17. Norfolk Island was a penal colony Which suffered several convict uprisings
Norfolk Island was colonized, abandoned, and colonized again, due to its lack of a safe harbor preventing effective communication with the other settlements. A disadvantage for colonization, the lack became a security asset for imprisonment. Escape from the island was considered unlikely. It was established as a penal colony to house the hardest prisoners, those who had committed crimes after their arrival in New South Wales, or exhibited unruly behavior such as refusal to work. Norfolk Island gained the reputation for inhumane confinement of prisoners which was enhanced by several convict uprisings, the first of which occurred in 1826.
About fifty convicts, led by John Goff, overwhelmed their guards, wounding several and killing one with a bayonet. Stealing three boats and supplies, they sailed to Phillip Island. They were quickly recaptured, most of them being returned to Norfolk Island. Goff and two others of the ringleaders were sent to Sydney, where they were tried and hanged. During Goff’s sentencing, the Chief Justice informed the convict, “…your whole life has been one career of crime”. The judge further informed the prisoners that the purpose of the penal colony was to serve as a “place of terror to evil-doers…to repress the mass of crime with which the Colony unhappily abounds”.