Banishment

Throughout recorded history, various human societies and governments have moved to isolate offenders or those who have offended the collectivity. Although noted several times in the Old Testament and used by the Romans (several Roman rulers exiled political enemies and their own irritating children), it is most commonly known in modern times through the example of British penal transportation to the New World and Australia. Although the English Crown resorted to banishment in earlier times, its use was formalized only by the Transportation Act of 1718. British prisons, jails, and gallows were overtaxed at this time, and it was thought that this would relieve pressure on that system and provide much-needed labor to the colonies, primarily those in the New World. Between 1718 and 1775, 50,000 prisoners were sent to the New World British colonies.

This sentencing option was widely used, especially in London, as judges were increasingly reluctant to impose the death penalty on the wide range of even minor offenses that the law then prescribed. Terms for penal servitude in the colonies ranged generally from seven to 14 years. Returning to Britain before one's term was finished could result in a death penalty, although many who could, did, in fact, return. Those who could not return to England often absconded to the western frontiers, where labor was needed and few questions were asked about their past. Quite a few of those transported were recent Irish immigrants to England who had fallen on lean times; most were English, and relatively few were Scots. The most common ports for export were London and Bristol. Prisoners were subject to ritualized humiliation in an 18th-century version of a “perp walk,” which occurred when they were marched from the port city's jail to the transport ships. Occasionally, gang members would successfully help a comrade escape during the stage between the city jail and the transport stage.

Conditions on board the convict transport ships were grim, and death rates were high during the [Page 21]six- to eight-week transatlantic journey. Convicts' working and living conditions in the New World colonies were often bestial. Women convicts were frequently sexually molested, and both sexes were worked harder than slaves. Slaves were considered property, and as such they were a valuable commodity; it would have been foolish to abuse them gratuitously. Transported prisoners were more like rental items and were subject to hard use. The writings of former transports are full of tales of hard use and woe, and there were few success stories, largely because of the extremely low status that they enjoyed in New World society. When the British began to transport prisoners to Australia in 1776 (during the American Revolution), the shipboard conditions were far worse, given the length of the journey and the tropical conditions encountered along the route. In the next 80 years, more than 180,000 British and Irish prisoners were sent to Australia. Prisoners were sometimes staked to the ground after landing on that “fatal shore” and had to contend with numerous poisonous spiders and snakes and hostile aboriginal inhabitants.

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