| Exile has a long history in Britain,which can be traced back as early as the Middle Ages.But at that time,exile was not taken as a measure of punishment.When the British Transport Act of 1718 was enacted,the exile had been institutionalized andstandardized and established as a secondary punishment instead of death penalty.British-North America became the main penal colony.However,the American Independence War forced the suspension of the British Transportation System.British-Australia penal colonies emerged.In the age of sailing ships from 18th to 19th century,the voyage from British to Australia was a complicated and dangerous process.In addition,the particularity and danger of the people being transportedincreased the difficulty of transportation and maritime administration.The transportation of convicts from Britain to Australia was the key to the implementation of the System in Australia.This article takes the transportation and administration of convicts from British to Australia on the convict ships at the sea as the research object,focusing on the reformation of the administration mode of the convicts from the end of 18th to the late 1860s,exploring the change of the role of the government in the transportation of convicts and the interaction between the criminal history,maritime history and medical history of Britain in the 19th century,so as to provide a new perspective for the study of the transportation system.Clarifying the background of the establishment of British-Australian transportation system is a prerequisite for studying the transportation and administration of British-Australian criminals.The disruption of the transportation system from British to North America set an example of convicts being sent to Australia.But the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776 forced the British transportation system to come to an abrupt end,the British government had to look for alternative places to replace the North American transportation system.Domestic pioneers of prison reform seized the opportunity to try to replace transportation with reform of traditional prisons and the establishment of new prisons,but failed.In 1784 British parliament enacted the Transportation Act to reintroduce the system of transportation but the penal colony had not yet been decided.Between the two major transportation schemes in Africa and Australia,British government rejected the African transportation scheme after filed investigation and chose Australia as a dumping ground for criminals.After the establishment of penal colonies in British Australia,one of the primary problems faced by the British government was how to transport convicts safely and healthily to their counterparts thousands of miles away.Since the Captain James Cook discovered the Australia continent in 1770,no one else from England had set foot on this place for more than a decade.The British government had never experienced such a long-distance and large-scale transportation of convicts,so the formation of transportation and management of convicts from Britain to Australia was a process from scratch.The establishment of the transportation mode between Britain and Australia was attributed to two factors.First of all,the transportation and administration model from Britain to North America provided a certain reference for British-Australia convicts,that was,the contract system was adopted to organize the transportation and administration of convicts.Second,the First Fleet led by Arthur Phillip opened up the possibility of an interventionist form of transportation for later voyage.However,due to the laissez-faire political inertia,besides the First Fleet,the early model of British-Australia convicts transportation continue to use the North American private contract system.By signing a private contract with the contractor,the responsibility for the supervision of the "marine prison" and its prisoners,as well as ensuring safe transport and health arrival,was entrusted to the captains and other ship’s officers,especially the captains had the supreme authority over the transportation of convicts from Britain to Australia.That the lack of strict and effective supervision system and professional management during the voyage caused the ship to be chaotic and random,and the public health conditions of the vessels were extremely poor.Therefore,the diseases were rampant,and the mortality and morbidity of the convicts were once at a high level.This mode of operation continued until 1814.During the nearly 50 years from 1815 to 1868 when the British-Australian transportation system was abolished,the transportation and administration mode of convicts underwent a fundamental change from the previous 20 years,that is,from the mode of convicts’ transportation dominated by private contract system to the surgeon-superintendent system dominated by official intervention.The system design,which the naval surgeon played both the roles of doctor and Marine prison supervisor,was based on maintaining the health of the convicts.After the acceleration of the transportation process and the wave of penal reform at home and abroad,the functions of surgeon-superintendents continued expand,and eventually establishing a professional transportation and administration system,involving criminal health and other aspects of their daily management,the British government officially took full control of the transport of convicts.The immediate impact of the establishment and improvement of the Surgeon-superintendent System is to improve the welfare of theconvicts during the voyage and reduce the mortality and morbidity.Meanwhile,the convict ships was seen as a special space for the British government to discipline criminals and as a laboratory for public health reform in Britain,and it also provided a template for the maritime transportation and management of government-assisted immigrant vessels from Britain to Australia in the mid-19th century,and promoted the development of criminal law history,nautical medicine public health and other fields. |
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