How convict labour forged empires

Summary

Summary of "How Convict Labour Forged Empires" - History Extra Podcast

Release Date: December 20, 2024

Host: Eleanor Evans

Guest: Clare Anderson, Professor of History at the University of Leicester and Author of "A Global History"

The "History Extra Podcast" episode titled "How Convict Labour Forged Empires" offers a comprehensive exploration of the global phenomenon of convict transportation. Hosted by Eleanor Evans, the episode features Clare Anderson, a renowned historian who provides deep insights into how convict labor was instrumental in building and maintaining empires across various continents and centuries. This summary captures the essential discussions, key points, and notable quotes from the episode, offering a detailed overview for those who haven't listened.

---

1. Introduction to Convict Transportation Beyond Australia

Clare Anderson begins by challenging the common perception that convict transportation was solely associated with Australia's first fleet. She reveals that convict transportation was a widespread practice affecting multiple regions, including Mauritius, Southeast Asia, and Bermuda.

Clare Anderson [02:38]: "When we think about penal transportation... the first thing people want to talk about is New South Wales... But the book is rather about something else."

2. Geographical and Temporal Scope

Anderson outlines the broad scope of her research, spanning five centuries and encompassing various European empires such as Portuguese, Spanish, British, and French. Her work traces convict transportation from the 15th century with Portugal's use of convicts in North Africa to the closure of French Guiana's penal colonies in the 1950s.

Clare Anderson [09:46]: "It's about what this all means when you put it together in terms of the value of convicts for territorial expansion..."

3. Convicts as a Preferred Labour Force

A significant theme discussed is the preference for convict labor over free settlers. Convicts were valued for their controllability, malleability, and economic efficiency. Administrators saw convicts as essential for tasks that required a dedicated and replaceable labor force.

Clare Anderson [10:19]: "What's most important is that convicts were not a second choice... convict labour was the preferred labour because you can control it, you can compel it and it's easily replaceable."

4. Economic and Physical Contributions

Anderson details the various roles convicts played in empire-building, from agricultural labor in Indonesia's spice plantations to infrastructural projects like building roads in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and reclaiming land in Bermuda's dockyards.

Clare Anderson [10:19]: "Convicts were used as productive workers in places where a malleable, unfree labor force was desirable."

She highlights the immense economic value convicts provided, often stating that without them, essential projects would remain unfinished.

Clare Anderson [10:19]: "It's impossible to overstate their economic value because there's nobody else who will do that work."

5. Moral Debates and Penal Reform

The episode delves into the 19th-century moral debates surrounding convict transportation. As Victorian prisons emerged with a focus on moral reform, conflicts arose between the economic exploitation of convicts and the emerging humanitarian ideals.

Clare Anderson [16:26]: "There was a conflict between the different stakeholders of the system and the different assumptions and desires they had around convicts."

Anderson contrasts the British and French approaches, noting that while Britain began to dismantle its convict transportation system in the mid-19th century, France continued and even expanded its use.

6. Agency of Convicts: Resistance and Insurgency

A critical aspect of the discussion is the agency of convicts. Anderson emphasizes that convicts were not merely passive laborers but actively resisted their oppression in various forms, from mutinies and rebellions to everyday acts of non-compliance.

Clare Anderson [22:05]: "Agency, resistance in insurgency, this was at the heart of everything that happened."

She provides examples of large-scale mutinies in Indian penal settlements and highlights the subtle forms of resistance, such as refusal to work or attempts to escape.

Clare Anderson [22:05]: "There's a whole range of ways in which convicts resist... they simply put their tools down and say no."

7. Intersection with Slavery and Racial Hierarchies

Anderson explores the intertwined history of convictism and enslavement, illustrating how convicts from diverse racial backgrounds were treated differently and how racial hierarchies were reinforced through these practices.

Clare Anderson [31:24]: "Convict settlements are this sort of closed society... there's a huge interest in convict bodies... about race and society amongst these... captive populations."

She discusses how policies began to reflect and enforce racial distinctions, particularly within the British Empire, where convicts of different racial backgrounds were transported to separate penal colonies.

Clare Anderson [31:24]: "We really do see here how these lines of race are drawn around different people."

8. Use of Convicts in Physiological and Scientific Experiments

The episode highlights the exploitation of convicts in scientific research, including medical experiments aimed at understanding hereditary criminality and disease reduction. Convict populations provided a controlled environment for such studies.

Clare Anderson [31:24]: "There are experiments in malaria reduction... convicts are used as guinea pigs."

She mentions notable instances like Anton Chekhov's ethnographic survey on Sakhalin Island, where convicts assisted in data collection.

9. Surprising Insights and Reflections

Towards the end, Anderson shares her astonishment at the widespread establishment of penal colonies, noting that very few regions remained untouched by this practice.

Clare Anderson [35:32]: "By the time I was halfway through it, I was interested in where penal colonies were not established because there were so many of them that the non-existence of penal colonies seemed the exception."

10. Conclusion and Further Resources

The episode concludes with Anderson promoting her book, "A Global History," and directing listeners to additional resources, including an episode featuring Nancy Cushing for more in-depth discussions on convict transportation.

Clare Anderson [35:58]: "For more on the history of convict transportation, then check out our episode with Nancy Cushing covering everything from criminal sentencing to colonial settlement."

---

Key Takeaways:

• Global Phenomenon: Convict transportation was a widespread practice beyond Australia, affecting numerous regions across different continents.

• Economic Value: Convicts were essential for empire-building projects, providing a controlled and economically efficient labor force.

• Moral Conflicts: The rise of penal reform conflicted with the economic reliance on convict labor, leading to debates about the morality of transportation.

• Agency and Resistance: Convicts actively resisted their conditions through rebellions, non-compliance, and other forms of insurgency.

• Racial Dynamics: Penal systems reinforced racial hierarchies, with convicts of different backgrounds subjected to varying treatment and destinations.

• Scientific Exploitation: Convicts were exploited for physiological and scientific research, contributing to studies on heredity and disease.

• Extensive Reach: The establishment of penal colonies was so pervasive that regions without them became exceptions, highlighting the extensive reliance on convict labor.

---

This episode of the History Extra Podcast offers a nuanced understanding of convict labor's role in shaping empires, emphasizing the complexity and global scale of penal transportation. Professor Clare Anderson's research illuminates the multifaceted contributions and experiences of convicts, challenging simplistic narratives and highlighting the interplay between economic imperatives, moral debates, and social hierarchies.

Transcript

[Ad Sponsor]

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app you can talk live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things like if you want to practice for an upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.

This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks Dutch Bros. Is all about you. Choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our Rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros app for a free medium drink plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards. Offer valid for new app users only. Free medium drink Reward upon registration 14 day expiration terms apply. See DutchBros.com this episode is brought to you by AWS. Amazon Q Business is the generative AI assistant that can securely understand your business data, summarize results and streamline tasks. Learn what Amazon Q Business can do for [e-mail] learnmore looking for a pickup.

Truck to get just about anything done? Look no further. The Chevy Silverado EV isn't just the most powerful Silverado ever with next level towing capability and technology. It also offers game changing versatility with the available multiflex midgate and tailgate. Which means Silverado EV helps you carry large, bulky and oddly shaped items up to nearly 11ft in length. Chevrolet Together, let's drive. Visit Chevrolet.com to learn more.

[Clare Anderson]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Think about the transportation of convicts and your mind probably goes to the arrival of the first fleet in Australia. But as today's expert guest reveals, the history of convict transportation is actually a much wider historical phenomenon. From the spice plantations of Indonesia to dockyards in Bermuda, convicts were sent to the farthest reaches of empire and often worked under brutal conditions, building roads, reclaiming land, even participating in scientific experiments. Clare Anderson, professor of History at the University of Leicester, is the author of a new book, A Global History, and she joined Eleanor Evans to explain more.

[Eleanor Evans]

The idea of transportation, of the mobility of convicts, of penal mobility in Britain at least, is often bound up with the idea of transportation to Australia in the late 18th and into the 19th century. Clare, I wondered if we could start by hearing from you about the broader scope of this history that you're looking at with this book. The time that we're looking at and the geographical span as well. Yeah.

[Clare Anderson]

Thanks so much, Eleanor, and thanks so much for having me on the show today. You're right. When we think about penal transportation and whenever I mention my work, the first thing people want to talk about is New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land less often, but sometimes also Western Australia. And as you rightly say, the book is rather about something else. But it might be useful just to talk a little bit about how I came to this topic because it sort of helps to explain my answer to your question. So I began work on Mauritius. So Mauritius is one of the Mascaren Islands. It's geopolitically part of the African continent, but as many of you will know, it's an island off the eastern coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. I came to Mauritius because the late Ian Duffield, my wonderful PhD supervisor, knew that some convicts had been transported from Mauritius to New South Wales and Van Diemen's land. Nobody really knew anything about them from the Australian side, apart from the incoming lists that were received as they arrived. Mauritius is a Francophone or a Mauritian Creole speaking country. And just by coincidence, I happen to be a fluent French speaker. So Ian proposed that I go to Mauritius to work on this group, which I thought was a fabulous idea, having at that time looked on the map to check where Mauritius was. So I started my work in the National Archives at Kew, these fabulous Colonial Office records that are available to us. And I found this really intriguing reference to the existence of a penal settlement in Mauritius for Indian convicts. And at first I thought this must be some kind of mistake that I'd misunderstood, that these were indentured laborers or soldiers or something else. And I spoke to lots of people and nobody really knew anything about it. Nobody really could understand what this was. As I read through the records, I started to piece together that there had been a penal settlement for Indian convicts in Mauritius in the first half of the 19th century. And so that was what I decided to focus on for my PhD project. And until quite recently, I pushed the other idea. My supervisor's original idea aside, now I mention this anecdote in some depth because I hope that our listeners will start to understand something of the complexity of who is where and when, and potentially start to wonder why it seemed curious, strange, striking to me that Mauritius was transporting convicts to the Australian colonies and importing them from India, which seems entirely illogical if we understand penal transportation is bound up with the desire for unfree labour, as many of us do believe was at least partly the case. So I progressed that work and it just got bigger and bigger. I realized as I went through those records that Mauritius was not the only place that received Indian convicts. Indian convicts also went all over Southeast Asia, to the settlements of Burma, which was then part of British India, and to Penang, Malacca and Singapore. So the story got bigger still and the story became multi directional. Convicts seemed to be going backwards and forwards and round and being moved here, there and everywhere, and all of it connected to Australia too. So when we say in Britain that we associate penal transportation to Australia. That's right, and it's true, but there's a whole other story within the British Empire that ran concurrently to the Australian story, which has been completely forgotten. And I think it was that that was the starting point for this book, ultimately trying to put on the table and render more complex. What I came to realise, and have come to realize since the 1990s when I started this work, was a much more complex pict in every single context that I came to explore.

[Eleanor Evans]

It's a complex picture, it's a sweeping narrative and you've picked up on some of the complexities there. We're going to try and pull out a few of the threads in this conversation. If we can rocket back three centuries or so and we can pick up where you begin your timeline. I suppose. I know it's not quite A to B in that sense, but if we can begin your history of this mobility of convicts.

[Clare Anderson]

Yeah, no, it's a really great question. It was really difficult for me to think about where I would start, when I would start, where I would end and what I would include. And as I mentioned in the introduction to the book, we see the use of prisoners, political prisoners, convicted offenders, so called undesirables, social undesirables right from the days of the Roman Empire. So arguably the book could have been even bigger. But I ultimately settled on what I would call the modern European empires. So I started with Portugal's first use of convicts to colonize parts of North Africa in the 15th century. And I decided to end with the closure of French guiana in the 1950s. I excluded the Soviet Union and I excluded the Nazi penal camps and the same kinds of camps in Franco Spain. And the reason that I did that was I felt that the drivers of those three contexts was rather different than the drivers of European colonialism, which was ultimately about territorial exposure, expansion. I did decide to include Russia, so Russia before the revolution, and in particular a site called Sakhalin island, because I felt that there, that was about the use of convicts to expand into places that were desirable territorially. So the narrative, it runs for five centuries. It incorporates the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire. But by piecing everything together, I hope that I've told a story that's about more than the sum of its parts. It's about what this all means when you put it together in terms of the value of convicts for territorial expansion and all of the things that happen through territorial expansion.

[Eleanor Evans]

So let's pick up on this, then, because I think some of us might be guilty of, when we think of convict labour, of imagining sort of work that's rote, that's obviously backbreaking and grunt work, but might be not of any societal value, necessarily. The idea of treadmills and so on, you know, there's perhaps an idea of that. Yet what comes across is that the convict labour so much in your book is really at the vanguard of so much of this expansion and frontier. Can we talk about this as a theme?

[Clare Anderson]

I started the book thinking that it would be all about convict labour. So I think it's fair to say that there's been a sort of shift in how we understand penal transportation in all of these various contexts, from the idea that convicts were cast out, dumped, got rid of in a faraway place, towards an appreciation of their value as laborers. But just taking the point about labor, it was consistent across the different contexts that convicts were used as productive workers, and they were used as productive workers in places where a malleable, unfree labor force was desirable. And one of the key points that I wanted to make was that convicts were not a second choice. It wasn't that convicts were used because free settlers wouldn't go to a place, because I think sometimes that's what we assume a place was so horrid, people wouldn't settle freely. That's what we want in these, you know, these liberal empires. So they had to use convicts. My view very strongly is that convict labour was the preferred labour because you can control it, you can compel it and it's easily replaceable. So there's kind of a brutality about this system. And in some of the contexts that I looked at, death rates are horrific, survival rates are poor, and the lot of a convict is pretty dreadful. I mean, it depends where you look. This varies. So somewhere like Hokkaido, which is the northern island of Japan, was settled using convicts following the Meiji restoration of the 1860s. And a third of the convicts died building roads which were very much needed in order for the Japanese to expand into indigenous Ainu. Territory. If we take the Andaman Islands, part of British India in the late 18th century, the first settlement actually failed because pretty much everybody died, including the colonial doctor that went with the first convicts. And you can repeat that over and again. It's hard to make generalizations about the work that convicts did because it very much depends on the context. But just to give listeners a flavour, in some places they're used as agricultural labourers. So if we look at Benkulin. So now Indonesia, convicts are used to set up spice plantations. And listeners may know Indonesia today is the world's number one supplier of spices globally, followed only by Grenada. In the Caribbean, if we look at Mauritius, convicts were used to try to get a silk industry off the ground. If we look at Bermuda, convicts were used to fill in part of what's now the dockyard. So they reclaimed land and created a fitting station for the Royal Navy. If we look at the Australian colonies, convicts build everything. The same is true in French Guiana and in French New Caledonia. So we see this variety of work. But I think having looked across the contexts, what we always see is a recognition that convicts are a first choice as labor. They're malleable, they're controllable and they're valuable. We often in the archives find comments that it's impossible to overstate their economic value because there's nobody else who will do that work. So it's not saying we could use this labourer, we could use that labourer. And convicts have a lower price point, if you like. What administrators say is only convicts do this work, so we can calculate the daily rate, but that vastly underplays their value because if they weren't here, this work wouldn't be done. Another thing I'd like to add is that in some of these contexts, convicts go in really very large numbers, thousands upon thousands. In others, convicts go in quite small numbers. So if we look at the Spanish presidios, for example, and Christian DeVito has published wonderful work on this, sometimes it's a few dozen convicts who are sent to the Spanish forts to work, but they're the only people sent, so they might not be 10,000 strong, but there are convicts and nobody else. So even when the numbers are quite small, small, I think we can begin to appreciate the value of their presence in various global locations.

[Ad Sponsor]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why Lifelock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen. Their US Space restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. At New Balance, we believe if you run, you're a runner, however you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way, you're free to discover your way. And that's what running's all about. Run your [e-mail] Running.

[Eleanor Evans]

The work sounds immensely productive and valuable, as you've outlined. I wonder you've said that they're a preferred workforce in many cases. Could you take us into some examples where there's been more debate about the use of them as a workforce in the 19th century?

[Clare Anderson]

I think there's a sort of turning point in debates and understandings about convicts and their value as workers. And in terms of morality. What we find is in the 19th century, a conflict arises between what I call in the book, the different stakeholders of the system and the different assumptions and desires they had around convicts. There isn't one right answer to what convicts were for, why they were there, what the purpose of the system was by the 19th century. What I mean by that is that in the 19th century, prisons take the shape of what we would now see as the modern prison. And anybody living in Britain who's listening will know about some of the Victorian infrastructure that's still used for incarceration. So we're aware of these sort of Victorian prisons. They still exist. So I'm speaking to you from Leicester, my home city, Hnp. Leicester was built in the 1820s. Very typical example of a Victorian prison. Now, accompanying the building of this new kind of infrastructure was a new idea about what punishment was for. Punishment was, according to evangelical Christianity, a means that wrongdoers could come to see the error of their ways and to reform. And the word morality is used. This is moral reform. Now, it's not difficult to see how that idea about reflection, potentially repentance and reform, comes into conflict with the labor desires on the ground. So in a nutshell, employing somebody to work on a chain gang to Build a road in central Van Diemen's land. What's now Tasmania perhaps isn't what penal reformers had in mind when they're thinking about how convicts might reform. So whilst labour was viewed also as a means of reform, which is quite convenient in terms of the economic thrust of the system, these conflicts start to emerge and there are debates about whether convict transportation should continue in many contexts. I do want to add here that labour still does play a part, because one of the worries about penal colonies is they put off free settlers. So the idea is that free settlers will not want to go somewhere where the population is largely or almost solely comprised of convicts or ex convicts or even their descendants. So this is where we start to see different interests in the system rubbing against each other. It's fascinating for us to think here to take pause and think about the differing trajectories of the British and French empires, actually. So I think some of our listeners will know about Devil's Island. So this is one of the islands off French Guiana, notorious place where Alfred Dreyfus was actually incarcerated. And I think Devil's island is a sort of metaphor for everything that's bad about penal colonies, Right? So penal transportation from France only really gets off the ground. Just as it's starting to cease to the Australian colonies, so the British start to row back on penal transportation in the 1840s, 50s, ultimately abolishing it to the Australian colonies in 1868. And this is just when France is getting into it, so to speak. And at international meetings of a body called the International Penitentiary Congress, there are a lot of discussions by delegates from France and from Britain about the morality of continuing penal transportation to the French colonies. Russia and Portugal also get involved in those debates because those are the other major powers that are still transporting convicts. Interestingly, Britain is still sending convicts to the Andaman Islands right up to the Japanese occupation of World War II. But that kind of slips under the radar. It seems they're more concerned about morality for British European convicts than they are about the morality of transportation for black and Asian prisoners. And I think that tells us quite a lot about the hardening of race hierarchies through these systems and how those are played out.

[Eleanor Evans]

Yes, I think those hierarchies are something that I really want to come into in a little while. I wanted to flip it slightly, though, because you've given us a great sense in your last answer of the debates that are happening with the powers that are influencing these policies of transportation. If we can go to those who are transported could we talk about the agency of those being transported, where they found moments to resist, what transportation and the penal mobility did for ideas of resistance and insurgency?

[Clare Anderson]

One of the challenges for me as a historian in writing this book was telling this sort of grand narrative. All these contexts, five centuries, the book's chocker full of maps and pictures to help us make sense of this without losing sight of the individuals in the system. It was challenging to tell the macro story without losing sight of the individuals. So yes, agency, resistance in insurgency, this was at the heart of everything that happened. It was at the heart of directing policy, it was at the heart of what happened, when and how. And it was at the heart of how convicts experienced these systems. And it's really important we don't lose sight of this. One of my last jobs, if you like, when completing this book was to make sure that enough convicts were named. I feel very strongly it's important to name convicts so that they don't become a sort of faceless mass in this story and also to draw out fragments where we can. The big coda here of course, is that these are fragments. The sources that we use are in the main produced by elites, even elite convicts. So a very ordinary convict does not write letters home, does not appear in the archives unless they do something really extraordinary. So the sources we have are very elitist in nature. So it's really reading between the grain of the archives to get sight of this. Resistance takes many forms and I think it's fair to say that some decades ago, unless there was an all out rebellion with a political goal, historians didn't really see that as resistance. I think other actions can constitute resistance too. So we do have convict rebellions. There's a section in the book, for example, on mutinies at sea. Indian convicts in the Indian Ocean led a series of enormous mutinies in the first half of the 19th century and into the 1850s. One of them involved so many convicts that the subsequent trial was held in Calcutta town hall because they couldn't all fit in the Supreme Court. Completely written out of history, never in a textbook. That's a very good example of where we can start to piece fragments together. Because in the India Office records we have records of the trial. Convicts speak, their words are translated and transcribed. So certainly presented to historians in a mediated form, but certainly a fabulous source. Much more than anyone thought that we could ever recover before. I started this work at a less dramatic level, but no less important, is straightforward refusal to work if convicts feel that unreasonable demands are being placed on Them, they simply put their tools down and say no. And in these remote frontier regions, remember these are flows that are sent to colonized distance lands. There's very little that people can do on the ground except to comply with their requests. So convicts will say they're not working on a Sunday. They will stop working because they want to eat. If they feel that their comrades are punished inappropriately, they will refuse. They run away constantly, constant running away. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. They sort of get lost. So there's this whole range of ways in which convicts resist. In relation to this, I also wanted to pull out the idea of political. The idea of what political means in these contexts. I felt that in the current literature, or the literature as it stood, when I started this book, there was an assumption that political prisoners only really existed in the modern age. They existed within histories of decolonisation, or within histories of prisoners of war, or within histories of the modern state. And one of the things I wanted to show was that convicts were transported for political reasons much earlier than we have previously assumed. So one of the other large arguments I try to make is that the origins of the so called political prisoner are much earlier than we have assumed with them. They took insurgent ideology. Remember that penal colonies are chocker full of receptive ears. And penal colonies become this kind of vector for the spread of radical ideas across contexts. And I found that really, really fascinating.

[Eleanor Evans]

Yes, the power that many in these colonies could wield by virtue of their punishment is a really interesting way to look at. I wanted to ask particularly about the institution of slavery. So transportation is also used as a punishment within the institution of slavery outside of the penal system. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Clare Anderson]

Yeah. When I started this work, this more global and expansive work, I think it's fair to say that I thought of convicts as quite unique as penal colonies, as something a bit different and separated within global labor histories. And I think it's probably fair, if I can speak for colleagues of enslavement to say that they also perhaps felt that there was something unique about enslavement. Now, what I'm going to say, I don't want to downplay those elements of difference and distinction, but I think what we've all come to realize as we've been working in these areas is the extent to which the institution of convictism, if we can use that phrase, and enslavement were intertwined. And this works at two levels. So the first thing that you've mentioned, really significant, enslaved people were subject to penal transportation. I open the book with the story of Fernando de Noronha in Brazil. The abolition of slavery came much later in Brazil than it did in Britain and in France, or British and French empires rather. And enslaved people in Brazil were transported all over the place. We see also enslaved people in the Caribbean, the British and French Caribbean being transported to the respective penal colonies of the British and French empires. So enslaved people on occasion are transferred to be the property of the king, which is slightly different from being emancipated, you might notice, and become convicts. So if they escape, they don't escape their enslavement, they revert to being the property of the king, so to speak. We do have some very interesting examples for the Australian colonies of convicts being transported from the Caribbean to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. And as I mentioned right at the start of the podcast, from Mauritius to the Australian Colonies. My most recent work, which I've picked up since the publication of this book, has been tracking the descendants of some of those enslaved convicts in the Australian colonies. That's a whole other podcast, Eleanor, but very interesting, not least because we have photographs of some of them, which is phenomenal. We don't have photographs of enslaved people in the British Caribbean or in. In British Mauritius. So you have very interesting stories to be told there. The other level is the way in which the two labor systems intersect. So we definitely see a discourse in official correspondence of a sort of, what are we going to do? We don't have enslaved people to exploit anymore. That's my language, not their language. And then you start to see a shift towards convict labour. A really good example of this is French Guiana. So the abolition of slavery in the French Empire comes in the 1840s. French Guiana is settled at about the same time, and enslaved people are put to work not just in infrastructural labor, but also to sugar production, rum production, coffee production. All of that Fails, by the way, wasn't successful. But there we see a very close link between the abolition of enslavement and the desire for convicts as a replacement labor force.

[Eleanor Evans]

And in terms of who was being put into that labor force. You mentioned racial hierarchy and the attitudes there. I wonder if we can pick up on that. And also the physiological ideas that somebody could be, quote, unquote, marked as a convict, they would have that inherently in them. Can you talk about those ideas?

[Clare Anderson]

Yeah. We see in the earlier period a huge mixing of convicts from many different places. They all work together. There's very little distinction. And in Fact that mirrors the early Caribbean, where white indentured servants work alongside enslaved Africans and their descendants. And it's later that you start to see these. These hierarchies of race emerge. We see a similar thing, particularly in the Americas, for convict systems. Later on, we see a much clearer desire to draw lines of distinction between different groups, but only in some contexts. So I suppose the best example would be in the British Empire, where we have two entirely distinct systems. We have the Australian colonies, which were primarily for British and Irish convicts. There were convicts of color who were sent from Britain and Ireland and a few from the Caribbean and Mauritius, as I just mentioned. But that does become a subject of concern to the Colonial office in the 1830s when they put a prohibition on the sending of convicts from British colonies. And this is very much stimulated by the desire to draw boundaries around race to create hierarchies. And that's the language that they use. That's not my interpretation. Simultaneously, we have the Indian penal settlements that I mentioned earlier for prisoners from South Asia. If a white soldier is convicted in British India, in South Asia, they are sent to the Australian colonies. And if a person of Indian heritage is convicted, they are sent to one of the Indian penal settlements. So, you know, we really do see here how these lines of race are drawn around different people. And in regard to physiognomy, well, there's this huge interest in what convicts bodies can tell us about hereditary criminality and about race. So the second half of the book dwells in some detail on the use of convicts, the exploitation of convicts in medical experiments. In fact, they also participate as investigators in those experiments. It's very interesting, but we see this huge interest in convicts bodies. They're measured, they're photographed, they're touched, they're observed, things are written down about them. Convict settlements are this sort of closed society. They're ideal research spaces. You have a stable population that you can study over time. So, for example, there are experiments in malaria reduction. Convicts are used as guinea pigs. There are investigations into stillbirth amongst women convicts or the partners of male convicts. Convicts are investigated until Anton Chekhov, one of the most famous Russian authors, who listeners might know was a doctor, conducted a very large ethnographic survey on Sakhalin, and he used convicts to help him. And the cards that he produced, some of them survive with these detailed notes on who convicts were and all kinds of things. Yeah, so there's this really big interest in convict bodies in physiology, what that might tell us about race and society amongst these literally captive populations.

[Eleanor Evans]

I'm sure listeners are grasping that there are huge ideas explored in this book, huge geographical expanse and so many individuals experiences as well. You've given us us a sense of where transportation has happened and over what scale, and you've given us a sense of the work that people were doing when they were put in these places. You've given us a sense of how convicts were used by the powers that be and the attitudes to hierarchy that evolved from that. I wonder if I can begin to wrap us up Clare, and just ask you, in writing this book, was there anything that surprised you that you'd like to leave listeners with?

[Clare Anderson]

When I started the book, I was interested in where penal colonies were established. By the time I was halfway through it, I was interested in where penal colonies were not established because there were so many of them that the non existence of penal colonies seemed the exception. And that really intrigued me.

That was Claire Anderson. Her book A Global History is published by Cambridge University Press and is out now. For more on the history of convict transportation, then check out our episode with Nancy Cushing covering everything from criminal sentencing to colonial settlement. And the link to that is in the episode description of this podcast. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.

[Ad Sponsor]

From your fryer to the table It's a quick trip for crispy fries, but how about across town delivery? McCain sure. Crisp fries are designed to go from fryer to container to carrier to passenger seat across town during rush hour, down a shortcut that wasn't all that short to a doorstep before they hit the table. And that first bite? The crispiness speaks for itself.

[Clare Anderson]

Mmm.

[Ad Sponsor]

To the the last bite. McCain sure, crisp fries go the distance. See how far our fries can take your [e-mail] delivery.