Remote settlement housing convicts From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 to a correctional facility located in a remote location, it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority.
Historically, penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than a prison farm.
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With the passage of the Transportation Act 1717, the British government initiated the penal transportation of indentured servants to Britain's colonies in the Americas, although none of the North American colonies were solely penal colonies. British merchants would be in charge of transporting the convicts across the Atlantic to the colonies where they would be auctioned off to planters. Many of the indentured servants were sentenced to seven-year terms, which gave rise to the colloquial term "His Majesty's Seven-Year Passengers".[1][2][3][4] It is estimated that between 1718 and 1776 about 30,000 convicts were transported to at least nine of the continental colonies, whereas between 1700 and 1775 about 250,000 to 300,000 white immigrants came to mainland North America as a whole. More than two-thirds of these felons were transported to the Chesapeake to work for Southern landowners; in Maryland, during the thirty years before 1776, convicts composed more than one-quarter of all immigrants.[5] However, it is commonly maintained that the vast majority of felons taken to America were political criminals, not those guilty of social crimes such as theft; for example, it was noted of Virginia that "the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political, and the number transported for social crimes was never considerable."[6] The colony of Georgia, by contrast, was planned by James Oglethorpe specifically to take in debtors and other social criminals. Oglethorpe referred to them as "the worthy poor" in a philanthropic effort to create a rehabilitative colony where prisoners could earn a second chance at life, learning trades and working off their debts.[7][8] The success of Oglethorpe's vision is debated.[9]
When routes to the Americas closed after the outbreak of American Revolutionary War in 1776, British prisons started to become overcrowded.[citation needed] Since immediate stopgap measures proved themselves ineffective, in 1785 Britain decided to use parts of what is now known as Australia as de jure penal settlements, becoming the first colonies in the British Empire founded solely to house convicts. Leaving Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787, the First Fleet transported the first ~800 convicts and ~250 marines to Botany Bay.[citation needed] Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 convicts were transported from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.[10] Australian penal colonies in late 18th century included Norfolk Island and New South Wales, and in early 19th century also Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and Moreton Bay (Queensland).[citation needed]
Among the 162,000 convicts sent to Colonial Australia were 3,600 political prisoners. This included a range of dissenters, including the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Luddites, and members of Irish nationalist groups such as the Society of United Irishmen and Young Ireland.[11]
Without the allocation of the available convict labour to farmers, to pastoral squatters, and to government projects such as roadbuilding, colonisation of Australia may not have been possible,[citation needed] especially considering the considerable drain on non-convict labor caused by several gold rushes that took place in the second half of the 19th century after the flow of convicts had dwindled and (in 1868) ceased. A proposal to make the Cape Colony a penal colony was deeply unpopular with local residents, sparking the Convict crisis of 1849.
Bermuda, off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed in hulks were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard there, and during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Boer prisoners-of-war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of the smaller islands.[citation needed]
In British India, the colonial government established various penal colonies. Two of the largest ones were on the Andaman Islands and Hijli. In the early days of settlement, Singapore Island was the recipient of Indian convicts, who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works.[citation needed]
France sent criminals to tropical penal colonies including Louisiana in the early 18th century.[12] Devil's Island in French Guiana, received some 80,000 forgers and other criminals between 1852 and 1939. At its worst the mortality rate was 75%, earning it the nicknamed the 'Dry Guillotine'. New Caledonia and its Isle of Pines in Melanesia (in the South Sea) received transported dissidents like the Communards, Kabyles rebels and convicted criminals between the 1860s and 1897.
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