Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775

ISBN-13: 9780198202110 / Angielski / Miękka / 1990 / 300 str.

A. Roger Ekirch

Opis

From 1718 to 1775, British courts banished 50,000 convicts to America--the largest body of immigrants, aside from African slaves, ever sent across the Atlantic--in hopes of restoring social peace at home without posing the threat to traditional freedoms raised by the death penalty or a harsh corrective system. Drawing upon archives in Britain and the United States, Bound for America examines the critical role this punishment played in Britain's criminal justice system. It also assesses the nature of the convict trade, the social origins of the transported felons, and the impact such a large criminal influx had on colonial society.

Recenzje

`Roger Ekirch's substantial study is the more welcome, for it explains and connects many areas of eighteenth-century history on both sides of the Atlantic ... impressively thorough, widely researched and clearly presented ... the book will be a rich source of new ideas and new associations for all who take an interest in the eighteenth century.' Times Literary Supplement