The Beginnings of Transportation in Western Australia: Banishment, Forced Labour, and Punishment at the Aboriginal Prison on Rottnest Island before 1850

Western Australia entered Britain’s worldwide system of convict transportation twelve years before the first convicts arrived from Britain in June 1850. In August 1838, the colony had established a system of internal transportation, when it began transporting convicted Nyungar men to the Aboriginal prison on Rottnest Island/Wadjemup. Drawn from Britain’s long-standing use of transportation beyond seas as a system of punishment and deterrence, the colony’s internal transportation system was adapted for local conditions arising from the creation of a British settlement on Aboriginal land. This essay explores the early years of Aboriginal incarceration on offshore islands in Western Australia, starting with the sending of Nyungar men Yagan, Dommera and Ningena to Carnac Island in 1832, and concluding with the temporary closure of the Aboriginal prison on Rottnest Island in September 1849. It shows the multiplicity of motivations for establishing the prison – prevention of stealing, punishment through isolation, removal of male leadership from their communities, and forced labour intended both to train Aboriginal men to be useful labourers for settlers and to minimise the costs of their incarceration. The result was a local system of convict transportation that was profoundly traumatic for the Nyungar and other Aboriginal societies who were subjected to it.