A definitive answer remains elusive for the time being. We hold descriptive lists of convicts in the archival series, the "Alphabetical registers of male convicts" (
CON23).
These lists contain a column called : "No. and date of Free Certificate Free Pardon or Emancipation"
This column contains the abbreviations: "CE" [Certificate of Emancipation], "FC" [Freedom Certificate] and "FP" [Free Pardon]. All three certificates have separate numbering systems.
Newspaper items of the period seem to offer contradictory messages about the status of these certificates:-
2. On
30 September 1820, the Hobart Town Gazette referring to the colonial regulations states (second column): "[A]ll persons, male or female, whose sentences have expired are desired to bring their certificates [to musters]:- Those who have received Pardons and Emancipations are also to produce them, and all Tickets of Leave are to be exhibited."
To try to unravel the contradictory data, it is clear :
Due to the fact the "Certificate of Freedom " has a numbering system quite distinct from the "Certificate of Emancipation" with its own numbering system, it means that the two forms of convict status are officially separate and presumably intend different outcomes.
It should be noted that the 1820 newspaper item above cites the word "Emancipations" to include both "Certificates of Freedom" plus another kind of status included under the term "Certificate of Emancipation". In other words, the word, "Emancipations" (note the use of the plural), is used loosely to cover both types of documents, namely, "Certificate of Freedom" and also "Certificate of Emancipation"; that is, a single plural word to describe them both.
The earlier newspaper item (published in 1818) limits the status to four options, none of which allow for a "Certificate of Emancipation".
So the question remains: was there a change in the documentary evidence between 1818 and 1820, in Van Diemen's Land, that, for a short period, established a slight variance in status between convict emancipation and freedom?