3-005-448 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Group of Hard Labor Convicts, 1890. The photographs were taken on Sakhalin Island during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and provide rare glimpses of the island's settlements, prisons, and inhabitants. Sakhalin Island was used by imperial Russia as a penal colony and place of exile for criminals and political prisoners. The collection depicts public life and institutions in the town of Aleksandrovsk Post, convicts working under harsh conditions or in chains, and political prisoners. The photographs also show the daily life both of the Nivkh people, indigenous to the northern part of the island, and the Russian settler population.