Exploring Port Arthur Heritage Site - Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania is just of the coast of southern Australia and it is known for its endangered species, wines, and beautiful landscapes. But it also has a very interesting and important historic importance. One of the main sites to see is Port Arthur Heritage Site.

This is the view of Port Arthur from a ferry.

This is my brother, Kaio, standing next to the Police Station.

Port Arthur is where the governor of Van Diemen’s land (aka Tasmania) - George Arthur, which is how Port Arthur was named after - sent convicts from Europe to work hard labor like building ships and buildings, making broomsticks and shoes. There were more that 7,500 convicts and soldiers sent there.

This is a beautiful garden in Port Arthur.

The time it normally took to get from Europe to Port Arthur was around 6 months by boat. They would only stop in Brazil and South Africa.

Here are some of the buildings that are there today:

This is one of the rows of cells in the Separate Prison.

The Penitentiary - This building was used as a flour mill in 1845 to supply the convicts food like bread. The convicts had two grain the flour though. The convicts used hard labor to build the huge building. There are four floors inside the building and the lower the cells were, the worse the prisoners are. The top floor was where the not-so-bad convicts were imprisoned.

This is the Penitentiary and is walking in it.

The Police Station - The Police Station is considered the most haunted house in Australia.

The Smith O’Brien’s Cottage - Smith O’Brien was a ‘Special Convict’ because he had his own cottage to himself while the other convicts were in the Penitentiary.
Point Puer Boys’ Prison - The Point Puer Boys’ Prison is where they kept boys that had done bad things like stealing and protesting. The youngest boy would have been 9 years old. It was the first separate boys’ prison because most prisons the boys’ are with the adults’. The boys did many things from making plaques to making buildings. The boys’ prison is located on a separate peninsula.
The Isle of the Dead - the ‘Isle of the Dead’ stands for the Island of the Dead which is where they buried the convicts, soldiers, and the free people of Port Arthur. The convicts did not have a plaque but the soldiers and free people had stone plaques made from the Point Puer boys. Some of the plaques were written wrong!! We don’t know if they did that on purpose just to upset them or if they did it because they didn’t know how to spell.
The Separate Prison - The Separate Prison was a Prison that the worst of the worst of the worst prisoners would go to. They would be in a single cell for 23 hours a-day making things. They would get 1 hour to go outside with a mask on that just had 2 holes for them to see. They could never talk and even the soldiers used sign language between each other to keep it quiet. There was one cell that was the worst, it was pitch black and you couldn’t do anything for 23 hours a-day with 1 hour of exercise.
The Asylum - The Asylum was where they tried to help people with mental issues. Instead of just putting them inside a big room, they actually worked with them to try and help them. They were not just prisoners though. They were normally free people that lived in Port Arthur.
The Church - The Church was where the prisoners had to go every Sunday. It is located at the top of the bowl-shaped area where Port Arthur is. The Point Puer Boys’ were the ones who cut the brick and shaped it and put together the Church that they also had to attend every Sunday.
The History of Port Arthur:
Port Arthur was ready for convicts in the 1830’s and the convicts built all the buildings on the site. It is pretty much impossible to escape the prison; The peninsula which Port Arthur is on, is surrounded by water on all sides that was said to be ‘Shark Infested’. There were huge trees and forest on either side. There was only one way to get to the rest of Tasmania without a boat which was a chain called ‘The Dog Chain’. It was called that because it was this long chain that was on the water that dogs were tied to. There were even platforms on the water for the dogs. When the dogs would see anything, they would start barking and there is a little station for soldiers and when the soldiers would hear the barking they would wake up or become alert and start shooting if it was a convict trying to escape.
The soldiers said that it was impossible to escape, but still some convicts tried. George Billy Hunt was a convict that disguised himself with kangaroo hide and tried to escape. The disguise worked too well because the soldiers at ‘The Dog Chain’ which were half-starved actually thought he was a kangaroo so they tried to shoot him down for dinner. Hunt saw them and then took the kangaroo hide of and surrendered which happened to be a punishment of 150 lashes.
Lashes are also called ‘Cat Tails’ because it is this kind of hand whip that has a couple of knots at the end. The convicts would be tied up with their hands above their heads and then the soldiers would take the lashes - that had soaked in salt water - and hit them really hard on the back of the convict. Once the skin would start peeling off of their backs and the convict was about to faint, a soldier would say “Cut them down!” And the other soldiers would cut the rope and drag the convict to the hospital where they would get treated and once they had been treated, they would go back to the lashes and start all over again. In a book from a free convict, he wrote - referring to the lashes - ‘Dogs would lick the blood off my back and mice would carry away pieces of my skin.’ Which is very intense! Port Arthur closed in 1877 and became a tourist attraction until today.