I was recently interviewed by Leonard Sipes about “Early American Crime in the Media” for D.C. Public Safety Radio, which presents audio programs on crime, criminal offenders, and the criminal justice system.
The program lasts a half hour and covers the criminal justice system in colonial America, how crime was covered in early American newspapers, and [...]
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Read my article on Anthony Lamb, who was perhaps America’s most successful transported convict, in February’s issue of The Readex Report: “‘Human Serpents sent us by our Mother Country’: The Transformation of Anthony Lamb, Transported Convict.”
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J. L. Bell posted a follow-up to my recent article about the burglar William Linsey on his Boston [...]
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
In May 1744, Elizabeth Robinson was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London to transportation to the American colonies for her involvement in the theft of 104 China oranges from a warehouse. She was loaded onto the Justitia that same month and eventually landed in Virginia. She ended up in Maryland, where she reportedly continued [...]
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
Almost as soon as British convict transportation to America ended, Americans began to downplay the numbers and significance of convicts sent to the colonies. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson led the way by claiming,
The Malefactors sent to America were not [...]
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
The American Revolution brought an abrupt end to the British practice of transporting convicts to America. Back in England, the supposedly temporary solution of housing convicts on prison hulks in the River Thames to relieve prison overcrowding only had a [...]
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
The American Revolution ended the British practice of transporting convicts to the American colonies and threw Great Britain’s criminal justice system into chaos. With no place to send its convicted felons, and without a back-up plan in place, England suddenly [...]
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
Beginning in 1770, English courts handed out fewer transportation sentences to its convicted felons. The growing unease in the American colonies over British rule and its use as a destination for convicts probably had something to do with this trend. Rather [...]
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
In 1739, Governor William Gooch of Virginia complained to the British government that “The great number of Convicts yearly Imported here, and the impossibility of ever reclaiming them from their vicious habits have occasioned a vast Charge to the Country.” [...]
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
In a letter to the Maryland Gazette on July 30, 1767, one writer defended importing convicts from Great Britain by citing how many of them reform their ways:
[A] few Gentlemen seem very angry that Convicts are imported here at all, and [...]
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
Most transported convicts did not make it back to England. Escape was difficult, and the passage back to England was expensive. Even if some convicts were able to return to England after serving out their 7- or 14- year [...]
