New Caledonia escapees in Australia
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New Caledonia escapees in Australia were convicts who escaped the French penal colony of New Caledonia by sailing west across the Coral Sea to Queensland or, less frequently, New South Wales. Penal transportation to New Caledonia lasted between 1864 and 1898, during which time hundreds of escapees made for Australia's eastern seaboard—at least 1,200 km distant—often on stolen vessels or makeshift rafts, or as stowaways. The journey often proved hazardous and many escapees perished during the attempt. A minority of escapees, mostly political prisoners, were also smuggled into the country aboard Australian vessels.
The French government sought to copy the successes of Britain's Australian penal colonies in New Caledonia, which replaced French Guiana as France's primary destination for bagnards (exiled convicts) in 1867, the same year that the last British convict ship left for Australia. The presence of a new penal colony to the northeast became a source of unease for Australians seeking to move on from their own convict past, as well as a security concern once escapees began landing on what was then a sparsely inhabited coastline, allowing them to enter the country unobserved. Some got by as swagmen and station hands, while a smaller number managed to reinvent themselves and assume more prominent positions in Australian society. Others returned to a life of crime and were extradited once caught. The threat posed by these récidivistes became a constant irritant to Australia–France relations and helped shape a nascent Australian foreign policy independent to that of Britain's.