Lives of Convicts and Changes in Attitudes towards the Women Convicts - Essay Example

Lives of convicts and changes in attitudes towards the women convicts Name Tutor name Due date This paper attempts to dig into the history of convicts from 17th century onwards till 19th century. The paper deals with the transition and sequence of events that took place in-between and influences that worked on the lives of convicts. However, the paper focuses mainly on women convicts and how they were treated and recorded in history, until recently when some contemporary historians changed the notions a bit from how they had been portrayed so far. The paper explains how feminist historians have played a great role in doing so, and discusses, analyses and evaluates opinions from historians in this regard.. A number of Australian family historians have termed convicts as something like ‘enormously desirable’. Whatever that means, one thing that is noteworthy is that historical accounts of convicts dates back to and actually from the early 17th century and followed by a number of convict fleets being transported till events, one upon another, happened in succession till the end of early 19th century. The history of convicts started with the first batch of around 50,000 British criminals who were transported to several American colonies. But, the transportation could not go any further since due to emergence of American War for Independence between 1775 to 1783, following which British could no more send its criminals to these colonies. This, till about 1787, led to an overflowing situation in British hulks and prisons; something that prompted Britain to look for alternatives. As if what was pre-determined, around the same time King George III proclaimed the colony of New South Wales, and precisely on 23 January 1787, Lord Sydney, it was informed by British parliament, had agreed for convicts to be transported to New South Wales. Three months later, on 23 April 1787, what followed was actually the beginning of a saga of convict history, both men and women, when Portsmouth saw leave its shores 11 ships carrying convicts – 20 percent of which were women tried for various offences in Middlesex, Kent, Devon, and Sussex. Similarly in 1790 and 1791 second and third fleet arrived into the new convict locations (Convict Central, Online). Previously there have been conflicting reports on women convicts on account of lack of credible historical accounts on how they were treated differently from men, but accounts are almost equivocal in the sense that the treatment meted out to them was depraved, despondent and dominant. Women convicts were transported even for petty crimes needing pity than punishment; often ending up as slave trade pawns and termed as 'unfortunates'. Historical accounts put total number of women transported to Australia at around 25, 266, between 1788 to 1853. Oppression of women further worsened by stringent Australian penal conditions and they became to be as a slave stock meant to serve the purpose of barter; it was all around hurling of condemnation at them in the most degrading manner. Till date and probably on account of the historical accounts women convicts worthlessness and whorishness has not ceased to be debated and even till recently historians have, instead of looking beyond moral condemnation stigma, perpetuated women convicts’ ‘immorality’ (Henri, 2010). The women convicts on arrival were directly transported to what was known as Female Factory; some married soon after they had arrived, some assigned as domestic servants to settlers, and some lodged nearby to work as day workers in the factory. Numerous historical accounts label these women as ‘prostitutes’ and ‘depraved’. Female Factory, as history testifies, was synonymous with hardened and troublesome women prisoners and prostitution was synonymous with the ones who wanted to survive. Pretty young convicts would often land up with officers and gentry for their amorous needs. Historians have almost firmly supported the assumption that prostitution was an integral part of the convict colonies, so much so that it had deeply embedded itself into the economic and social fabric of these colonies. Martin (1978) has opined that without the sufficient proportion of women convicts in a settlement, maintaining order and avoiding irregularities would have been practically impossible there. Probably what Martin meant by saying this was that for men’s sexual deviance women essentially served as an antidote. This account also seems to be hinting at European colonists who could have been exhibiting urgency in finding partners for gratification. Rather than expecting Aboriginal women to mate with convicts, as Capt Arthur Phillip, who commanded the first fleet of 11 ships, might have thought, and cited by Rutter (1937), it would have been considered prudent to ship as many women convicts as possible to avoid occurrence of interracial tension by expecting Aboriginal women to liaison with convict men (Reynolds, 1982). But since only 20 percent of convicts on the first transport were women, and to strike a desirable equation between men and women convicts was an uphill task as the present ratio was nearly one woman to six men even until 1830’s (Carmichael, 1992), a decade of free female immigration. In order to bring about uniformity in the ratio, authorities devised a plan in which it was decided that even women who had committed petty offences and not actually as grave as ones comparable to men, must be transported (Robson, 1963, 1965; Oxley 1988). Clearly women convicts came to be seen more as ‘objects of gratification’ than as ‘convicts from a crime’. Till date, as Lake (1988) mentions, the topic has been of considerable debate among historians on the specificity of prostitution in women convict population; but it has been found that judgments have often titled for, rather than against, the topic. Recent example being that of Robert Hughes (1987), who supports the views of contemporaries, condemning women convicts as ‘whores who are dammed’ and who lack both ‘honesty and virtue’. Other historians, who have debated the topic before Hughes, like Alan Shaw (1966) and Lloyd Robson (1965) have voiced similar opinions. However, commentators as Sturma (1978) differ by looking at the judgments through the upper and middle class divide. He points out that upper class commentators tend to look at the problem through their class-based notions about working class women, just as women in the Female Factory were. They, as Sturma suggests, consider this class as prostitutes since they find a transgression into their upper class modesty and morality through the behaviour convicts exhibit. Terming these women as those with ‘aggressive sexuality’ in comparison with ‘women of virtue’ of their own class, these commentators consider this type of aggressiveness as ‘shocking’ (Daniels, 1993). The ‘whore stereotypes’ of women convicts echoes in almost all debates; however feminist historians have attempted to paint it a bit differently, without making any major amendments to the picture that has been set on women convicts since their evolution. In this regard feminist historians like Miriam Dixson and Anne Summers seem to have corrected certain biases surrounding the debate. Dixson and Summers argue that women convict whores were born because of a male-dominated society that was tyrannous in nature. Summers has almost come out boldly in open by stating that both British and local Australian authorities deemed it necessary “to have a supply of whores to keep the men, both convict and free, quiescent” – in other words what was devised as a calculated sexist way of social control initially, was later dubbed as and dammed also women’s fault. Dixson and Summers (1975) remark that structural factors and State policy are to be blamed for convict women’s compulsion into prostitution than women’s personal ‘vice’. Nonetheless, both these historians do not deny these women were anyway into flesh trade. That argument, though, does not seem to cut much ice with Portia Robinson (1985), who is acclaimed for her work on women convicts and her book Women of Botany Bay, in which seems to have caught women convicts so to say by the neck. Against a backdrop of being called good citizens, good mothers, and good wives, she tears the discussions on women of Botany Bay apart by attributing their foray into prostitution not because of prevailing Australian conditions then, but because of their past criminal antecedents. In a tone, that is both ironical and sarcastic Robinson says contrarily seen, it was Australia that offered these women “chance for redemption” (Robinson, 1988). Curiously enough, if historians felt a need for a paradigm shift in either debating or referring to convicts, it was not because opinions emanating from different historians were differing in nature, but possibly because the ‘seed’ for the shift had actually been sown towards the end of eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century when the convict era in Australia had become an issue of concern. There were sporadic incidents of anti-transportation movements in mid-eighteenth century; often lead by leading politicians willing to derive personal career mileage from the movements. The colonies that came into being on account of these convicts started getting mentioned as ‘birthstains’ out of which now many had actually risen to power; one stark reality that led these powerful try their level best to douse any voice that would dig their dark past out. Consequently, the impact was such that convicts began to be called as 'pioneers' or 'early settlers'. Around the same time, and ironically so, when white settlement’s sesqui-centenarv was celebrated in 1938, convicts were not allowed by the organising committee to be a part of Pageant of Nationhood. The decision to exclude convicts, however, was said to be not unanimous at that point of time, and a strong resentment had grown among leading historians at that point of time supported by academicians and other literary figures. Body of educated thought had started growing and there was a general opinion that the place should not find any reason to feel disgraced from it past inhabited by both women and men convicts (Fletcher, 2012). Conclusion Debates revolving around convicts have been both interesting and intriguing and still evoke interest among present historians. While transportation of male convicts has always been seen as a part of the legal process, women convicts transported in large numbers have been looked at from a different perspective; the primary one of which has been that of using them for gratification of male convicts and officers in the colonies. The negative outcome of this, however, was that they have been recorded mostly as prostitutes and women with vice. Recent debates by the contemporary historians have attempted to dispel this notion to some extent as some of them, particularly the ones from the feminist group, have remarked that prostitution was actually an act forced on these women convicts. Works cited Convict Central. (nd). Convicts to Australia: A Guide to Researching Your Convict Ancestors. Available at http://www.convictcentral.com/. Accessed on January 02, 2012 Carmichael, G. (1992). "So Many Children: Colonial and Post-Colonial Demographic Patterns" in Saunders, K. & Evans, R. (eds.) Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich: Sydney. Daniels, K. (1993). "The Flash Mob: Rebellion, Rough Culture and Sexuality in the Female Factories of Van Diemen's Land" in Australian Feminist Studies. Number 18, Summer. Dixson, M. (1975). The Real Matilda: Women and Identity in Australia, 1788 to 1975. Penguin: Ringwood. Fletcher, B. (2012). History Today: Australia's Convict Origins - Myth and History. Available at http://www.historytoday.com/brian-fletcher/australias-convict-origins-myth-and-history. Accessed January 02, 2012 Henri, C. (2010). Female Convict History. Available at http://www.christinahenri.com.au/index.php?/ongoing/female-convict-history/. Accessed January 02, 2012 Hughes, R. (1987). The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1788-1868. Collins: London. Martin, G. (1978). The Founding of Australia: The Argument about Australia's Origins. Hale & Iremonger: Sydney. Lake, M. (1988). 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Penguin: Ringwood. Sturma, M. (1978). "Eye of the Beholder: The Stereotype of Women Convicts, 1788-1852" in Labour History. May, Volume 34. Shaw, A.G.L. (1966). Convicts and The Colonies. Faber & Faber: London. Read More