Bonds of Empire

This monograph is a transnational study of convict transportation, a method of exile typically accompanied by forced servitude that existed in Britain's early modern empire. It explores the advent of a penal-settlement imperial ideology which was intended to solve both the domestic problem of petty crime, while simultaneously allowing the English (and later British) government to establish a foothold in places to which free settlers would not immigrate. "Bonds of Empire" reveals that this imperial ideology was almost universally a failure. After free settlers became important components of British colonies in both America and Australia, convict transportation turned into a serious point of contention between colonial governments concerned with their own moral purity and reputation, and the British government which cared more about punishing offenders and deterring crime at home. Ultimately, this study argues that the inherent contradiction which existed between penal colonies and free settler colonies, made Britain's penal-settlement ideology untenable as a method of empire building.