Editing Penal colony (section)

==British Empire==
{{More citations needed section|date=December 2023}}
[[File:Andamans QE3 116.jpg|thumb|right|Penal colony in the [[Andaman Islands]], [[British Raj]] ({{circa|1890s}})]]

With the passage of the ''[[Transportation Act 1717]]'', the British government initiated the [[penal transportation]] of [[Indentured servitude|indentured servants]] to [[British America|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".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XB5EdIEOKesC&pg=PA90 Bound with an Iron Chain – The Untold Story of how the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=hul1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA21 Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763–1775], [[George Elliott Howard]]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uUk_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA207 ''The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science'']</ref><ref>[[Lerone Bennett Jr.]], ''The Shaping of Black America'', p. 48</ref> 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 mainland North America as a whole. More than two-thirds of these felons were transported to [[Chesapeake Colonies|the Chesapeake]] to work for [[American gentry|Southern landowners]]; in Maryland, during the thirty years before 1776, convicts composed more than one-quarter of all immigrants.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morgan |first=Kenneth |date=1985 |title=The Organization of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768-1775 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1920428 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=201–227 |doi=10.2307/1920428 |jstor=1920428 |issn=0043-5597}}</ref> However, it is commonly maintained that the vast majority of felons taken to America were [[political prisoner|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."<ref>{{citation|author=Butler, James Davie|title=British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies |publisher=Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History|work=American Historical Review 2|page=13|date=October 1896|url=}} <br><span style="color:#0000FF">"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."</span></ref> The [[Province of Georgia|colony of Georgia]], by contrast, was planned by [[James Oglethorpe]] specifically to take in [[debtors' prison|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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/fofr/learn/historyculture/james-edward-oglethorpe.htm |title=James Edward Oglethorpe |publisher=United States National Park Service}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://oglethorpe.edu/about/history-traditions/james-edward-oglethorpe/ |title=James Edward Oglethorpe |publisher=Oglethorpe}}</ref> The success of Oglethorpe's vision is debated.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/georgia-colony-1732-1750/ |title=Establishing the Georgia Colony, 1732–1750 |publisher=United States Library of Congress}}</ref>

When routes to the Americas closed after the outbreak of [[American Revolutionary War]] in 1776, British prisons started to become [[Prison overcrowding|overcrowded]].{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} Since immediate stopgap measures proved themselves ineffective, in 1785 Britain decided to use parts of what is now known as Australia as [[Convicts in Australia|''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|date=August 2023}} Between 1788 and 1868, about 162,000 [[Penal transportation|convicts were transported]] from [[Great Britain]] and [[Ireland]] to various [[list of Australian penal colonies|penal colonies in Australia]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/convicts-and-the-british-colonies|title=Convicts and the British colonies in Australia|publisher=[[Government of Australia]]|access-date=8 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101181100/http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/convicts-and-the-british-colonies|archive-date=1 January 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Australian penal colonies in late 18th century included [[Norfolk Island]] and [[Colony of New South Wales|New South Wales]], and in early 19th century also [[Van Diemen's Land]] ([[Tasmania]]) and [[Moreton Bay Penal Settlement|Moreton Bay]] (Queensland).{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

Among the 162,000 convicts sent to Colonial Australia were 3,600 political prisoners. This included a range of dissenters, including [[Tolpuddle Martyrs|the Tolpuddle Martyrs]], [[Luddite]]s, and members of Irish nationalist groups such as [[Society of United Irishmen|the Society of United Irishmen]] and [[Young Ireland]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/513140/the-forgotten-political-history-of-australia-s-convicts|title=The forgotten political history of Australia's convicts|publisher=[[Radio New Zealand]]|date=1 April 2024|accessdate=24 January 2025}}</ref>

Without the allocation of the available convict labour to farmers, to [[Squatting (pastoral)|pastoral squatters]], and to government projects such as roadbuilding, colonisation of Australia may not have been possible,{{citation needed|date=January 2013}} especially considering the considerable drain on non-convict labor caused by several [[Australian gold rushes|gold rushes]] that took place in the second half of the 19th century after the flow of convicts had dwindled and (in 1868) ceased. A proposal to make the [[Cape Colony]] a penal colony was deeply unpopular with local residents, sparking the [[Convict crisis]] of 1849.

[[Bermuda]], off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed in [[Hulk (ship type)|hulks]] were used to build the [[Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda|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|date=December 2018}}

In [[British Raj|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|date=December 2018}}