Between 1615 and 1776, approximately 50,000 to 60,000 British convicts were sent to the American colonies as indentured servants, particularly to Maryland and Virginia, acting as a form of forced labor rather than a purely penal colony. This practice was formalized by the Transportation Act of 1718 to alleviate overcrowded English prisons.
Convict
Labor: Convicts were sold to planters
for 7–14 years of labor in a system known as "His Majesty’s Seven-Year
Passengers".
Scale of
Migration: These transports comprised
roughly 25% of all British immigrants in the 18th century, with 80% sent to
Maryland and Virginia.
Reasons
for Transportation: Rather than executing
criminals under the "Bloody Code" (which made many crimes punishable
by death), courts often sentenced them to deportation.
Political
Prisoners: Beyond common criminals,
Scotland's prisoners from the Battles of Dunbar and Worcester (1650s) were also
shipped and sold into involuntary labor in New England.
End of
Practice: The practice of sending
convicts to America ended with the American Revolution, after which Britain
began using Australia as a penal colony.
