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Transported Convicts in the New World: Arrival in America

Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.

At the end of their voyages across the Atlantic, most convict ships entered the Chesapeake Bay and headed for a port in Virginia or Maryland. The captain then sent for the factor, an American representative of the convict merchant, who reviewed the list of convicts on board the ship, noted any deaths, and evaluated the condition of those remaining. He then issued a receipt for the captain to take back to Great Britain to prove that the convicts had indeed been delivered to their destination.

Announcing the Sale

Once the factor reviewed the convicts and compiled a list of them, he posted notices and placed advertisements in newspapers announcing the impending auction of the convicts. Advertisements gave the date of the sale, the number of convicts to be sold, and a general idea of the skills the convicts possessed. Oftentimes, though, the market for convicts was so good that advertisements were not needed, and the ship sold its entire cargo of convicts almost as soon as it landed.

The sale of convicts into indentured servitude was not a requirement of the Transportation Act of 1718. Transportation to America was essentially exile from Great Britain, with a condition of forced labor that was modeled after indentured servitude. Merchants who were contracted to transport convicts to America gained a property interest in the labor of the convicts, so they sold the convicts in America both to cover the cost of transporting them and to capitalize on this interest.

The number of years that convicts were banished from England did not necessarily correspond to the length of their terms of service. Convicts who had enough money could purchase their freedom from the merchant once the ship landed. If the convict could only afford part of the price the merchant expected to receive from the sale, then he or she would only have to work for part of the term. Most convicts, however, lacked the money to purchase their freedom and were sold for 7 year terms, no matter what their sentence was in England.

Preparing the Convicts for Sale

Before auctioning the convicts, captains spiffed them up to make them more desirable to potential buyers, thereby transforming them into commodities to be sold on an open market. The rough passage across the Atlantic often resulted in the convicts arriving in poor condition, so preparations to make them more marketable were often necessary.

As the business of convict transportation matured through the years, convict merchants began to understand that improving the conditions under which convicts were transported could lower the death rate and bring greater profits at the other end of the Atlantic. Andrew Reid, who succeeded Jonathan Forward as England’s official government contractor for convict transportation, made sure that the prisoners and passengers of his ship were shaven and in clean clothes before setting out for America. These measures were intended to reduce as much as possible the filth and unsanitary conditions that were guaranteed to emerge during the voyage.

Not all convict merchants followed Reid’s lead. After the arrival of a convict ship in 1767, a factor in Virginia reported back to England that “The Women this year were very Naked, their Cloaths especially their Gowns are very Scanty and sorry and many of them had no Handkerchiefs, the weather has been Cold, they must have suffered.”

In preparation for the sale, shipmasters bathed the convicts and made sure that the male ones were clean shaven. Sometimes they supplied headdresses for the women and caps for the men. In one case, a ship arriving from Dublin with 66 convicts was discovered with 22 wigs, which were intended to make some of its passengers appear to be more respectable than they were.

James Revel, who was transported to America in 1771, gives a poetic account of his preparation for sale:

. . . after sailing seven weeks or more,
We at Virginia all were put on shore.

Then to refresh us we were all well clean’d,
That to our buyers we might the better seem,
The things were given that to each belong,
And they that had clean linen put it on.

Our faces shav’d, comb’d our wigs and hair,
That we in decent order might appear,
Against the planters did come us to view,
How well they lik’d this fresh transported crew.

A Peculiar Smell

This “transported crew” usually did not come off as being too fresh. Despite the captains’ best efforts to clean up the convicts for sale, they still made a poor presentation. One colonist described the sale of about 100 convicts in Williamsburg with dismay:

I never see such pasels of pore Raches in my Life, some all most naked and what had Cloths was as Black [as] Chimney Swipers, and all most Starved by the Ill [usage] in their Pasedge By the Capn, for they are used no Bater than so many negro Slaves.

The freshening of the convicts also could not rid them of the smell they acquired after being cooped up in the ship for weeks on end. A runaway ad in the Virginia Gazette for July 26, 1770 describes four runaways as having “been but a few days from on board the ship, and all have a peculiar smell incident to all servants just coming from ships.” Another advertisement for two runaway convicts in the Virginia Gazette for April 22, 1775 claims that “To those used to the Smell of Servants just from a Ship they will easily be discovered, unless they have procured new Clothes.”

Resources for this article:

  • Atkinson, Alan. “The Free-Born Englishman Transported Convict Rights as a Measure of Eighteenth-Century Empire.” Past and Present 144 (1994): 88-115.
  • Coldham, Peter Wilson. Emigrants in Chains: A Social History of Forced Emigration to the Americas of Felons, Destitute Children, Political and Religious Non-conformists, Vagabonds, Beggars and Other Undesirables, 1607-1776. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1992.
  • Ekirch, A. Roger. Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
  • Kercher, Bruce. “Perish or Prosper: The Law and Convict Transportation in the British Empire, 1700-1850.” Law and History Review 21.3 (2003): 527-84.
  • Langley, Batty. An Accurate Description of Newgate, with the Rights, Privileges, Allowances, Fees, Dues, and Customs Thereof. London: Printed for T. Warner, 1724.
  • Middleton, Arthur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953.
  • Neill, Edward D. Terra Mariæ; or, Threads of Maryland Colonial History. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1867. Making of America database. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library, 2005.
  • Revel, James. The Poor Unhappy Transported Felon’s Sorrowful Account of His Fourteen Years Transportation at Virginia in America. London, 1780.
  • Smith, Abbot Emerson. Colonists in Bondage : White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. The Norton Library; N592. New York: Norton, 1971.
  • The Virginia Gazette (Rind), July 26, 1770, p. 3.
  • The Virginia Gazette (Purdie), April 21, 1775, p. 3.

Learn More About Convict Transportation

Learn more about convict transportation to colonial America by reading my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America.

Amazon.com: Paperback ($16.99) and Kindle ($4.99).

Smashwords: All e-book formats ($4.99).

Most people know that England shipped thousands of convicts to Australia, but few are aware that colonial America was the original destination for Britain’s unwanted criminals. In the 18th century, thousands of British convicts were separated from their families, chained together in the hold of a ship, and carried off to America, sometimes for the theft of a mere handkerchief.

What happened to these convicts once they arrived in America? Did they prosper in an environment of unlimited opportunity, or were they ostracized by the other colonists? Anthony Vaver tells the stories of the petty thieves and professional criminals who were punished by being sent across the ocean to work on plantations. In bringing to life this forgotten chapter in American history, he challenges the way we think about immigration to early America.

The book also includes an appendix with helpful tips for researching individual convicts who were transported to America.

Visit Pickpocket Publishing for more details.

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