Before the American Revolution, America was a dumping ground for a great many British criminals. It was American independence in 1776, which drove the British to find another midden for their overflowing prisons.
At this time, parts of Africa were considered for the prison settlement, until Sir Joseph Banks, with his great wealth and authority, made sure that the only real choice was the Great Southern Land.
From the 1600s, until the American Revolution of 1776, Britain sent all its convicts sentenced to transportation, to North America and the West Indies. Though, until the Transportation Act of 1718, transportation was an uncommon punishment. The 1718 Act made transportation a more common punishment for crimes. And, as it was the Age of Enlightenment, transportation was also considered to be a more humane alternative to a death sentence.
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| Prison Hulk "SUCCESS", at Hobart, Tasmania, AUST |
Transporting criminals to America not only cleared out the prisons but it
saved the government lots of money and provided cheap labour to the colonies, as many prisoners were sold off as indentured servants for a period of seven years. Selling the prisoners as indentured servants also helped to pay for the voyage across the seas and make the British Government a bit of money.
The estimated numbers of these prisoners transported to America varies between 50,000 and 120,000, but because of the lack of documentation, it is difficult to really gauge the numbers.
The 1781 Act did make it tougher, however, for prisoners who escaped while still in Britain, with the aim of avoiding being transported and serving their sentence. These
escaped convicts would be executed when they were eventually caught. Convicts who returned to Britain early, too, before serving out their sentence would also be executed. Though, interestingly, most of the servants sent to America as indentured servants decided to stay on in the colonies, once they had served their time.
Those sent to Australia, couldn't really expect to go home after serving their sentence, as the trip would take more than three months back to the old country. The trip back home for the ex-American prisoners took an average of six weeks. And where was the money for the voyage to come from?
Some convicts did return from
the colonies and stories of their tribulations and adventures became very popular tales told in autobiographies and newspapers. The author, William Defoe went one step further and created fiction around this theme. In
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Moll first finds out about convict transportation after
travelling to Virginia with her husband. Her mother-in-law, who is later revealed to be her real mother, has been transported to the American colonies, as a "favour", rather than being executed. Moll soon realises that her husband is, in fact, her brother.
Moll later returns to England and becomes part of the crime world. As does Sweeney Todd, the “Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” who is unjustly transported to Australia and upon returning to England, begins a murderous rampage of revenge.
The Australian children of convicts or emancipists, those currency lads and lasses, it must be said, not only spoke differently and were taller than their British ancestors, but healthier, hardworking and law-abiding. So there.
