From Slave Colonies to Penal Colonies: The West Indian Convict Transportees to Australia

The Legacies of British Slavery in Australia’s Labour History

“…Amid the social turmoil that followed the Napoleonic Wars, and rising unrest among the working classes in Britain, there was a dramatic rise in transported convicts, and their treatment became increasingly severe. 13 Transportation quelled domestic dissent, while the colonies offered an alternative for capitalist investment, ultimately supporting the morally ascendant campaign against the West India interest.…”

In search of the invisible: British black family and community, 1780–1830

“…3 Recently, this trend has been reinforced by Duffield, who refers to the sexual imbalance in black transportées which prevented the formation of black community in Australia and had restrictive repercussions for the all-black family. 4 Conversely, other scholars, like Walvin, Shyllon, and Fryer, argue for the existence of a British black community in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, under the leadership of the literary triumvirate of Equiano, Sancho and Cugoano.…”

‘The Art of Cutting Stone’: Aboriginal convict labour in nineteenth-century New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land

“…Research across imperial and colonial networks revealed the diversity of the convict population (Curthoys 2002:146). It became evident that rather than solely comprising white people, Australia's penal settlements had also been populated by numerous people of colour transported to the Australian penal settlements from places as diverse as the Cape Colony, Corfu, Bermuda, India, New Zealand and China (Nichols and Shergold 1988:32, 36; see also Duffield 1985Duffield , 1986Duffield , 1987Duffield , 1999aDuffield , 1999bDuly 1979:39;Malherbe 1980Malherbe , 1985Malherbe , 2001Malherbe , 2002aMalherbe , 2002bPybus 2006). While the newly emerging transnational histories of transportation shed light on the nascent multiculturalism apparent in the Australian penal colonies, one small yet highly significant cohort of convicts continued to be overlooked.…”