The Penal Colonies in Tasmania

Like Australia, at the start Tasmania was used by the British as a penal colony, a place to send criminals. The British initially named Tasmania Van Diemen’s Land, and it served as the primary penal colony for all of Australia. Around 40% of all convicts sent to Australia were sent to Tasmania, totaling almost 75,000 prisoners.1 There was a second prison at Port Arthur for repeat offenders and difficult convicts.

        Convicts on Tasmania led a very difficult life. At first the penal colonies struggled to produce enough food for the inmates, and the prisoners sentences were carried out in demanding physical labor. One of the major industries was logging and shipbuilding. One of the main advantages of the penal colonies on Tasmania was that they were nearly impossible to escape. Prisoners who tried usually drowned or died of starvation in the wilderness. On at least two recorded occasions, parties of escaped prisoners resorted to cannibalism to survive.

        Upon completing their sentences, most convicts chose to stay in the colonies and moved to the main island of Australia to southern settlements like Victoria. This often caused tension with the more law-abiding colonists in nearby Melbourne. This tension and growing concerns about mistreatment of the prisoners brought about the end of the transportation of prisoners to penal colonies in 1853.

Citations

1.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Diemen%27s_Land

2.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia#Tasmania

--Myles Keating