Convict assignment

Convict assignment was the practice used in many <a href="/facts/Penal_colony/63twBQ8y">penal colonies</a> of assigning <a href="/facts/Convicts/RFM0LGro">convicts</a> to work for private individuals. Contemporary abolitionists characterised the practice as virtual <a href="/facts/Slavery/IXX2S92u">slavery</a>, and some, but by no means all, latter-day <a href="/facts/Historians/vsTpUXcM">historians</a> have agreed with this assessment.
In <a href="/facts/Australia/qLHpbppq">Australia</a>, every penal colony except <a href="/facts/Western_Australia/1ouCbwNh">Western Australia</a> had a system of convict assignment. <a href="/facts/Convict_era_of_Western_Australia/Uhr2Ycn9">Convicts in Western Australia</a> were never assigned, with the debatable exception of the <a href="/facts/Parkhurst_apprentices/bSEsNNtY">Parkhurst apprentices</a>.
The system was abolished in <a href="/facts/New_South_Wales/aW7eJXSS">New South Wales</a> and <a href="/facts/Van_Diemen%27s_Land/IXcM6oRz">Van Diemen's Land</a> on 1 July 1841 and replaced with the probation gang system. After working for two years in a labour gang, if they were well-behaved, convicts received 'probation passages' which meant they could work for wages.

Convict assignment open-in-new

Convict assignment