Think of convicts going abroad and most people will immediately think of Australia. In 1778 Britain did indeed start punishing its convicts by sending them to the other side of the world. But that wasn’t the first country to receive British criminals.
Population too small
Over 150 years before Captain Cook first saw Australia’s shores, criminals had been shipped off to Canada for a short time. The idea was that the convicts should work to earn the money they needed to feed and clothe themselves.
Going South
When it was realised that there wasn’t a large enough population in Canada to support this idea, the destination was changed to America and some of the Caribbean islands. Initially only the Leeward Islands would accept female prisoners, neither Barbados nor Jamaica would take them. Other British colonies there were prepared to take convicts, but not “women, children nor other infirm persons”.
Virginia rebels!
The system broke down when the Virginia General Court backed an order stating that neither Virginia nor other parts of America would accept British prisoners anymore. That order was trumped in 1718 when the British Parliament passed an Act ‘ … for the more effectual transportation of felons …’ and they returned to sending them there until America declared independence. That definitely put a stop to it.
Cromwell cheats the system
Between 1614 and 1775 it is estimated that 50,000 convicted men, women and children were transported to that part of the world. But not everyone who found themselves shipped across the Atlantic against their will was a felon. In 1653 Oliver Cromwell’s government deported 100 Irish Tories without trial simply because they held the wrong political views.
To be continued …
