An Historical Archaeology of Labor in Convict Australia: A Framework for Engagement

Between 1788 and 1868 Britain transported some 171,000 male and female convicted felons to Australia, in the process establishing the foundation European population and instituting a process of invasion and colonization. The convict “system” remains a signature theme in Australian historical and archaeological research, contributing to a multitude of areas of investigation: punishment and reform, colonialism, and colonization process, as well as social aspiration and cultural transformation. This article provides an overview of the history, organization, and physical structure of the system. It then describes recent efforts to reunify the trajectories of archaeology, history, and historical criminology through cross-disciplinary projects, questions, and themes. It includes a description of the authors’ Landscapes of Production and Punishment research framework, which views the organization and administration of the convict system, as well as the shifting balances between punishment and reform, through a labor-systems analysis. This line of inquiry broadens the scope of archaeological interest away from its focus on prisons and institutional sites. It embraces a wider range of labor settings and products, including the dispersal of convicts across urban and frontier areas, and the operational logic behind the system. It also views the convicts both as individuals and a labor force, and the raw materials, roads, buildings, and other items they extracted, constructed, or manufactured equally as “products” of the regime.