Does any Wikitree member have any suggestions for improvements to how convicts are categorised in Wikitree?

Question

With all the changes recently to the Australia project, I noticed some things that may potentially need changing with respect to the categorisation of convicts in Wikitree.

I have made a list that people may wish to add to or discuss to help support the categorisation team when considering profiles that don't yet fit neatly into the taxonomy.

For context, the ships convicts arrive on are categorised under:

World History

Maritime

Immigrant Ships

Immigrant Ships to Australia

---

Convicts are categorised under

World History 

Migration

Emigrants to Australian / Emigrants from [insert country here]

Australian Immigration

Convict Transportation to Australia

---

You can look up these last two subcategories here:

---

I have a number of observations of things that should perhaps be reviewed. Please comment on these and place a comment here if there are any more.

* There is a currently a category for Cape Colony (South Africa) convicts to Australia. This should be placed as a subcategory under Convict Transportation to Australia

* Only labelling the categories as "First Fleet", "Second Fleet" and so on without using the word convicts makes the categories hard to find for people searching for them. Perhaps they should be changed to First_Fleet_Convicts or Convicts_First_Fleet to make this easier when members are using the category box to search.

* There are categories for English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh convicts to Australia, however not all convicts sent by Britain were of these nationalities. There were French convicts as well as US  convicts sent by the British at least and probably more. What are we trying to capture here? Their nationality or who sent them? France also sent convicts to penal colonies and a decent number of them made it from New Caledonia to Australia while on a kind of parole. Perhaps something like "[nationality] Convicts transported by [country] to [country] would work better?". Happy to get the advice of seasoned categorisers on this one.

* It is my understanding that the Australian Convicts and (First) Settlers project should be classified under the Australia Project rather than Convict Transportation to Australia as it is a project category rather than a topical category?

* Finally there does not seem to be a way of categorising South Sea Islanders who were brought forcibly to Australian to work on cane fields primarily in Queensland. Can you classify indentured labour as immigration?

That's all I have noticed. Please comment and add anything else you may have seen and think is important

Comments

Can you classify indentured labour as immigration?

asked by Simon Ross

.

It's immigration, forced, yes, but they came TO Australia.  Many stayed by choice.  

Because it was forced, I've always seen it more as a form of slavery, than the (barely) more polite "indentured servitude" (which is really slavery under a different label).  We as a people need to come to grips with that as much as with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

---

I agree that they were slaves. Perhaps a category of Australian Slaves.

---

I think you have to be careful at equating  or categorising indentured servants as slaves although the South Sea Islanders you mention may be an exception. (I don't know  about them, my worry concerns using the term )

Indentured servitude was common in England.

Some chose to travel to the colonies as an indentured servant. My husband's maternal ancestor did just that in 1820 when he went with his wife and family to the Cape. He was a carpenter and sold his skills for passage  and rights to land at the end of the indentured period.

Apprentices were  also indentured for a term of years and were therefore indentured servants ; many apprenticeships were paid for by parents but poor children might be apprenticed by the parish (think Oliver Twist ;how they were treated depended upon the master) . In my part of the world (Dorset, England) many young pauper boys were apprenticed to work in the  New Foundland fishing industry Some ended up living there.

Lastly farm servants  in the late 18th early 19th C  often signed a bond or indenture for a year (usually less a day) . During that time they were not at liberty to leave their employment..Those that did were often prosecuted and sentenced to 1 to 3 months hard labour together with a whipping and then returned to their 'master'

None of these examples could be called slavery   though in some cases indentured servants were harshly treated. There was no sense of ownership. It was  rather a contract with a limited term .There were  penalties for breaking it but some form of reward ( transfer of skills, wages or as in the first example payment in kind and land at term)

---

Standard indentured servitude was a regular thing.

Many of the "Kanakas" were kidnapped, stolen, dragged off from their families and their homelands and used as unpaid workers/unfree labour.  If that's not a form of slavery, what should I call it?  (Warning: the term "Kanaka" outside its historic context is an offensive term.  Please don't use it loosely.)

Then, when the "White Australia Policy" came into being, many of them - many who had been born in Australia and had never seen the land of their ancestors - were "repatriated", because we didn't want coloured workers any more.

It is one of the great shames of my Homeland, and to deny that many of those peoples were the equivalent of slaves, is to deny them, and to deny history.

---

there were also some sent from what is now Canada, after the 1837 rebellion.  I think you should amend your question title to include Australia in it, else it appears too broad.

---

Many of the "Kanakas" were kidnapped, stolen, dragged off from their families and their homelands and used as unpaid workers/unfree labour.  If that's not a form of slavery, what should I call it?

Melanie, call it slavery. I believe Helen is saying that what you describe IS slavery, and should not be euphemized as indentured servitude. Indentured servants should not be confused with slaves. They chose to enter into a contract of indentured servitude in exchange for passage. They were not "kidnapped, stolen, dragged off from their families and their homelands and used." If that's what officials called "standard indentured servitude," they were soft-pedaling slavery.

---

I strongly disagree that the indenture system for Islanders should be equated with slavery. Some/many were unwilling or tricked, others were willing, and happy to re-sign at the end of their term. Many wanted to remain. Beyond that, they weren't slaves, if only in degree, since that was illegal. Slavery has a fairly standard meaning in most dictionaries. We shouldn't water down the indignities suffered by true slaves by broadening the term to include things that were harsh and are now considered reprehensible.

---

Someone who was kidnapped and stolen away from their homeland, taken to a different country, and used in enforced labour is NOT an "indentured servant" no matter how it may be being whitewashed today.  They were captive slaves, even if that word was not used.

That the "contracts" of even some "regular" indentured servants could be - and were - sold to new "owners", makes that system also highly questionable.  

(I exclude the apprenticeship system, as that did not - and does not - operate in any way similar to slavery, even if some apprentices thought they were badly treated.)

---

Melanie - categories have to have clear boundaries, otherwise "slaves" will include convicts, Chinese coolies, most aboriginal people who worked on stations or religious missions, Islanders, probably Japanese pearl divers and Indian agricultural labourers - the list goes on.

Answer 1

Hi Simon,

Thanks for this question. Sorry I missed it up till now.

I agree about the Cape Colony convicts category. That seemed to be a maintenance issue so I’ve put it under Convict transportation to Australia as you’ve suggested.

Also agree about the First, Second and Third Fleet category names. These categories are also linked to the convict stickers, so I think it would be good to get Veronica to follow this up, so that it doesn't cause problems with the stickers.

There is some major work to be done to review the Convict category hierarchies and the Australian category hierarchies in general. We are planning an Australia Project category team, so that will be a task for that team over the next several months. There is also a lot of category maintenance work to be done.  The categories like ‘Scottish Convicts to Australia’ seem to relate to where the people were born, but it isn’t clear. That will also need to be reviewed.

I have moved some of the sub-categories under the Convicts and First Settlers Project category which were in the wrong place. I think that is what you were referring to. Renaming and reviewing that project is on the to-do list.

Finally, I agree we definitely should have a category for Blackbirding and South Sea Islanders (or a similar name). My suggestion is a sub-category under the Australian History category. Probably an immigration category as well. Do you have a profile of someone in mind?

Answer 2

I was trying to find Convicts who arrived in Western Australia via categories, and noticed that there is a lot of profiles under https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:English_Convicts_to_Australia And then a further breakdown of English counties. 

But I am pretty sure that only the ships are categorised by arrival state in Australia. It was the complete of opposite of the category I was needing.

Answer 3

I was reading other posts that have been added today, and read this original post accordingly.

Another group of 4114 Irish girls, aged in their mid to late teens, mainly orphans from the Irish Workhouses, arrived in Sydney, Port Phillip and Adelaide between 6 Oct 1848 and 30 Jul 1850. They arrived on 20 vessels in what is now known as the Earl Grey Project. The purpose was twofold; to reduce the desperate overcrowding of the Irish workhouses at the time of the Irish Potato Famine and to address the chronic short-supply of female labour in the colonies. They were indentured, usually for 12 months, to an employer with the average wage being eight to ten pounds for the year.

In the end, there was an outcry, because the good colonists were outraged at Irish girls being brought to the colonies. There was what amounted to a fear campaign: they were Irish; they were Catholic; portrayed as having loose ways and vile mouths. What we can see in hindsight is the biases the mainly English and Scottish colonists would have felt towards the Irish. In actual fact, the girls selected were selected because they had attributes that would be welcome in the colony; most could read at least, if not write as well, the selectors had chosen the fittest, well mannered, hardest working girls.

 Uprooting these girls from the communities they knew, when many of them were barely more than children and throwing them headlong into the colony might seem brutal and it is the source of much academic study; many ended up leading harsh lives. These girls are recognised as refugees and they have inspired a memorial to the Irish Famine located at the Hyde Park Barracks, Macquarie St, Sydney. The project can be better understood here  https://irishfaminememorial.org/

I just thought I might add this, as they are another significant group of people brought to this country, probably with very little choice, who were indentured.