Women Convicts In Early Australia - The Plight Of The Poor Female

Our first fleeters are on a par with the Pilgrim Fathers who were transported to America - early settlers sent from their countries of origin for whatever reason - to make new homes on foreigh soil against enormous odds.

And the following description is what my forbear Ellen Wainwright had to endure after she was forced to leave the counry of her birth for stealing a petticoat - when in her late teens she was transported to Austalia, a brave new colony ,where she became an integral part of the scenes of debauchery, the forced showing of her self at a public form of auction to a raucous public to see if she was fortunate enough to be "chosen" by one of the mob to be a wife or a servant - the humiliation of being put on view as if she was just an item or indeed a piece of meat is truly too horrible to think about.

Historically the early convict women sent to Australia on the First Fleet are seen in the main as desperate women who engaged in an earthy trade however; despite the publicly vaunted testimonies that these early convict female settler were not much more than prostitutes -women to be bought, traded, raped and used as their male counterparts saw fit!.... in reality their skills and bravery attributed much to the growth and survival of this new colony. And naturally it goes without saying that these women brought much to the growth of the colony via their reproductive organs mothering whole new generations of Australians who then went forth to multiply.

Of the working convicts transported to Australia only about 11% of the total number were women; and the skills these women brought with them were immediately useful and markedly aided the growth of the colony. These women were mainly employed in such roles as laundresses, kitchenmaids, needleworkers, general servants and housemaids. These women already possessed these fundamental skills and had no need to make intrinsic changes to their individual ways of life in order to adapt their working skills to the different and difficult environment of the colony. This was in direct contrast to the 89% male convict arrivals who were ranked in importance as to the type and wickedness of their crime - in fact the reason for their transportation to this harsh new world - and so their ratings based on the significance or insignificance of crime was ranked. However the convict women were unfortunately lumped in together coming historically under the single derogatory term of "useless whores".

Based on the scant evidence available only about 20% of the transported female convicts did actually practise prostitution before coming via the "First Fleet" to Australia (making this a figure of only 2.2% of the whole of the convict forced migration). Based on the drama of this fiction it can now be seen that the skills of these women were overlooked and their productive output was not recoqnised to it's full potential; nor was their potential fully recoqnised and used for the benefit and productivity by the young colony. This sad fact fails to attribute the individual contribution and overlooks the contributions made by every new settler be they free settler or convict: man, woman or child.should have been recoqnised and attributed.

An historical indictment indeed....

See "Convict Workers" edited by Stephen Nicholas, 1988 - Published by Cambridge Press for more detail.

to read about Autralia's "First Feters" please go to :

http://hubpages.com/hub/First-Fleeters

Riotous scenes as women are landed - for additional information go to http://www.convictcreations.com/history/description.htm

To gain a true perspective of how things were for the early settlers, the convicted women from England as they landed on the shores of new home; take a look at the video above called "The Black Celtic Stain that won't wash away".

Look at the appalling treatment that lay in wait for them - horrendous treatment and the conditions - all meted out to them for why - maybe stealing a loaf of bread, or a petticoat, or ribbon, or food for their children.Obviously some women could have been tranported for real crimes such as menacing with intent or attempted murder but a small percentage only..... Imagine if this happened today; these crimes would laughed out of Court! Why today a body can commit murder and not be hung - No Sir you can hire a clever lawyer, who would probably find some technical hitch or mind boggling reason as to why you - the murderer - should not have to go to jail for more than a few years.

So when you think about it - how absolutely terrifying it must have been for these women - and regardless of their background - it is no wonder many of them opted for "Protectors" amongst their fellow travellers; soldier or convicts!

An earlyAccount taken from Australian history.....

"Port Jackson, Feb 6 1790. Scenes of riot and debauchery after the disembarkation of the women convicts tonight transformed Sydney cove into something resembling a gin palace attached to a brothel.

All this took place at night during a violent storm with lightening bolts which, at one place, split a tree in half, killing five sheep and a pig that were penned below it.

The licentious merriment began when some merchant seamen requested some grog from their captain.

No doubt the man had good reason to comply, in the relief at getting rid of the last of his convicts, as he had faced a penalty of £40 for every convict missing.

Soon the sailors and convicts were in and around the women's tents, some queuing for sex, others making love with women they had forged attachments on the voyage. Others were swearing, fighting or singing.

While the scene was deplorable no action by the Governor nor his officers. Presumably they thought that intervention would have provoked a serious riot, and that it was best to wait for the morning to re-establish order.

The women, cooped up on the voyage and for another 10 hot and intolerable days outside Sydney Cove, had not too many chaste figures among them".

There were some early and most disturbing reports made on the trading of convict women:

Taken from Reports received in London, Sept 28, 1798.

Disturbing reports have been arriving of the degrading treatment of female convicts transported to Australia. Appalling tales have been passed on describing dreadful scenes occurring after the docking of the convict vessels in port. Settlers and male convicts have been crowded onto the decks, assessing the women as if they were at a cattle auction. Servants or wives seem to the settlers choice while the convicts are looking for wives. The selection process is harsh and those women not chosen initially are thenn taken bu open boat up riover to Parrammatta where the whole ausction type process re-occurs. If not chosen the convict women were then allowed to exercise their free will to go with whom ever they wish. Those who do not go choose to go with one man are then assigned to take care of huts in which there could be as many as ten men and as few as 2 men living.

An unnamed Convict woman writes of life in 'this solitary waste of creation' Norfolk Island,

Nov 19

The plight of female convicts is described in the following letter which was privately sent by ship back to England. From the different comments or phrases scattered throughout the correspondence it can be seen that these unfortunate individuals hopes range from hope to downright despondency and depair and from this it can only be gleaned that intrinsically they were all fighters and worked towards the provision of a better life in an otherwise barren, piteous existence...

A convict women writes of "our disconsolate situation in this solitary waste of creation"" The inconveniencies.. suffered for want of shelter, bedding etc are not to be imagined by any stranger. However, we have now two streets in four rows of the most miserable huts you can possibly conceive of deserve that name"

The women are "deprived of tea and other things.... and as they are all totally unprovided with cloths, those who have young children are quite wretched.

"Several women, who became pregnant on the voyage, and are since left by their partners, who have returned to England , are not likely to form any fresh connections.

"We are comforted with the hopes of a supply of tea from China , and flattered with getting riches when our settlement is complete.

"Our Kangaroo rats are like mutton, but much leaner; and there is a kind of chickweed so much in taste like our spinach. Something like ground ivy is used for tea; but a scarcity of salt and sugar makes our best meals insipid.

"The separation of several of us to an uninhabited island was like a second transportation. In short, every one is so taken up with their own misfortunes that they have no pity to bestow on others"