CONTRACTING CONVICTS: THE CONVICT LABOUR MARKET IN VAN DIEMEN's LAND 1840-1857

Abstract

The place of penal transportation in Australia's economic history has always been controversial. Convict workers were frequently denigrated as worse than useless, yet without convicts the settlements would have lacked sufficient labour for development. In Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s, convicts constituted more than half the labour supply, and if emancipists are included it was more like three-quarters. After transportation to New South Wales was halted in 1840, amidst claims that the assignment of convict labour was akin to slavery, Van Diemen's Land continued to receive transportees but adopted a new form of labour management: the so-called ‘probation system’. To distinguish the new probation system from the ‘slavery’ of assignment, wages were paid to convict workers. This study uses 17,997 convict employment contracts to explore the labour market for convict passholders at the probation period. Actions speak louder than words, and irrespective of what might have been said about convict quality, by the end of transportation in 1853 convict workers were eagerly engaged at rising wages by employers desperate for labour.