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Penal transportation or transportation was the relocation of
convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...
ed criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a
colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
, for a specified term; later, specifically established
penal colonies A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer t ...
became their destination. While the prisoners may have been released once the sentences were served, they generally did not have the resources to return home.


Origin and implementation

Banishment or forced exile from a polity or society has been used as a punishment since at least the 5th century BC in
Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
. The practice of penal transportation reached its height in the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
during the 18th and 19th centuries. Transportation removed the offender from society, mostly permanently, but was seen as more merciful than
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. This method was used for criminals, debtors, military prisoners, and political prisoners. Penal transportation was also used as a method of
colonization Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
. For example, from the earliest days of English colonial schemes, new settlements beyond the seas were seen as a way to alleviate domestic social problems of criminals and the poor as well as to increase the colonial labour force, for the overall benefit of the realm.


Great Britain and the British Empire

Initially based on the
royal prerogative of mercy In the English and British tradition, the royal prerogative of mercy is one of the historic royal prerogatives of the British monarch, by which they can grant pardons (informally known as a royal pardon) to convicted persons. The royal prero ...
, and later under English law, transportation was an alternative sentence imposed for a
felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resul ...
. It was typically imposed for offences for which death was deemed too severe. By 1670, as new felonies were defined, the option of being sentenced to transportation was allowed. Forgery of a document, for example, was a capital crime until the 1820s, when the penalty was reduced to transportation. Depending on the crime, the sentence was imposed for life or for a set period of years. If imposed for a period of years, the offender was permitted to return home after serving his time, but had to make their own way back. Many offenders thus stayed in the colony as free persons, and might obtain employment as jailers or other servants of the penal colony. England transported its convicts and political prisoners, as well as prisoners of war from Scotland and Ireland, to its overseas colonies in the Americas from the 1610s until early in the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
in 1776, when transportation to America was temporarily suspended by the Criminal Law Act 1776 (16 Geo. 3 c. 43). The practice was mandated in Scotland by an act of 1785, but was less used there than in England. Transportation on a large scale resumed with the departure of the First Fleet to Australia in 1787, and continued there until 1868. Transportation was not used by Scotland before the
Act of Union 1707 The Acts of Union ( gd, Achd an Aonaidh) were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the t ...
; following union, the Transportation Act 1717 specifically excluded its use in Scotland. Under the Transportation, etc. Act 1785 (25 Geo. 3 c. 46) the Parliament of Great Britain specifically extended the usage of transportation to Scotland."An act for the effectual transportation of felons, and other offenders, in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, and to authorize the removal of prisoners in certain places."
/ref> It remained little used under Scots Law until the early 19th century. In Australia, a convict who had served part of his time might apply for a
ticket of leave A ticket of leave was a document of parole issued to convicts who had shown they could now be trusted with some freedoms. Originally the ticket was issued in Britain and later adapted by the United States, Canada, and Ireland. Jurisdictions ...
, permitting some prescribed
freedoms Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...
. This enabled some convicts to resume a more normal life, to marry and raise a family, and to contribute to the development of the colony.


Historical background


The trend towards more flexibility of sentencing

In England in the 17th and 18th centuries criminal justice was severe, later termed the
Bloody Code The "Bloody Code" was a series of laws in England, Wales and Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries which mandated the death penalty for a wide range of crimes. It was not referred to as such in its own time, but the name was given later ...
. This was due to both the particularly large number of offences which were punishable by execution (usually by hanging), and to the limited choice of sentences available to judges for convicted criminals. With modifications to the traditional
benefit of clergy In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: ''privilegium clericale'') was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ec ...
, which originally exempted only clergymen from the general criminal law, it developed into a
legal fiction A legal fiction is a fact assumed or created by courts, which is then used in order to help reach a decision or to apply a legal rule. The concept is used almost exclusively in common law jurisdictions, particularly in England and Wales. Devel ...
by which many common offenders of "clergyable" offences were extended the privilege to avoid execution. Many offenders were pardoned as it was considered unreasonable to execute them for relatively minor offences, but under the rule of law, it was equally unreasonable for them to escape punishment entirely. With the development of colonies, transportation was introduced as an alternative punishment, although legally it was considered a condition of a pardon, rather than a sentence in itself. Convicts who represented a menace to the community were sent away to distant lands. A secondary aim was to discourage crime for fear of being transported. Transportation continued to be described as a public exhibition of the king's mercy. It was a solution to a real problem in the domestic penal system. There was also the hope that transported convicts could be rehabilitated and reformed by starting a new life in the colonies. In 1615, in the reign of James I, a committee of the council had already obtained the power to choose from the prisoners those that deserved pardon and, consequently, transportation to the colonies. Convicts were chosen carefully: the Acts of the Privy Council showed that prisoners "for strength of bodie or other abilities shall be thought fit to be employed in foreign discoveries or other services beyond the Seas". During the
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
, Oliver Cromwell overcame the popular prejudice against subjecting Christians to slavery or selling them into foreign parts, and initiated group transportation of military and civilian prisoners. With the
Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration *Restoration ecology * ...
, the penal transportation system and the number of people subjected to it, started to change inexorably between 1660 and 1720, with transportation replacing the simple discharge of clergyable felons after branding the thumb. Alternatively, under the second act dealing with
Moss-trooper Moss-troopers were brigands of the mid-17th century, who operated across the border country between Scotland and the northern English counties of Northumberland and Cumberland during the period of the English Commonwealth, until after the Restora ...
brigands on the Scottish border, offenders had their benefit of clergy taken away, or otherwise at the judge's discretion, were to be transported to America, "there to remaine and not to returne". There were various influential agents of change: judges' discretionary powers influenced the law significantly, but the king's and Privy Council's opinions were decisive in granting a royal pardon from execution. The system changed one step at a time: in February 1663, after that first experiment, a bill was proposed to the House of Commons to allow the transporting of felons, and was followed by another bill presented to the Lords to allow the transportation of criminals convicted of felony within clergy or petty larceny. These bills failed, but it was clear that change was needed. Transportation was not a sentence in itself, but could be arranged by indirect means. The reading test, crucial for the
benefit of clergy In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: ''privilegium clericale'') was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ec ...
, was a fundamental feature of the penal system, but to prevent its abuse, this pardoning process was used more strictly. Prisoners were carefully selected for transportation based on information about their character and previous criminal record. It was arranged that they fail the reading test, but they were then reprieved and held in jail, without bail, to allow time for a royal pardon (subject to transportation) to be organised.


Transportation as a commercial transaction

Transportation became a business: merchants chose from among the prisoners on the basis of the demand for labour and their likely profits. They obtained a contract from the sheriffs, and after the voyage to the colonies they sold the convicts as indentured servants. The payment they received also covered the jail fees, the fees for granting the pardon, the clerk's fees, and everything necessary to authorise the transportation.Beattie, 1986, p. 479 These arrangements for transportation continued until the end of the 17th century and beyond, but they diminished in 1670 due to certain complications. The colonial opposition was one of the main obstacles: colonies were unwilling to collaborate in accepting prisoners: the convicts represented a danger to the colony and were unwelcome. Maryland and Virginia enacted laws to prohibit transportation in 1670, and the king was persuaded to respect these. The penal system was also influenced by economics: the profits obtained from convicts' labour boosted the economy of the colonies and, consequently, of England. Nevertheless, it could be argued that transportation was economically deleterious because the aim was to enlarge population, not diminish it; but the character of an individual convict was likely to harm the economy.
King William's War King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand Alli ...
(1688–1697) (part of the Nine Years' War) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) adversely affected merchant shipping and hence transportation. In the post-war period there was more crime and hence potentially more executions, and something needed to be done. In the reigns of Queen Anne (1702–14) and
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(1714–27), transportation was not easily arranged, but imprisonment was not considered enough to punish hardened criminals or those who had committed capital offences, so transportation was the preferred punishment.Beattie, 1986, p. 502


Transportation Act 1717

There were several obstacles to the use of transportation. In 1706 the reading test for claiming benefit of clergy was abolished (5 Anne c. 6). This allowed judges to sentence "clergyable" offenders to a
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...
or a house of correction. But the punishments that then applied were not enough of a disincentive to commit crime: another solution was needed. The Transportation Act was introduced into the House of Commons in 1717 under the Whig government. It legitimised transportation as a direct sentence, thus simplifying the penal process.Beattie, 1986, p. 503 Non-capital convicts (clergyable felons usually destined for branding on the thumb, and petty larceny convicts usually destined for public whipping) were directly sentenced to transportation to the American colonies for seven years. A sentence of fourteen years was imposed on prisoners guilty of capital offences pardoned by the king. Returning from the colonies before the stated period was a capital offence. The bill was introduced by William Thomson, the Solicitor General, who was "the architect of the transportation policy". Thomson, a supporter of the Whigs, was
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of London and became a judge in 1729. He was a prominent sentencing officer at the Old Bailey and the man who gave important information about capital offenders to the cabinet. One reason for the success of this Act was that transportation was financially costly. The system of sponsorship by merchants had to be improved. Initially the government rejected Thomson's proposal to pay merchants to transport convicts, but three months after the first transportation sentences were pronounced at the Old Bailey, his suggestion was proposed again, and the Treasury contracted Jonathan Forward, a London merchant, for the transportation to the colonies. The business was entrusted to Forward in 1718: for each prisoner transported overseas, he was paid £3 (), rising to £5 in 1727 (). The Treasury also paid for the transportation of prisoners from the
Home Counties The home counties are the counties of England that surround London. The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often included ...
. The "Felons' Act" (as the Transportation Act was called) was printed and distributed in 1718, and in April twenty-seven men and women were sentenced to transportation. The Act led to significant changes: both petty and
grand larceny Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of Engla ...
were punished by transportation (seven years), and the sentence for any non-capital offence was at the judge's discretion. In 1723 an Act was presented in Virginia to discourage transportation by establishing complex rules for the reception of prisoners, but the reluctance of colonies did not stop transportation. In a few cases before 1734, the court changed sentences of transportation to sentences of branding on the thumb or whipping, by convicting the accused for lesser crimes than those of which they were accused.Beattie, 2001, p. 435 This manipulation phase came to an end in 1734. With the exception of those years, the Transportation Act led to a decrease in whipping of convicts, thus avoiding potentially inflammatory public displays. Clergyable discharge continued to be used when the accused could not be transported for reasons of age or infirmity.


Women and children

Penal transportation was not limited to men or even to adults. Men, women, and children were sentenced to transportation, but its implementation varied by sex and age. From 1660 to 1670, highway robbery,
burglary Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
, and
horse theft Horse theft is the crime of stealing horses. A person engaged in stealing horses is known as a horse thief. Historically, punishments were often severe for horse theft, with several cultures pronouncing the sentence of death upon actual or presu ...
were the offences most often punishable with transportation for men. In those years, five of the nine women who were transported after being sentenced to death were guilty of simple larceny, an offence for which
benefit of clergy In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: ''privilegium clericale'') was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ec ...
was not available for women until 1692. Also, merchants preferred young and able-bodied men for whom there was a demand in the colonies. All these factors meant that most women and children were simply left in jail. Some magistrates supported a proposal to release women who could not be transported, but this solution was considered absurd: this caused the Lords Justices to order that no distinction be made between men and women. Women were sent to the
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, the only colony that accepted them, and the government had to pay to send them overseas. In 1696 Jamaica refused to welcome a group of prisoners because most of them were women;
Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
similarly accepted convicts but not "women, children nor other infirm persons". Thanks to transportation, the number of men whipped and released diminished, but whipping and discharge were chosen more often for women. The reverse was true when women were sentenced for a capital offence, but actually served a lesser sentence due to a manipulation of the penal system: one advantage of this sentence was that they could be discharged thanks to benefit of clergy while men were whipped.Beattie, 2001, p. 444 Women with young children were also supported since transportation unavoidably separated them. The facts and numbers revealed how transportation was less frequently applied to women and children because they were usually guilty of minor crimes and they were considered a minimal threat to the community.


The end of transportation

The outbreak of the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
(1775–1783) halted transportation to America. Parliament claimed that "the transportation of convicts to his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America ... is found to be attended with various inconveniences, particularly by depriving this kingdom of many subjects whose labour might be useful to the community, and who, by proper care and correction, might be reclaimed from their evil course"; they then passed "An act to authorize ... the punishment by hard labour of offenders who, for certain crimes, are or shall become liable to be transported to any of his Majesty's colonies and plantations."Marilyn C. Baseler
"Asylum for Mankind": America, 1607-1800
p.124-127
For the ensuing decade, men were instead sentenced to hard labour and women were imprisoned. Finding alternative locations to send convicts was not easy, and the act was extended twice by the Criminal Law Act 1778 (18 Geo. 3 c. 62) and the Criminal Law Act 1779 (19 Geo. 3, c. 54). This resulted in a 1779 inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee on the entire subject of transportation and punishment; initially the
Penitentiary Act The Penitentiary Act (19 Geo. III, c.74) was a British Act of Parliament passed in 1779 which introduced a policy of state prisons for the first time. The Act was drafted by the prison reformer John Howard and the jurist William Blackstone and rec ...
was passed, introducing a policy of state prisons as a measure to reform the system of overcrowded prison hulks that had developed, but no prisons were ever built as a result of the act. The Transportation, etc. Act 1784 (24 Geo. 3 c. 56) and the Transportation, etc. Act 1785 (25 Geo. 3 c. 46) also resulted to help alleviate overcrowding. Both acts empowered the Crown to appoint certain places within his dominions, or outside them, as the destination for transported criminals; the acts would move convicts around the country as needed for labour, or where they could be utilized and accommodated. The overcrowding situation and the resumption of transportation would be initially resolved by Orders in Council on 6 December 1786, by the decision to establish a penal colony in New South Wales, on land previously claimed for Britain in 1770, but as yet not settled by Britain or any other European power. The British policy toward Australia, specifically for use as a penal colony, within their overall plans to populate and colonise the continent, would differentiate it from America, where the use of convicts was only a minor adjunct to its overall policy.Hugh Edward Egerton
A short history of British colonial policy
p.262–269 (1897)
In 1787, when transportation resumed to the chosen Australian colonies, the far greater distance added to the terrible experience of exile, and it was considered more severe than the methods of imprisonment employed for the previous decade. The Transportation Act 1790 (30 Geo. 3 c. 47) officially enacted the previous orders in council into law, stating "his Majesty hath declared and appointed... that the eastern coast of New South Wales, and the islands thereunto adjacent, should be the place or places beyond the seas to which certain felons, and other offenders, should be conveyed and transported ... or other places". The act also gave "authority to remit or shorten the time or term" of the sentence "in cases where it shall appear that such felons, or other offenders, are proper objects of the royal mercy" At the beginning of the 19th century, transportation for life became the maximum penalty for several offences which had previously been punishable by death. With complaints starting in the 1830s, sentences of transportation became less common in 1840 since the system was perceived to be a failure: crime continued at high levels, people were not dissuaded from committing felonies, and the conditions of convicts in the colonies were inhumane. Although a concerted program of prison building ensued, the Short Titles Act 1896 lists seven other laws relating to penal transportation in the first half of the 19th century. The system of criminal punishment by transportation, as it had developed over nearly 150 years, was officially ended in Britain in the 1850s, when that sentence was substituted by imprisonment with penal servitude, and intended to punish. The Penal Servitude Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 99), long titled "An Act to substitute, in certain Cases, other Punishment in lieu of Transportation," enacted that with judicial discretion, lesser felonies, those subject to transportation for less than 14 years, could be sentenced to imprisonment with labour for a specific term. To provide confinement facilities, the general change in sentencing was passed in conjunction with the Convict Prisons Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 121), long titled "An Act for providing Places of Confinement in England or Wales for Female Offenders under Sentence or Order of Transportation." The Penal Servitude Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. 3) ended the sentence of transportation in virtually all cases, with the terms of sentence initially being of the same duration as transportation. While transport was greatly reduced following enactment of the 1857 act, the last convicts sentenced to transportation arrived in Western Australia in 1868. During the 80 years of its use to Australia, the number of transported convicts totaled about 162,000 men and women. Over time the alternative terms of imprisonment would be somewhat reduced from their terms of transportation.


Transportation locations


Transportation to North America

From the early 1600s until the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
of 1776, the British colonies in North America received transported British criminals. Destinations were the island colonies of the West Indies and the mainland colonies that became the United States of America. In the 17th century transportation was carried out at the expense of the convicts or the shipowners. The Transportation Act 1717 allowed courts to sentence convicts to seven years' transportation to America. In 1720, an extension authorized payments by the Crown to merchants contracted to take the convicts to America. The Transportation Act made returning from transportation a
capital offence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. The number of convicts transported to North America is not verified: John Dunmore Lang has estimated 50,000, and
Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel '' Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, ...
has proposed 120,000. Maryland received a larger felon quota than any other province. Many prisoners were taken in battle from Ireland or Scotland and sold into indentured servitude, usually for a number of years. The American Revolution brought transportation to the North American mainland to an end. The remaining British colonies (in what is now Canada) were regarded as unsuitable for various reasons, including the possibility that transportation might increase dissatisfaction with British rule among settlers and/or the possibility of annexation by the United States – as well as the ease with which prisoners could escape across the border. After the termination of transportation to North America, British prisons became overcrowded, and dilapidated ships moored in various ports were pressed into service as floating gaols known as "hulks". Following an 18th-century experiment in transporting convicted prisoners to
Cape Coast Castle Cape Coast Castle ( sv, Carolusborg) is one of about forty "slave castles", or large commercial forts, built on the Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana) by European traders. It was originally a Portuguese "feitoria" or trading post, establish ...
(modern Ghana) and the
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(Senegal) in West Africa, British authorities turned their attention to New South Wales (in what would become Australia). From the 1820s until the 1860s, convicts were sent to the Imperial fortress colony of
Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...
(part of
British North America British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, ...
) to work on the construction of the Royal Naval Dockyard and other defence works, including at the East End of the archipelago, where they were accommodated aboard the hulk of HMS ''Thames'' at an area still known as " Convict Bay", at St. George's town.


Transportation to Australia

In 1787, the First Fleet, a group of
convict ship A convict ship was any ship engaged on a voyage to carry convicted felons under sentence of penal transportation from their place of conviction to their place of exile. Description A convict ship, as used to convey convicts to the British colon ...
s departed from England to establish the first colonial settlement in Australia, as a penal colony. The First Fleet included boats containing food and animals from London. The ships and boats of the fleet would explore the coast of Australia by sailing all around it looking for suitable farming land and resources. The fleet arrived at
Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cooks Ri ...
, Sydney on 18 January 1788, then moved to Sydney Cove (modern-day
Circular Quay Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the S ...
) and established the first permanent European settlement in Australia. This marked the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. Violent conflict on the Australian frontier between indigenous Australians and the colonists began only months after the First Fleet landed, lasting over a century. Convicts forced to work in
the bush "The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia and New Zealand where it is largely synonymous with '' backwoods'' or ''hinterland'', referring to a natural undeveloped area. The fauna and flora contained within this ...
on the frontier were sometimes the victims of indigenous attacks, while convicts and ex-convicts also attacked indigenous people in some instances, such as the
Myall Creek Massacre The Myall Creek massacre was the killing of at least twenty-eight unarmed Indigenous Australians by twelve colonists on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near the Gwydir River, in northern New South Wales. After two trials, seven of the twelve ...
. In the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, a group of Irish convicts joined the Aboriginal coalition of Eora,
Gandangara The Gundungurra people, also spelt Gundungara, Gandangarra, Gandangara and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Their traditional lands include present day Goulburn, Wollondilly Shire ...
, Dharug and
Tharawal The Dharawal people, also spelt Tharawal and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, identified by the Dharawal language. Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, s ...
nations in their fight against the colonists. Norfolk Island, east of the Australian mainland, was a convict penal settlement from 1788 to 1794, and again from 1824 to 1847. In 1803,
Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...
(modern-day Tasmania) was also settled as a penal colony, followed by the Moreton Bay Settlement (modern
Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the Sou ...
, Queensland) in 1824. The other Australian colonies were established as "free settlements", as non-convict colonies were known. However, the Swan River Colony (Western Australia) accepted transportation from England and Ireland in 1851, to resolve a long-standing
labour shortage In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market. It is the opposite of an excess supply ( surplus). Definitions In a perfect market (one that matches a ...
. Two penal settlements were established near modern-day Melbourne in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seyche ...
but both were abandoned shortly after. Later, a free settlement was established and this settlement later accepted some convict transportation. Until the massive influx of immigrants during the
Australian gold rushes During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of N ...
of the 1850s, free settlers had been outnumbered by penal convicts and their descendants. However, compared to the
British American colonies The British colonization of the Americas was the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late ...
, Australia received a larger number of convicts. Convicts were generally treated harshly, forced to work against their will, often doing hard physical labour and dangerous jobs. In some cases they were cuffed and chained in work gangs. The majority of convicts were men, although a significant portion were women. Some were as young as 10 when convicted and transported to Australia. Most were guilty of relatively minor crimes like theft of food/clothes/small items, but some were convicted of serious crimes like rape or murder. Convict status was not inherited by children, and convicts were generally freed after serving their sentence, although many died during transportation and during their sentence. Convict assignment (sending convicts to work for private individuals) occurred in all penal colonies aside from Western Australia, and can be compared with the practice of
convict leasing Convict leasing was a system of forced penal labor which was practiced historically in the Southern United States, the laborers being mainly African-American men; it was ended during the 20th century. (Convict labor in general continues; f ...
in the United States. Transportation from Great Britain and Ireland ended at different times in different colonies, with the last being in 1868, although it had become uncommon several years earlier thanks to the loosening of laws in Britain, changing sentiment in Australia, and groups such as the Anti-Transportation League. In 2015, an estimated 20% of the Australian population had convict ancestry. In 2013, an estimated 30% of the Australian population (about 7 million) had Irish ancestry - the highest percentage outside of Ireland - thanks partially to historical convict transportation.


Transportation from British India

In
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
– including the province of
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
(now Myanmar) and the port of Karachi (now part of Pakistan) –
Indian independence activists The Indian independence movement consisted of efforts by individuals and organizations from a wide spectrum of society to obtain political independence from the British, French and Portuguese rule through the use of a many methods. This is a l ...
were penally transported to the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the ...
. A penal colony was established there in 1857 with prisoners from the Indian Rebellion of 1857. As the Indian independence movement swelled, so did the number of prisoners who were penally transported. The
Cellular Jail The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī (), was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many ...
, also called Kālā Pānī or Kalapani (Hindi for black waters), was constructed between 1896 and 1906 as a high-security prison with 698 individual cells for solitary confinement. Surviving prisoners were repatriated in 1937. The penal settlement was shut down in 1945. An estimated 80,000 political prisoners were transported to the Cellular Jail which became known for its harsh conditions, including forced labor; prisoners who went on hunger strikes were frequently
force-fed Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...
.


Use by France

France transported convicts to Devil's Island and New Caledonia in the 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries. Devil's Island, a French penal colony in Guiana, was used for transportation from 1852 to 1953. New Caledonia became a French penal colony from the 1860s until the end of the transportations in 1897; about 22,000 criminals and political prisoners (most notably
Communards The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards ...
) were sent to New Caledonia. The most famous transported prisoner is probably French army officer
Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...
, wrongly convicted of treason in a trial in 1894, held in an atmosphere of
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
. He was sent to Devil's Island. The case became a
cause célèbre A cause célèbre (,''Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged'', 12th Edition, 2014. S.v. "cause célèbre". Retrieved November 30, 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/cause+c%c3%a9l%c3%a8bre ,''Random House Kernerman Webs ...
known as the
Dreyfus Affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...
, and Dreyfus was fully exonerated in 1906.


Deportations in the Soviet Union

Unlike normal penal transportation, many Soviet people were transported as criminals in forms of deportation being proclaimed as enemies of people in a form of
collective punishment Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbors of the perpetrator. Because ind ...
. During the Second World War, the Soviet Union transported up to 1.9 million people from western republics to Siberia and the Central Asian republics of the Union. Most were persons accused of treasonous collaboration with Nazi Germany, or of Anti-Soviet rebellion. Following
death of Joseph Stalin Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
, most of them rehabilitated. Populations targeted included
Volga Germans The Volga Germans (german: Wolgadeutsche, ), russian: поволжские немцы, povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov ...
,
Chechens The Chechens (; ce, Нохчий, , Old Chechen: Нахчой, ''Naxçoy''), historically also known as ''Kisti'' and ''Durdzuks'', are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group of the Nakh peoples native to the North Caucasus in Eastern Europe. "Europe ...
, and Caucasian Turkic populations. The transportations had a twofold objective: to remove potential liabilities from the warfront, and to provide human capital for the settlement and industrialization of the largely underpopulated eastern regions. The policy continued until February 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev in his speech '' On the Personality Cult and its Consequences'' condemned the transportation as a violation of
Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
principles. Whilst the policy itself was rescinded, the transported populations did not begin to return to their original metropoles until after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991.


In popular culture


Performing arts

Penal transportation is a feature of many broadsides, a new type of folk song that developed in eighteenth-century England. A number of these transportation ballads have been collected from traditional singers. Examples include "
Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...
," " The Black Velvet Band," and "
The Fields of Athenry "The Fields of Athenry" is a song written in 1979 by Pete St. John in the style of an Irish folk ballad. Set during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the lyrics feature a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway, who stole food for his ...
."
Timberlake Wertenbaker Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and others. She has been described in ''The Washington Post'' as "the doyenne of po ...
's play '' Our Country's Good'' is set in 1780s in the first Australian penal colony. In the 1988 play,
convicts A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...
and
Royal Marines The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The Corps of Royal Marine ...
arrive aboard a First Fleet ship and settle New South Wales. Convicts and guards interact as they rehearse a
theatre production Stagecraft is a technical aspect of theatrical, film, and video production. It includes constructing and rigging scenery; hanging and focusing of lighting; design and procurement of costumes; make-up; stage management; audio engineering; and pr ...
, which the governor had suggested as an alternate form of entertainment instead of watching public hangings. In the TV show ''
American Gods ''American Gods'' (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shadow. The book was pu ...
'', episode 7 season 1, for one of a side story
Emily Browning Emily Jane Browning
. Celebritywonder, retrieved 30 June 2011
(born 7 December 1988
is playing Essie that is transported twice in her life, bringing with her in America the Leprechaun legend. In the TV show, '' Murdoch Mysteries'', episode 6 season 14, "The Ministry of Virtue," Murdoch must investigate the death of a woman who was sentenced to a bridal version of the punishment. Namely, Murdoch learns of "Virtue Girls," British female convicts who have accepted the alternative of agreeing to marry bachelors in Canada instead of being sentenced to prison.


Literature

One of the key characters in
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...
's novel ''
Great Expectations ''Great Expectations'' is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (Great Expectations), Pip (the book is a ''bildungsroman''; a coming-of-age story). It ...
'' is an escaped convict,
Abel Magwitch Abel Magwitch is a major fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1861 novel ''Great Expectations''. Synopsis Charles Dickens set his story in the early 19th century, setting his character Abel Magwitch to meet a man called Compeyson at the Eps ...
. Pip helps him in the opening pages of the novel, and he later turns out to be Pip's secret benefactor – the source of his "great expectations". Magwitch, who had been apprehended shortly after the young Pip had helped him, was thereafter sentenced to transportation for life to New South Wales in Australia. While so exiled, he earned the fortune that he later would use to help Pip. Further, it was Magwitch's desire to see the "gentleman" that Pip had become that motivated him to illegally return to England, which ultimately led to his arrest and death. ''Great Expectations'' was published in serial form in 1860–1861. ''My Transportation for Life'', Indian freedom fighter Veer Savarkar's memoir of his imprisonment, is set in the British
Cellular Jail The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī (), was a British colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The prison was used by the colonial government of India for the purpose of exiling criminals and political prisoners. Many ...
in the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the ...
. Savarkar was imprisoned there from 1911 to 1921. Franz Kafka's story "In der Strafkolonie" ("
In the Penal Colony "In the Penal Colony" ("") (also translated as "In the Penal Settlement") is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the ...
"), published in 1919, was set in an unidentified penal settlement where condemned prisoners were executed by a brutal machine. The work was later adapted for several other media, including an opera by Philip Glass. The novel '' Papillon'' tells the story of Henri Charrière, a French man convicted of murder in 1931 and exiled to the French Guiana penal colony on Devil's Island. A film adaptation of the book was made in 1973, starring Steve McQueen and
Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American ...
. The British author
W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
set several stories in the French Caribbean penal colonies. In 1935 he had stayed at
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni (; gcr, Senloran di Maronni) is a commune of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is one of the three sub-prefectures of French Guiana and the sea ...
in French Guiana. His 1939 novel ''Christmas Holiday'' and two short stories in 1940's '' The Mixture as Before'' were set there, although he "ignored the brutal punishments and painted a pleasant picture of the infamous colony." Penal transportation, typically to other planets, sometimes appears in works of
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...
. A classic example is ''
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'' is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar colony's revolt against absentee rule from Earth. The novel illustrates and discusses libertarian ideals. It is respected for it ...
'' by Robert Heinlein (1966), in which convicts and political dissidents are transported to lunar colonies in order to grow food for Earth. In Heinlein's book, a sentence of lunar transportation is necessarily permanent, as the long-term physiological effects of the moon's weak surface gravity (about one-sixth that of Earth) leave "loonies" unable to return safely to Earth.


See also

*
Home children Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontin ...
*
Millbank Prison Millbank Prison or Millbank Penitentiary was a prison in Millbank, Westminster, London, originally constructed as the National Penitentiary, and which for part of its history served as a holding facility for convicted prisoners before they were ...
*
Penology Penology (from "penal", Latin ''poena'', "punishment" and the Greek suffix ''-logia'', "study of") is a sub-component of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, ...
* Prison * Windrush scandal * :Australian penal colonies


Notes


References

* * . * . * . * . * Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish. "Convict Transportation from Britain and Ireland 1615–1870", ''History Compass'' 8#11 (2010): 1221–42. * * . * . * {{Citation, last1=Shoemaker, first1=Robert B., title=Prosecution and Punishment. Petty crime and the law in London and rural Middlesex, c. 1660–1725, year=1999, publisher=Longman, location=Harlow, Essex, isbn=978-0-582-23889-3.


External links


UK National archives

Convict life – State Library of NSW

Convict Transportation Registers

Convict Queenslanders
Forced migration History of immigration to Australia Convictism in Australia Punishments Crime in Australia Penal labour