Landscapes of Production and Punishment at Moreton Bay – Archaeological approaches to convict industry, labor networks and management

Abstract

The Landscapes of Production and Punishment project is an extended collaboration between archaeologist, historians and criminologists which views the organisation and administration of the convict system as it operated in different periods and different parts of Australia through a labour-systems analysis. This presentation uses the penal period of Moreton Bay as a case study to explore some of the themes of the project. 

Although discussion of the establishment of the Moreton Bay settlement in 1824 has focussed on Commissioner Bigge’s advocacy for the development of penal plantations in the ‘southern tropic’, clearly this and other ‘secondary’ punishment establishments were also seen as a means of initiating the invasion and colonisation of new regions. Importantly, the Moreton Bay settlement constituted a large network of satellite stations and work sites across the hinterland, interlinked by dynamic ‘in between’ spaces of activity. In seeking to understand the flow of people and goods between the different parts of the network, and what each component of that network did, we must understand the spatial distribution and physicality these places. Infrastructures and mechanisms of surveillance and control were used to order not just the convict population but also to suppress Indigenous peoples. Building upon the legacy of preceding penal settlements like Newcastle and Port Macquarie, the convicts at Moreton Bay established the region’s industrial potential and essential infrastructures, thus facilitating its transformation into the ‘free’ settlement of Brisbane. We should also consider the status of the various sites of the greater Moreton Bay convict settlement landscape and how they fared into the 21st century, and the dangers of preserving a few high-profile sites while losing the majority of other places of convict heritage.

About the Presenter

Prof. Martin Gibbs

University of New England 

Martin Gibbs (PhD UWA 2006) is Professor of Australian Archaeology at the University of New England. His research focuses on Australasian-Pacific historical and maritime archaeologies, with past projects including Beyond the New World: A 16th century Spanish colony and its impact on indigenous populations in the Solomon Islands (ARC-DP1093168) and the NSW River Heritage Project. For the last decade he has directed the Landscapes of Production and Punishment project, examining industrial aspects of the convict system across Australian colonies. With Dr Richard Tuffin, he also leads 'Mapping Convict Landscapes', creating interactive webmaps that geolocates convict sites and activities throughout Australia (https://convictlandscapes.com.au/; William Thompson, convict).