Penal colonies were places where many civilized societies prior to the nineteenth century would send criminals in order for punishment and to use them for cheap labor.

There was a point in world history where such things as penal colonies were perfectly normal; a country would send the worst of its prisoners away to far off, usually barren or remote locations, forcing them to perform hard labor in payment for their crimes.

Tracing the history of penal colonies throughout the world is difficult, as they seem to have developed rather recently in the civilized world. Prior to the eighteenth century, in fact, throughout much of the world, a person would have simply been executed or imprisoned for the crimes that would later have them sent to penal colonies. In this sense, one might argue that these colonies arose out of a combination of greed and ambiguous humanitarianism.

The prisoners sent to these colonies, at the same time, should not be confused with either slaves or indentured servents, as slaves were bought and sold as property based not on their own wrongdoings, but on the view of others regarding their position in society; and indentured servents acted as a form of cheap labor, but to pay off personal debt rather than to serve a sentence for crimes.

British Penal Colonies

The most notable penal colonies belonged to Great Britain during the eighteenth century, beginning with North America. The British sent many prisoners to what is now the modern state of Georgia (originally intended founded as a penal colony for British debtors, as well as a sort of military protectorate). These prisoners would be transferred to the colony from Britain and then auctioned off as indentured servants to plantation owners.

After the American Revolution, when Britain found that there was no longer a marketplace in the colonies for their prisoners, they turned to other pieces of the Empire to send their prisoners. They tried Ghana first, though in the tropical setting they found that most of the prisoners died of cholera before any good work could be gotten out of them, so they moved their operation to Australia, where they found success once again, using the land down under as a penal colony until the Australians declared their own independence. A similar story occurred in British-ruled India as well.

Such colonies as these, as they grew in population, often became societies unto themselves, with differently-skilled convicts performing different duties, and woman convicts were encouraged to marry and breed with others so as to bring more workers into the society.

Other Penal Societies

While the British may have been the most prolific executers of penal colonies around the globe, they are by no means alone in terms of history. The French have had their share of penal colonies over time, such as that on Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana (perhaps the most famous single penal colony in history, in operation all the way up until the 1930’s), as have the Russians (after all, the cold tundra of Siberia has to be used for something).

These colonies proved fairly effective in both isolating and punishing everything from political prisoners to the worst, most hardened killers.

The Fading Away of Penal Colonies

So why have penal colonies all but died away in modern times?

Sure there are some obvious drawbacks – the system, when not strictly regulated, can be fairly easily abused (just look at the Soviet labor camps which flourished so readily under Joseph Stalin and Communist Russia); sentencing may have had a tendency to get stricter and false accusations became frequent based solely on the growing need for cheap labor; the prisoners were often treated quite harshly, punished with extreme violence and very often did not survive very long – but all this is not to say that such colonies could never exist without such corruption. Indeed, there are certainly arguments to be made that with today’s level of governmental oversight and regulation, such abuses very well could be a thing of the past.

Though there are many who surely would argue against them on the ground that they violate certain rights of prisoners, perhaps penal colonies could be a truly well-oiled, beneficial machine which would ease the staggering populations of prisoners throughout the world.

Such topics are open for debate.

References:

“Convicts and the British Colonies in Australia.”

Maloney, J.J.“Devil’s Island.”

Answers.com,“Penal Colony.”