Penal colony

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the band, see Penal Colony (band).

Inscribed stone honouring an Irish prisoner in the Australian penal colony of Botany Bay

A penal colony or exile colony is 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.

British Empire

Penal colony in the Andaman Islands, British Raj (c. 1890s)

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 the mainland of 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

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
]

Advocates of

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.

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

France sent criminals to tropical penal colonies including Louisiana in the early 18th century.[11] Devil's Island in French Guiana, 1852–1939, received forgers and other criminals. New Caledonia and its Isle of Pines in Melanesia (in the South Sea) received transported dissidents like the Communards, Kabyles rebels as well as convicted criminals between the 1860s and 1897.

The Americas

class=notpageimage|
Selection of former penal colonies in South America
  • Gorgona Island in Colombia housed a state high-security prison from the 1950s. Convicts were dissuaded from escaping by the venomous snakes in the interior of the island and by the sharks patrolling the 30 km to the mainland. The penal colony closed in 1984 and the last prisoners were transferred to the mainland. As of 2015 most of the former jail buildings are covered by dense vegetation, but some remain visible.
  • Mexico uses the island of
    Isla María Madre (in the Marías Islands) as a penal colony. With a small population (fewer than 1,200), the colony is governed by a state official who is both the governor of the islands and chief judge. The military command is independent of the government and is exercised by an officer of the Mexican Navy. The other islands are uninhabited. Mexico announced on 18 February 2019 that it will close the Islas Marías Federal Prison, replacing it with a new cultural center.[16]
  • Once Spanish presence in
    Afro-Peruvians, became later soldier-settlers.[19] Close contacts with indigenous Mapuche meant many soldiers spoke Spanish and had some command of Mapudungun.[20]

Elsewhere

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Bound with an Iron Chain – The Untold Story of how the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America
  2. ^ Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763–1775, George Elliott Howard
  3. ^ The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science
  4. ^ Lerone Bennett Jr., The Shaping of Black America, p. 48
  5. ^ "The Organization of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768–1775". 42, No. 2 April 1985. The William and Mary Quarterly: 201–227. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. ^ Butler, James Davie (October 1896), "British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies", American Historical Review 2, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, p. 13
    "Writing of the early Virginians, he [Bancroft] said: 'Some of them were even convicts; but it must be remembered the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political. The number transported to Virginia for social crimes was never considerable.' Most other writers have held that, among transports shipped to America, political offenders formed a large majority."
  7. ^ "James Edward Oglethorpe". United States National Park Service.
  8. ^ "James Edward Oglethorpe". Oglethorpe.
  9. ^ "Establishing the Georgia Colony, 1732–1750". United States Library of Congress.
  10. Government of Australia. Archived from the original
    on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
  11. ^ Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. Penguin: London (2001).
  12. ^ Journey to Guantánamo: A Week in America's Notorious Penal Colony: A journalist heads to the US naval base and detention center, seeking out truths we're not meant to see. Moustafa Bayoumi. The Nation. New York. 25 July 25/1 August 2022. Accessed 11 November 2022. Archived.
  13. ^ The Imperialist and Racist Origins of the Guantánamo Penal Colony. Adam Hudson. Truthout. Sacramento, California. 12 June 2013. Accessed 11 November 2022. Archived.
  14. ^ Guantanamo Could be Terrorist Penal Colony. John Mintz. The Washington Post. Washington, DC. Reprinted by South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 13 February 2002. Accessed 11 November 2022. Archived.
  15. ^ John LaForge: Over 150 still suffer at Guantanamo, our penal colony. John Laforge. Captimes. Wisconsin State Journal. Madison, Wisconsin. 26 Dec 2013. Accessed 11 November 2022. Archived.
  16. ^ San Francisco Chronicle, 19 February 2019, p. A-2
  17. Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
    . Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  18. ^ Martinic, Mateo (1977). Historia del Estrecho de Magallanes (in Spanish). Santiago: Andrés Bello. p. 140.
  19. ^ a b "Historia". Museo de Sitio Castillo de Niebla (in Spanish). Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  20. doi:10.4067/S0718-22442017000200011
    .
  21. ^ Chrysopoulos, Philip (16 August 2021). "Bactria: The Ancient Greek State in Afghanistan". Greek Reporter. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  22. ^ Dr Gul Rahim Khan, ed. (19 August 2018). "Greek genes and the numismatic expert from Peshawar". Dawn. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  23. JSTOR j.ctt2250vjs
    .
  24. ^ For example: Feig, Konnilyn G. (1981). Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness (reissue ed.). Holmes & Meier Publishers. p. 296.
    ISBN 978-0841906761
    . Retrieved 29 June 2015. [...] a forced-labor camp [...] named Arbeitslager Treblinka I [...] an order exists, dated 15 November 1941, establishing that penal colony.
  25. ^
    ISBN 978-1847652027
    . Retrieved 29 June 2015. Prison labor camps, or kwalliso, were first established in North Korea after liberation from Japan to imprison enemies of the revolution, landowners, collaborators, and religious leaders. After the war, these places housed un-repatriated South Korean prisoners of war. [...] There are six such camps in existence today, according to a May 2011 Amnesty International report, 'huge areas of land and located in vast wilderness sites in South Pyong'an, South Hamyong and North Hamyong Provinces.' ... Perhaps the most notorious penal colony is kwalliso no. 15. or Yodok [...].
  26. ^ Stewart, John (2006). African States and Rulers (3rd ed.). McFarland & Company. p. 96.
    ISBN 978-0786425624
    . Retrieved 29 June 2015. From 1879 the Spanish basically used Fernando Po as a penal colony for captured Cuban rebels.
  27. ISBN 0-393-02281-1
    .

Sources

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Penal_colony&oldid=1217834865"