Early American Crime

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

Most of the convicts who were sent to America from Great Britain stayed in America, but some made it back to their home country, legally or illegally. Convicts who escaped, ran away, or purchased their freedom soon after landing in America had a greater likelihood of making the trip back across the Atlantic than convicts who ran away after several years had passed or who finished their terms of service.

“The WAY that Convicts return from Transportation”

Convicts who belonged to criminal gangs were more likely to return to England from America, basically because these gangs provided a support system for any member who was caught by the authorities. Gangs had a ready-made list of false witnesses who could provide alibis for any member who was caught and brought to trial. If that member was still found guilty and sentenced to transportation, the gang provided money for the convict to purchase privileges on board the ship, his or her freedom once the ship landed, and a trip back to England.

In his best-selling book that gives a full account of his criminal career and exposes the common practices of criminals, John Poulter describes the method by which convicts returned from transportation:

After they are in an Part of North America, the general Way is this, just before they go on board a Ship, their Friend or Accomplices purchase them their Freedom from the Merchant or Captain that belongs to the said Ship, for about ten Pound Sterling, some gives more and some less; then the Friend of the Convict or Convicts, get a Note from the Merchant, or Captain, that the Person is free to go unmolested when the Ships arrive between the Capes of Virginia, where they please.

Once the convicts secured their freedom, Poulter continues, they then looked for a ship that would take them back to England.

Convicts almost never returned on the same ship that brought them to America. The risk of taking a convict back across the Atlantic would have been too great for the convict merchants. The British government prohibited them from helping any convict to return to England, and if they were ever caught doing so, it would have jeopardized their highly profitable business. There were plenty of other ships, however, that were willing to take paying passengers back to England. Convicts who did not have enough money would look for opportunities to work on board the ship as compensation for their passage.

If convicts could not secure their freedom upon arrival, Poulter says, they would run away from their master, and “lay in the Woods by Day, and travel by Night for Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, in which Place no Questions are asked them.” Poulter goes on to claim that the ease by which convicts could return from transportation “encourages a great many to commit Robberies more than they would, because they say they do not mind Transportation, it being but four or five Months Pleasure, for they can get their Freedom and come home again.”

At his trial, the transported convict Bampfylde-Moore Carew expressed the kind of nonchalant attitude towards transportation that Poulter contends was typical. After the judge passed a sentence of transportation and told Carew that he would now “proceed to a hotter Country,” the convict

enquired into what Climate, and being told Merryland, he with great Composure made a critical Observation on the Pronunciation of that Word, implying, that he apprehended it ought to be pronounced Maryland, and added, it would save him Five Pounds for his Passage, as he was very desirous of seeing that Country.

Carew later escaped just as he was being sold to some planters, but he was eventually caught. As punishment, the captain had him flogged with a cat o’ nine tails and secured an iron collar around his neck to prevent him from escaping again.

Poulter concludes his section on convict transportation by offering an unwieldy bureaucratic solution to the problem of returning convicts. First, he recommends fining any merchant or captain who frees a convict upon arrival. Then he proposes that anyone bound homeward on a ship should be required to publish publicly his or her name and intent to travel abroad and that person should then secure a certificate from the governor stating that he or she is not an indented servant or a convict. These steps, he proclaims, “would prevent such a Number of Convicts coming back again before their Time is expired.”

Convicts Back in England

Any convict returning to England had to remain in hiding. If he or she were caught, the convict could automatically receive the death penalty. The government did not make it easy for returned convicts to go undetected. The reward for identifying and turning in a convict who returned early from a sentence of transportation was substantial. Given the risk of detection, the number of transported convicts returning to England was low.

Jonathan Wild, the self-proclaimed “Thief-Taker General,” took advantage of this reward system. He developed a strong relationship with Jonathan Forward, the Contractor for Transports for the Government, who could give him valuable intelligence in the matter of returned convicts. Once he identified a returned convict, Wild could either blackmail the convict into continuing a life of crime as a working member in Wild’s criminal empire or he could turn the convict in for the ₤40 reward offered by the government.

Even with the reward, prosecuting returned convicts was apparently quite difficult if one did not have the kind of resources that Wild had at his disposal. The Virginia Gazette contended,

It is certain Numbers do return from Transportation; but it being so much Trouble to bring them down to the Old Bailey, prove them to be the Persons transported, and that did the Fact transported for, that People don’t care for the Trouble of it; especially since the Trying of them for the Fact transported for, is too often attended with great Trouble and Expence, that poor People are scarce able to support it, by which Means Rogues often escape.

Notably, convicts who were caught returning to England never showed up in advertisements for runaways in American newspapers. There could be several reasons for why this is the case. Most likely, those who ran away from their masters never made it back to England. Convicts needed some combination of money, connections with captains or sailors, and an appearance that did not draw suspicion that they were escaped servants in order to travel back to their homeland. The longer they stayed in America, the less likely these resources were available to them. Convicts who managed to escape or found freedom after their ship encountered problems at sea through shipwreck, piracy, or mutiny before they could be sold would not have had advertisements run in colonial newspapers for their capture, and these early escapees were more likely to return to England. Another reason convicts caught returning to England did not show up in runaway ads could be that returned convicts were either skillful in avoiding detection or the methods of detecting them were in reality inadequate.

Resources for this article:

• Carew, Bampfylde-Moore. An Apology for the Life of Mr Bampfylde-Moore Carew. 8 ed. London: Printed for R. Goadby and W. Owen, 1768. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale.
• 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.
• —. The King’s Passengers to Maryland and Virginia. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 1997.
• Morgan, Gwenda and Peter Rushton. “Running Away and Returning Home: The Fate of English Convicts in the American Colonies.” Crime, Histoire & Sociétiés / Crime, History & Societies 7.2 (2003): 61-80.
• Poulter, John. The Discoveries of John Poulter, Alias Baxter. Eleventh ed. London: R. Goadby, 1754. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale.
• The Virginia Gazette (Parks) January 28, 1737, p. 4. Database: CW Digital Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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.

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

Lots of convict servants tried to run away from their owners in an attempt to escape harsh treatment from them or to regain their freedom and possibly return to Great Britain, or both. Almost as soon as the practice of convict transportation started, convicts began trying to run away. Shortly after one of the first ships to transport convicts to America under the Transportation Act landed, seven of the convicts on board managed to escape. On November 25, 1718, Samuel Shute, the Governor of Massachusetts, issued a proclamation that described the convicts–who had been committing “many robberies, and other Enormities in the Places whether they are fled”–and offered fifty shillings each for their recapture.

Incentive

Convicts tended to run away from their masters at a higher rate than indentured servants. Unlike indentured servants, convict servants did not choose to come to America, so they were more than likely resentful of being forced into servitude in a strange country against their will. They also had little incentive to serve out their terms of service, so running away could appear to be an attractive option. Early on in the period, owners of convict servants were required to provide some tools and seed to them once they served out their terms, much like indentured servants. But as the century progressed these rights were stripped from the convicts, so there was no reward waiting for them if they stayed until the end of their service.

The punishment for running away was not much of a deterrent either. Runaway convicts faced corporal punishment and additional service time if caught: roughly one extra week for every day, one month for every week, and one year for every month. But such punishments seemed trivial compared to the experiences the convicts had already faced.

Most of the convicts who chose to run away did so within two years of arriving in America, and they usually did so 6 months to a year after arrival, if they didn’t run away soon after they landed. As the years went on, the incentive to run away grew less as they neared the end of their usual sentence of 7 years. Most convicts ran away alone, but occasionally they would run away in pairs, often with someone who came from the same part of England. Some convicts were even known to run away with an African slave.

The Difficulty of Running Away

Convicts who ran away from their owners had a difficult time escaping detection due to the many mechanisms in place to bring about their recapture. For one, servants traveling through the countryside were required to carry papers that showed that they either had been discharged or had their owner’s permission to be wandering off of his property. Any servant caught traveling without such papers could be questioned and apprehended at any time to see if anyone made any inquiries about his or her whereabouts.

Property owners were vigilant in keeping an eye out for runaways, mainly because a generous reward was usually offered for their capture and return. Advertisements in American newspapers helped in the identification of runaway convicts and specified the reward offered. Many plantation owners kept descriptions of their servants and slaves on file in case any one of them decided to run away.

Convict servants who ran away in Virginia or Maryland not only had to contend with the vigilance of property owners, but also with the intersecting rivers that made travel extremely difficult. Even if a runaway convict managed to make it to a port, he or she would have had a difficult time securing passage back to Great Britain without any money or without being detected.

Runaway Ads

Colonial newspapers often carried advertisements for runaway convict servants that were placed by their owners, and these notices provide important information about the convicts and their lives in America. Runaway ads usually give the names of the convicts, a description or their appearance, their age, where they originally came from, and their occupation or skill set. The faces of many of the convicts are described as being pitted from smallpox, and some of the convicts are noted as wearing an iron collar or handcuffs.

The following runaway ad that appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette illustrates the kind of information that was generally included in runaway advertisements, even though it provides a more detailed description of the runaway convict than most did.

Bohemia, Maryland, April 9. 1752
Runaway, last night, from the subscriber, a convict servant fellow, nam’d Jacob Parrott, born in the West of England, and bred in the family of a gentleman in Devonshire. He is about 22 years old, of a fair complection, active and strong, but short for his bulk; he is very handy at any thing, so that he may pretend to be a groom, coachman, gardiner, barber, lawyer, shoemaker, &c. His apparel was a new felt hat, a new brown and an old grey wig, a new ash colour’d duffel great coat, with a large cape, and white metal buttens, a new darkish grey fine kersey coat, with a small black cape, and black button holes, with carved white metal buttons, double breasted short brown holland jacket, with wash’d yellow buttons, new leather breeches, two or three fine Irish linen shirts, white cotton stockings, and new footed grey yarn ditto, new pumps, and larger pewter buckles. He took with him a brown middle siz’d natural pacing horse, a good bridle, saddle and housing, with plenty of money, which ‘tis supposed will soon be spent, he being a very drunken idle fellow, and a lover of dancing, singing, carding, racing, cock-fighting, &c. he will cringe to those he thinks his superiors, but is quarrelsome and abusive to others, in whose company he will brag, chatter, fight, curse, swear, &c. has a scar on his left-thumb, occasioned by a cut with a broad ax: All persons, especially women, are cautioned to beware of him, for he is a great cheat, and a notorious villain. Whoever secures him in any prison, &c so that he may be had again, shall be paid Forty Shillings, Pennsylvania currency, and besides that reward, any person that will bring him home, shall be paid his reasonable charges, &c. by me, his master. Hugh Jones.
N.B. All masters of vessels are forbid to carry him off.

Dangerous Runaways

Runaway convicts could be quite dangerous. On September 7, 1738, the American Weekly Mercury carried a story about a coachmaker named Evans who was found murdered in the woods. Evans was traveling from Rappahannock to Hanover when he stopped at an inn for the night. Before retiring, he handed the innkeeper a handkerchief holding money in it for safekeeping. Unfortunately, someone witnessed the exchange and followed Evans the next day after he left the inn. Two days later, a convict was picked up as a runaway, and in his possession were Evans’s handkerchief, his clothes, his horse, and a considerable sum of money. The convict was the one who witnessed the exchange of money, but he was not known to be a runaway at the time. After his capture, he was committed to the public jail in Williamsburg, VA and charged with “barbarously murdering Mr. Evans.”

In July 1773, Archibald Moffman, a soul-driver from Baltimore, purchased a group of convicts with the intention of reselling them for a profit further inland. He managed to sell all but four of the convicts by the time he reached the town of Frederick and was continuing on to Hagerstown to sell the rest. About two or three miles outside of Frederick, one of the convict servants complained of fatigue, so the party stopped under a tree alongside the main road. When Moffman decided that they needed to continue on their journey, the convicts refused to move. Instead, they threw him backwards, dragged him into the woods, and cut his throat from ear to ear. They then stole Moffman’s pocketbook and proceeded to stop at every tavern they met as they continued the journey over the mountain.

At one of the taverns, a man who had earlier happened to spot them with their master asked them where he was. The group claimed that he was refreshing himself just a little way behind them, but after the enquiring man rode a couple miles back without meeting Moffman, he suspected murder. He notified the neighborhood, and the convicts were easily pursued and captured. They were brought to the jail in Frederick, where they confessed their guilt. This story caused quite a sensation at the time, for a number of newspapers from the Chesapeake all the way up to New Hampshire carried the story and followed up on it in later editions.

For their act, the four convicts received the death sentence, and they were executed in Frederick on October 22, 1773.

Resources for this article:

• “Annapolis, July 29.” New-York Gazette, and Weekly Mercury August 9, 1773. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.
• 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.
• Eddis, William. Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, Comprising Occurrences from 1769 to 1777, Inclusive. London: William Eddis, 1792. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale.
• “Extract of a Letter from Shippensburg, in Pennsylvania, Agusut 6, 1773.” New-Hampshire Gazette September 17, 1773. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.
• Grubb, Farley. “The Market Evaluation of Criminality: Evidence from the Auction of British Convict Labor in America, 1767-1775.” The American Economic Review 91.1 (2001): 295-304.
• —. “The Transatlantic Market for British Convict Labor.” The Journal of Economic History 60.1 (2000): 94-122.
• Morgan, Gwenda and Peter Rushton. “Running Away and Returning Home: The Fate of English Convicts in the American Colonies.” Crime, Histoire & Sociétiés / Crime, History & Societies 7.2 (2003): 61-80.
• The Ordinary of Newgate, His Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and Dying Words, of the Malefactors Who Were Executed at Tyburn, on Wednesday the 7th of November, 1744. London: John Applebee, 1744. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale.
• “Philadelphia, November 10.” Boston Post-Boy November 15, 1773. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.
• “Run Away from the Subscriber.” Pennsylvania Gazette October 28, 1742. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.
• “[Runaway Advertisement].” Pennsylvania Gazette May 21, 1752. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.
• Shute, Samuel. “A Proclamation.” Massachusetts, 1718. Database: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale.
• “Williamsburg, August 18.” American Weekly Mercury September 7, 1738. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Newsbank/Readex.

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.

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

Plantation owners who purchased the labor of convict servants also acquired complete legal control over them. They could rent the service of the convicts out to another plantation owner. They could transfer ownership of the convict servants to someone else in order to pay off a debt. They could even wager the servants in a card game. On the plantation, they could freely use corporal punishment to control the convicts, as long as they were not deemed overly cruel in handing out the punishment. They also had the power to grant convict servants their freedom and simply let them go.

Convicts had more legal rights than slaves, mainly because their bonded condition was temporary and they could petition courts to prevent excessive abuse. However, as the eighteenth century wore on, convicts steadily lost legal rights to the point where they were treated not much differently than slaves. Both indentured servants and slaves were considered social outcasts with no real ties to the community, and as plantation owners became more and more dependent on slave labor, the working conditions of white servants deteriorated as well. In the period just before the American Revolution, the life of an indentured servant was positively miserable.

Relationships

Convict servants led fairly isolated lives. They had few opportunities for building community relationships, both on and between plantations. The presence of other convict servants on the plantation did not guarantee companionship, since they most likely came from other parts of England or Ireland where the customs could be quite different from their own. Building connections with slaves, who faced even greater cultural alienation in America, would have been even less likely to occur.

Servants could not marry without the consent of their owner. Without such permission, some convict servants developed illicit relations with one another, which sometimes resulted in bastard children. These children became the responsibility of the county, since the father was generally expected to support the cost of raising his own child, which a convict servant could rarely do given his circumstances.

In order to recover the costs of raising the child, the court usually tacked on extra years to the convict’s service in order to compensate his owner, who then paid the courts the amount needed to care for the child. Another payment option was for the court to seize the father after his original term of service was over and then sell him back into servitude, with the profit from his sale serving as compensation for raising his child. The mother of the bastard child was often required to provide an extra year of service to her owner to compensate him for the time lost during her pregnancy and the childbirth, even though the time she needed to carry the baby to term was much shorter than the tacked on service.

Abuse

Servants were treated much worse in America than they were in England. Many plantation owners ruled over their personal empire with an iron fist. An Englishman traveling through the Chesapeake once reported to the London Magazine, “Prodigious Numbers of Planters are immensely rich, and I think one of them, at this Time, numbers upon his Lands near 1,000 Wretches, that tremble with submissive Awe at his Nod, besides white Servants.”

There are many cases of masters abusing servants through beatings or through limiting food to bread and water. In one popular account, Chevalier James, an “Unfortunate Young Nobleman,” is tricked into indentured servitude and ends up on a ship bound for Pennsylvania. There, he is purchased by a cruel master named Drumon, who puts him to work cutting timber for pipe staves, which were used for making wooden barrels. James receives many lashes from Drumon, who also withholds meat from James as punishment for his initial incompetence in carrying out this unfamiliar work. James soon realizes that Drumon will never be satisfied with the quality of his work, because his master seems to relish handing out punishments to all of his laborers.

The Fortunate Transport tells another story of a transported convict who is treated cruelly by her master. After being transported for theft to Virginia, Polly Haycock is purchased by a planter and made a cookmaid, despite her inexperience in this line of work. The description of her master does not cast a good light on planters in general:

He was a meer Planter, consequently cruel, haughty, and mercenary, without any soft Sentiment of Humanity in his Breast; and his Years had laid the Fever in his Blood so much that he had no Thoughts but how to work the Value of his Money out of the Slaves, and make the most of them without regard to their Happiness or Misery. In a Word, like most of the Tribe of Planters, he had no Appetite but for Money; nor Pleasure in any Pastime but torturing the unhappy Wretches in his Power.

One day, as punishment for not roasting a turkey properly, the planter has Polly stripped naked, tied to a post, and then whipped. While this is happening, the planter sits down to eat, with the background “Musick” of Polly’s cries heightening the enjoyment of his meal. Luckily for Polly, a justice of the peace happens to be come by and witnesses the scene of an African slave unmercifully applying a cat-o’-nine-tails to her. The justice quickly puts an end to Polly’s beating and threatens to bring the planter to justice. Even though the planter knows that the Assembly would probably be on his side, he offers to give Polly to the justice in exchange for not pursuing the matter, which the justice readily accepts.

Few convict or indentured servants left behind first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations. In one of the few extent letters written by an indentured servant, Elizabeth Spriggs poignantly illustrates the cruelty that could be wielded by plantation owners when she wrote to her father in 1756:

What we unfortunate English people suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to conceive. Let it suffice that I, one of the unhappy number, am toiling almost day and night, and very often in the horses’ drudgery, with only this comfort that: “You bitch, you do not half enough:” and then tied up and whipped to that degree that you’d not serve an animal; scarce anything but Indian corn and salt to eat, and that even begrudged. Nay, many negroes are better used: almost naked, no shoes or stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during Master’s pleasure what rest we can get is to wrap ourselves in a blanket and lie upon the ground.

This is the deplorable condition your poor Betty endures, and no I beg, if you have any bowels of compassion left, show it by sending me some relief. Clothing is the principal thing wanting. (Quoted in Coldham, Emigrants in Chains.)

Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s letter never made it to her father.

Resources for this article:

• 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.
• Creole. The Fortunate Transport; or, the Secret History of the Life and Adventures of the Celebrated Polly Haycock. London: T. Taylor, [1750?]. Database: Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
• Ekirch, A. Roger. Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
• Fogleman, Aaron S. “From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers: The Transformation of Immigration in the Era of the American Revolution.” The Journal of American History 85.1 (1998): 43-76.
• Ford, Worthington Chauncey. Washington as an Employer and Importer of Labor. Brooklyn, NY: Privately printed, 1889.
• Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman, Return’d from a Thirteen Years Slavery in America. London: J. Freeman, 1743. Database: Gale, Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
• Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and Servitude in Colonial North America: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
• “Observations in Several Voyages and Travels in America [from the London Magazine, July 1746].” William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine 15.3 (1907): 1-17.
• Smith, Abbot Emerson. Colonists in Bondage : White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. The Norton Library; N592. New York: Norton, 1971.

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.