Abstract
AbstractDuring the British colonial period, at least eleven islands off the coast of Australia were used as sites of “punitive relocation” for transported European convicts and Indigenous Australians. This article traces the networks of correspondence between the officials and the Colonial Office in London as they debated the merits of various offshore islands to incarcerate different populations. It identifies three roles that carceral islands served for colonial governance and economic expansion. First, the use of convicts as colonizers of strategic islands for territorial and commercial expansion. Second, to punish transported convicts found guilty of “misconduct” to maintain order in colonial society. Third, to expel Indigenous Australians who resisted colonization from their homeland. It explores how, as “colonial peripheries”, islands were part of a colonial system of punishment based around mobility and distance, which mirrored in microcosm convict flows between the metropole and the Australian colonies.
Highlights
Today, the island continent of Australia has more than 8,000 smaller islands off its coast.[1]
Off the eastern coast of Van Diemen’s Land there was a penal settlement on Maria Island (1825–1832), which later became a convict probation station (1842–1850), as well as Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour, which was used for secondary punishment of convicts (1821– 1833)
Punitive relocation to islands was a colonial system of punishment that was distinct from metropolitan transportation, in purpose as well as scale
Summary
The island continent of Australia has more than 8,000 smaller islands off its coast.[1] As temperatures rose 6,000 years ago, parts of the mainland flooded and islands separated. These events are remembered by many Indigenous communities through “Dreaming” stories. Some islands became bases for fishing, shellfish gathering, and hunting of larger marine animals; others were no longer reachable, but remained part of Indigenous communities’ cultural landscape.[2] When the British colonizers arrived at. 1. Elizabeth McMahon, “Australia, the Island Continent: How Contradictory Geography Shapes the National Imaginary”, Space and Culture, 13:2 (2010), pp.
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