Carceral Chains: Pathways through a Convict Labour Institution, 1690–1830

ABSTRACT

This article examines early modern convicts’ experiences of extramural penal labour institutions – known in their time as slaveries. It centres on Denmark’s main slaveries in Copenhagen and analyses data collected from the books keeping track of the inmates. On this basis, the article examines their experiences at connected moments: before entry, at entry, in the extraction of labour, and at exit. The article describes how these moments linked together to form patterns. Crucially, experiences during and at the termination of stays in these prisons were often predicated on former experiences in the labour market, how punitive labour was linked to forms of corporal violence, and the question of honour.

KEYWORDS:

• coercion
• punishment
• prison
• penal slavery
• chains

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I want to thank Troels Astrup, Jake Gardiner, and Tobias Tøt for their assistance with creating the database.

2. A recent exception is Valentin, “Feelings of Imprisonment”. Outside Scandinavia, such approaches have, first and foremost, been pioneered by scholars working on convict transportation in the nineteenth century. For example, see Maxwell-Stewart and Quinlan, Unfree Workers. Another study that used a similar approach to early modern material is found in Zysberg, “Galley and Hard Labor Convicts in France”.

3. On the experiences of inmates in prison workhouses, see Valentin in this volume. See also Langen, Tyven; Larner, “Good Household Turned Bad”; Koefoed, “I Trust You with My Child”.

4. Heinsen, “Historicizing Extramural Convict”. For a survey of the field and its analytical concepts, see De Vito and Lichtenstein, Global Convict Labour.

5. On their institutional history, see Stuckenberg, Fængselsvæsenet i Danmark; Heinsen, Det første fængsel.

6. Van der Linden, “Dissecting Coerced Labour”.

7. On assemblages, see DeLanda, Assemblage Theory.

8. See also Schiel, De Vito, and van Rossum, “From Bondage to Precariousness?”.

9. See the two archival series Rigsarkivet, Holmens chef, Bøger over Bremerholms fanger and Rigsarkivet, Københavns Stokhus, Slaverulle.

10. Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning, 1716–1912, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1752–1770 mm, 3–4, pp. 111–2.

11. When referring to the trajectories of individuals, I will refer to their ID in the database. The data is available and searchable at https://carceralcph.shinyapps.io/carceralcph_web/ [in Danish].

12. Either the garrison courts of Copenhagen or the naval courts martial.

13. Rigsarkivet, Københavns Stokhus, Signalementsprotokol.

14. Fishermen, sailors in the merchant fleet, and foreign seafarers have been categorized as civilians because they were typically not subjected to naval jurisdiction.

15. Petersen, Geworbne Krigskarle, 71–123; Petersen, “Den danske,” 171–2.

16. Krogh, “Larcenous Soldiers”.

17. On the diversity of military labour, see Zürcher, Fighting for a Living.

18. Petersen, Geworbne Krigskarle, 166–71, 206–10, and 268–73.

19. Kamp, “Between Agency and Force”.

20. Magnusson, En Islandsk Eventyrer, 103.

21. Seerup, “Søetaten i 1700-tallet,” 59–60.

22. ID#2579.

23. Magnusson, En Islandsk Eventyrer, 116. Translations throughout are my own.

24. On the legal framework surrounding these groups, see Krogh, Staten og de besiddelsesløse på landet.

25. Much recent literature on early modern Europe suggests that as a way of making a living, vagrancy was often combined with other survival tactics. See Vilhelmsson, “Tactics of Evasion”; Winter, ““Vagrancy” as an Adaptive Strategy”.

26. A 1739 ordinance stipulated that convicts should be sent to the nearest fortress rather than Copenhagen. This meant that, for a time, Copenhagen functioned less as a hub in the system. However, gradually this change appears to have been reversed.

27. ID#5964.

28. ID#6191; ID#6069; ID#6342.

29. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren ved Garnisonskommandantskabet i København, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1783–1791 (21), p. 236.

30. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren ved Garnisonskommandantskabet i København, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1773–1779 (19), pp. 330–1.

31. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren ved Garnisonskommandantskabet i København, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1773–1779 (19), p. 106.

32. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren ved Garnisonskommandantskab i København, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1773–1779 (19), pp. 391–3.

33. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren ved Garnisonskommandantskab i København, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1773–1779 (19), p. 334.

34. Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1752–1770 (3–4), pp. 58–9.

35. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. A powerful theoretical argument against this idea is provided by Geltner, Flogging Others.

36. Krogh, Oplysningstiden og det Magiske.

37. Matthiesen, Bøddel og Galgefugl; Krogh, “Bødlens og natmandens uærlighed”. For discussions on dishonour, see also Sandmo, Voldssamfunnets unnergang.

38. Heinsen, “Penal Slavery”.

39. Heinsen, “Mercenary Punishments”.

40. In the handful of instances that mention black or brown bodies, the descriptions default to racist stereotyping.

41. Heinsen, “Runaway Heuristics”.

42. Rigarkivet, Ingeniørkorpset, Ordrer, korresp & indkomne breve vedr fæstninger, Københavns fæstning, 1782–1785, pp. 63–4.

43. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren for Københavns fæstning, Justitsprotokol 20, p. 557ff.

44. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren for Københavns fæstning, Justitsprotokol 22, p. 56ff.

45. For an example, see Heinsen, “Penal Slavery”.

46. Rigsarkivet, Admiralitetet (Søetaten), Overadmiralitetsretten, Standretsprotokoller 1722–1724, p. 51.

47. Heinsen and Valentin, “Coercive Networks in Copenhagen”.

48. Rigsarkivet, Forsvarets Auditørkorps, Auditøren for Københavns Garnisonskommandantskab, Justitsprotokoller 1783–1791, p. 121.

49. For example, Rigsarkivet, Holmens chef (Søetaten), Standretssager 1727, letter to the Admiralty, 22 December 1727.

50. Von Pahl, “Pesten i København 1711–12”.

51. Valentin, “Feelings of Imprisonment”.

52. Pedersen, “Den store tyveridebat 1813–17”.

53. Smith, Moralske Hospitaler, 73.

54. Krogh, Oplysningstiden og det Magiske, 266 and 368.

55. Schou, Chronologisk Register, 20 February 1789.

56. A table of exits by each consecutive year is available at: https://github.com/johanheinsen/Carceral_chains.

57. Because we only have these variables after 1741, the totals are not the same as those used to calculate the percentages presented above.

58. See also Valentin, this volume.

59. ID#232.

60. ID#4407.

61. ID#4253.

62. ID#4213.

63. ID#4183.

64. ID#4241.

65. ID#4279.

66. ID#4179.

67. Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning, Slavesager 7, Generalkommissariatet to the commandant at Kronborg, 3 May 1732.

68. Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning, Slavesager 7, Generalkommissariatet to the commandant at Kronborg, 21 January 1741.

69. Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning 7, royal pardon, 27 February 1760.

70. For example, ID#4080 and ID#4095.

71. ID#1999.

72. ID#2427.

73. ID#5256.

74. Stuckenberg, Fængselsvæsenet i Danmark, 31.

75. ID#3075.

76. The inmate registers of the prison workhouse at Christianshavn repeatedly note that inmates were to be buried by ‘slaves’. See Rigsarkivet, Tugt-, Rasp- og Forbedringshuset på Christianshavn, Mandtal over Børne og Rasphusets lemmer.

77. For example, Rigsarkivet, Generalauditøren, Auditøren for Kronborg Fæstning, 1716–1912, F. Justitsprotokoller, 1752–1770 mm, 3–4, p. 78ff.

78. On this law, see Krogh, Lutheran Plague.

79. I have examined these dispositions in Heinsen, Mutiny.

80. On this see Birkemose, “En Slaven Stær”.

81. See Heinsen, “Runaway Heuristics”.

82. See Grinder-Hansen, Kronborg.

83. Heinsen, “Runaway Heuristics”.

84. Heinsen and Valentin, “Coercive Networks in Copenhagen”.

85. Nielsen and Nielsen, Danmarks værste fængsel.

86. On MCA in historical research, see Lemercier and Zalc, Quantitative Methods. A technical introduction is provided by Hjellbrekke, Multiple Correspondence Analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johan Heinsen

Johan Heinsen (b. 1984) is a historian and associate professor at Aalborg University. He holds a PhD from Aalborg University. His research deals with the social histories of colonial and penal societies. He is vice-chair of the COST-Action Worlds of Related Coercions in Work (WORCK).