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Monthly Archives: June 2009

Transported Convicts in the New World: On the Plantations

Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies. Convict transportation raised important issues of identity and freedom for the convict, the plantation owner, and the other servants. Once on the plantation, convicts had to renegotiate their social position. They suddenly found themselves bound to a fellow Englishman who […]

EAC Places and Events: The Old New-Gate Prison in East Granby, CT

If the 50-degree climate of the abandoned copper mine doesn’t make you shiver, the thought that these underground tunnels once served as sleeping quarters for convicted criminals will. The Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine, a National Historic Landmark and State Archaeological Preserve in East Granby, CT, provides a fun, educational journey back to early […]

In the Media: A Podcast by Robert A. Gross on Shays’s Rebellion

The MIT Press Journals has just released a podcast titled A Yankee Rebellion? The Regulators, New England, and the New Nation by Robert A. Gross, the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History at the University of Connecticut. In the podcast, Bill Fowler, Chair of the New England Quarterly‘s Board of […]

Transported Convicts in the New World: Adjusting to America

Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies. Most of the transported convicts who ended up in Virginia lived north of the York River, mainly in the Northern Neck between the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers. About three quarters of Maryland’s convict population lived in four of the […]

EAC Places and Events: The Bathsheba Spooner Trial Reenactment in Worcester, MA

The Massachusetts Superior Court celebrated its 150th anniversary on June 4, 2009 in Worcester, MA by reenacting the trial of Bathsheba Spooner. Everyone in the packed audience would surely agree that the performance was both entertaining and informative. Seeing real people play the parts of the historical actors in this colonial murder drama helped to […]