With the abolition of slavery and during the period of apprenticeships, convicts still came from the slave colonies. In these cases, the felonies for which they were convicted often masked the real crime, which was resistance to the continuation of unfree labour as forced apprenticeships, widely perceived as slavery in a new guise. These convicts were sent to the second penal colony established in Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania) in 1803. Convicts who came through the Van Diemen's Land system all had their bodies minutely  
described and gave short biographical statements which were all noted in their convict record, so historians have evidence of physical descriptors, as well as self-identification, to help them establish the number of Africans in that penal system. The number in Van Diemen's Land who can be confidently identified was 283 , comprising four women and 279 men.