to Australia. In part, the
authorities saw this as a more acceptable destination anyway; quite a number
of transportees to the American colonies managed to find their way back and
reenter their lives of crime. Ships’captains were bribed almost every week,
according to some records, allowing a goodly traffic of returning convicts to
escape, despite the many advertisements posted with descriptions of
runaways, and the rewards offered for their capture and return. Indeed, some
managed to do no more than set foot on American soil before they found
another ship to take them back to England again.
A number of convicts were transported several times, and gained a fair
knowledge of the American landscape and escape routes, committing crimes
in the New World as readily as they had done in the Old. Conditions for some
of the transportees were very harsh and some were subject to beatings and
misuse, although hard labour in the fields became less common after the start
of the importation of black slaves. Even children were sentenced to terms as
indentured servants; a common duration period was still seven years.
Although called servants, in real terms these people were slaves. The arriving
convicts were sold off at the docks, and often either arrived sick as a result of
conditions in prison or on the transport ships, or fell victim to new diseases
and dangers presented by the strange surroundings. Some masters made sure
they extracted the last ounce of work and strength from their workers before
their term of servitude expired, setting them to backbreaking tasks such as
clearing land of rocks and trees by hand. On the other hand, many settlers
resented the arrival of the convicts, who brought not only disease, but crime
and dissolution with them, and the transportation issue became one of the
triggers for the American War of Independence.
The early days of transportation to Australia, between the 1780s and 1830s,
have been revealed by excavations in The Rocks area of Sydney. The first
arrivals in 1788 included 717 convicts among some 1,000 passengers.
Government and administration buildings and homes were built on the east
side of the creek in the bay; convicts were sent to the west side. There was
little supervision or control over convict activities in the early days. The
convicts moved into the area, built wattleanddaub huts, and started up
businesses and farms wherever they wished. Many businesses and trades
became established, although there was also a fairly large shifting population.
Fortytwo houses have been excavated, and threequarters of a million