Strahan, on the banks of Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania is today a pretty tourist town offering boat cruises down the Gordon River and trips in the peaceful harbour to Sarah Island.
The tranquil setting belies its violent and miserable past. The first settlement in Macquarie Harbour was a prison established on Sarah Island. For 11 years from 1822 – 1833 recalcitrant prisoners were sent from other parts of Tasmania because of the isolation and extreme climate of the area. There was little chance of successful escape from this brutal prison. It was a place of physical and mental torture.
We took a guided tour of the island. Ruins of the settlement remain. Prisoners were forced to clear the island and build everything required to sustain life, miserable as it was. Food was scarce, so scurvy and other diseases were common.
The remains of a bakery, tannery, solitary confinement prison and lodgings for guards and officials are there to see.
In case Sarah Island wasn’t bad enough, tiny nearby Grummet Island provided a place for additional punishment. Prisoners were rowed across in chains and left alone for weeks at a time. There were a few women prisoners sent to Sarah Island and some worked for a time in a hospital, in a cave on Grummet Island.
For a few years ships were built on the island by the prisoners. Chained men were sent into nearby forests to cut Huon pine, an excellent timber for boat building. Logs were floated down the river to the island. The slips, also built from Huon pine, are intact under the sand.
It was, at the time, the biggest ship building place in the Australian colonies. During this time the prisoners were treated a little better and there were fewer escapes and floggings.
All the trees on Sarah Island were cut down. This proved to be a mistake as the howling winds made life even worse. The prisoners erected a high timber wall to provide shelter from the Roaring Forties. Some evidence of the wall remains.
Hell’s Gates is the name of the narrow entrance to Macquarie Harbour.
I suppose the prisoners knew they were entering hell on earth. There are hazardous currents which make it a dangerous place to be, but the coastline is very beautiful in a rugged kind of way. I wonder if the poor fellows imprisoned for years ever got to sit quietly and enjoy this beautiful place.
In 1824 a prisoner named Trenham killed another convict in order to be executed rather than face further imprisonment on Sarah Island. Another prisoner who escaped resorted to cannabalism to survive. He was recaptured, escaped, ate his fellow escapees, was recaptured and hanged.
Considering that most people were transported to the Australian penal colonies for relatively minor crimes, the cruelty inflicted on them doesn’t bear thinking about. There wasn’t much hope of rehabilitation, although many prisoners served their time and later became good citizens. I’m sure a little compassion would not have gone astray.
When Sarah Island was closed the prisoners were sent to Port Arthur, another hell on earth.
I am currently reading a book called “For the term of his natural life” by Marcus Clarke about the life of a man falsely accused of a crime and sent to Tasmania. It is a book of fiction, but it describes accurately the horror that these people endured.