Sign-In
Cart
Tasmania: Where Convicts Feared to Be Sent: The Dark History of Tasmania's Prison Settlements
Paperback
Series: History & Origins
Australia & OceaniaGeneral World History
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Mar 26 2026
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.34
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
For thousands of British convicts in the 1800s, there was a punishment worse than prison.
It was being sent to Tasmania.
Known then as Van Diemen's Land, the island quickly gained a terrifying reputation across the British Empire. Criminals sentenced to transportation already faced a brutal journey across the world, but those who ended up in Tasmania knew they had reached the harshest edge of the system.
Here, punishment went far beyond chains.
Convicts were forced into relentless labor, building roads, towns, and farms for a growing colony. Discipline was strict, punishments were severe, and escape was nearly impossible. Dense wilderness, icy seas, and unforgiving terrain made the island a natural prison.
At the center of this system stood Port Arthur, one of the most feared penal settlements in the world. Prisoners endured harsh discipline, solitary confinement, and the infamous silent system, where speaking was forbidden and isolation was used to break the human spirit.
Nearby, punishment stations such as the Coal Mines forced convicts into brutal underground labor. Others were sent to chain gangs or remote outposts where survival itself became a daily struggle.
But Tasmania's convict history is more than a story of punishment.
It is also the story of how an entire colony was built on convict labor. Roads, farms, buildings, and towns all emerged from the work of transported prisoners. Many convicts eventually gained freedom, becoming settlers who helped shape the island's future.
The island also witnessed darker tragedies. As the penal colony expanded, Tasmania's Aboriginal population suffered devastating loss through conflict, disease, and forced displacement-one of the most tragic chapters in Australian history.
Over time, public opinion in Britain began to turn against transportation. Reports of cruelty and abuse shocked reformers, and pressure grew to end the convict system. By the mid-1800s, transportation to Tasmania was finally abolished.
Yet the legacy of those years remains impossible to erase.
Today the ruins of Port Arthur, abandoned prison buildings, and scattered convict sites stand as haunting reminders of a time when Tasmania was known as the harshest penal colony in the British Empire.
Tasmania: Where Convicts Feared to Be Sent explores the brutal reality of this remote prison colony and the people who lived, suffered, and survived there.
Inside this book you will discover:
- Why Britain created a penal colony in Tasmania
- What convicts endured during transportation
- The harsh discipline and punishments of Port Arthur
- The role of forced labor in building the colony
- The lives of women prisoners and convict families
- The devastating impact on Tasmania's Aboriginal people
- Why transportation to the island eventually ended
This is the story of one of the most feared places in the history of the British Empire - an island prison where survival itself was a daily battle.
Also from
Jones, Jessica Dj
20 Micro-Histories of Human Stupidity: Decisions That Should Never Have Been Made
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
The Burning Coal Towns: When underground fires made entire communities impossible to live in.
Jones, Jessica
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
The Day Spaghetti Grew on Trees: The BBC's Most Successful Lie - and Why It Worked
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
When We Drain The Pond: Resource Extraction and the Collapse of Common Sense
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
The Food That Turned On Us: How Sugar, Seed Oils, and Processed Science Rewired Our Bodies-and Our Trust
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
A Woman's Body Through Time: What Changes. What It Means. What to Watch For.
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
Cause and Effect: Small Decisions That Unleashed Big Disasters
Jones, Jessica
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
A Frog Does Not Drink Up The Pond In Which He Lives: Why Sustainable Living Begins With Self-Control
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
A Man's Body Through Time: What Changes. What It Means. What To Watch For.
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
St. Patrick's Day: A Cultural Myth In Disguise. History, Nationalism, and the Religion Rewritten
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
Karens, HOAs, and the Myth of the Neighborhood Tyrant: How a Few Stories Became an Internet Legend
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
Children as Infrastructure: The Child Labor Stories People Stopped Talking About
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
The Fire That Never Went Out: The Disasters, Mine Fires, and Underground Infernos That Burned for Decades
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
Genocide as a Management Strategy: The Administrative Logic of Mass Elimination
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
The Experiments That Should Never Have Happened: When Science Crossed the Line-and Humans Became the Test Subjects
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
They Knew - And Did It Anyway: When Warnings Were Clear, Damage Was Certain, and Profit Came First
Jones, Jessica Dj
Paperback
Also in
Australia & Oceania
The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
Corson, Trevor
Paperback
Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World
Druett, Joan
Paperback
Lost Kingdom: Hawaiia's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and Americaa's First Imperial Venture
Siler, Julia Flynn
Paperback
A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, Edward
Paperback
Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
Dash, Mike
Paperback
Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
Zuckoff, Mitchell
Paperback
How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest
Hoffman, Carl
Paperback
Voices Beyond the Grave: Japanese Internment in the French Pacific
Ireland, Benjamin Hiramatsu
Hardcover
The Australian Wars: The Truth about the Bloody Battles Fought to Establish a Nation
Rachel, Perkins
Gapps, Stephen
Murray, Mina
Hardcover
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
McCalman, Iain
Paperback
The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos, and Rituals of a Demigod
Wilcken, Lane
Paperback
Terra in Our Mist: A Tūhoe Narrative of Indigenous Sovereignty and Settler-State Violence
Aikman, Pounamu Jade William Emery
Hardcover
'I buy this piece of ground here': An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s-1970s
Regan, Madeleine
Paperback
Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People
Flannery, Tim
Paperback
Double Sunrise: Qantas Empire Airways Indian Ocean Wartime Services 1943-1946
Goodall, Geoff
Paperback
South Pacific Air War Volume 6: Wau to Bismarck Sea, January - March 1943
Ingman, Peter
Claringbould, Michael
Paperback
The Shameful Isles: The true story of North-West Australia's fatal experiment with medical apartheid
Price, David
Paperback
The Myth of the Natural Laboratory: Science, Empire, and Their Derangements on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands
Young, Adrian
Hardcover
Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia
Urwin, Jessica
Paperback
The Last Tour: Paul and Eslanda Robeson's Visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1960
Curthoys, Ann
Paperback
Riots: Returned soldiers and public disorder in Australia at the end of World War I
Skyring, Fiona
Paperback
Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: The Archaeology of Ancient Hawai'i, Revised Edition
McCoy, Mark D.
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
A Holistic Reading of Chronicles with a Samoan Hermeneutic: Reading Jabez in Context
Moleli Alama, Samasoni
Hardcover
The Battle of the Coral Sea Explained: Expert Analysis of the Pivotal WWII Battle Where American Strength Saved Australia
Lewis, Tom, Oam
Paperback
Mutiny on the Bounty: A Saga of Sex, Sedition, Mayhem and Mutiny, and Survival Against Extraordinary Odds
Fitzsimons, Peter
Paperback
The Road from Coorain: A Woman's Exquisitely Clear-Sighted Memoir of Growing Up Australian
Conway, Jill Ker
Paperback
Pathway of the Birds: The Voyaging Achievements of Māori and Their Polynesian Ancestors
Crowe, Andrew
Paperback
Aborigine Trail: Trials, Travail, and Triumph Using Psychology with Aborigine Police
Moloney, Matthew
Rudofossi, Dan
Paperback
Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers
Witton, George
Paperback
King Kamehameha The Great: King of the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts, and an Adventure Down Under
McTavish, Graham
Heughan, Sam
Paperback
Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia
Allen, Matthew
Paperback
The Story of Australia: A New History of People and Place
Johnson, Louise
Walker, David
Luckins, Tanja
Paperback
Maori Tā Moko Tattoos: History, meanings and facial tattoo traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand
Rune, Aksel
Paperback
People Powered Radio: Fifty Years of Australian Community Radio Station 4zzz
Anderson, Heather
Paperback
Queen Liliuokalani: The Hawaiian Kingdom's Last Monarch, Hawaii History, A Biography
Makana, Kale
Paperback
The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica and Empire in the Southern Ocean World
Howitt, Rohan
Paperback
Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea
Matthiessen, Peter
Paperback
Wild Partners: Indigenous Worlds and Industrial Giants in Papua New Guinea
Guinness, Patrick
Paperback
Miles Franklin Undercover: The Little-Known Years When She Created Her Own Brilliant Career
Davies, Kerrie
Paperback
The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War
Horne, Gerald
Paperback
So Far and Yet So Close: Frontier Cattle Ranching in Western Prairie Canada and the Northern Territory of Australia
Elofson, Warren
Paperback
Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i Volume 69
Sasaki, Christen T.
Paperback
Hawaiian Kakau Tattoos: Traditional Tattooing, Ocean Motifs, and Hawaiian Cultural Identity
Rune, Aksel
Paperback
Empires of Violence: Massacre in a Revolutionary Age
Penn, Nigel
Dwyer, Philip
Mann, Barbara Alice
Hardcover
Australian Queer Screens: Diversity and Social Change in Film and TV
Cover, Rob
Monaghan, Whitney
Richards, Stuart
Paperback
Aboriginal Peoples and Birds in Australia: Historical and Cultural Relationships
Clarke, Philip
Paperback
The Penguin History of New Zealand (16pt Large Edition) (Large Print Edition)
King, Michael
Paperback
Many Maps: Charting Two Cultures: First Nations Australians and European Settlers in Western Australia
Bunbury, Bill
Bunbury, Jenny
Paperback
Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection
Gibson, Jason M.
Paperback
Misadventures in Nature's Paradise: Australia's Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island during the Dutch era
de Hoop, Robert
Henderson, Graeme
Viduka, Andrew
Paperback
The Menehune of Polynesia and Other Mythical Little People of Oceania (Facsimile Reprint)
Luomala, Katharine
Paperback
Outrageous Fortunes: The Adventures of Mary Fortune, Crime-writer, and Her Criminal Son
Sussex, Lucy
Brown, Megan
Paperback
Land and Money Volume 1: How Britain colonised Australasia in the long 19th century
Lepper, John
Paperback
For the Good of Mankind: A History of the People of Bikini and their Islands
Niedenthal, Jack
Paperback