Convict Transportation to North America and Caribbean?

Question

I know plenty of places to research convicts transported to Australia, but I recently came across an ancestor who was sentenced to transportation in 1771. Since this was a bit too early for Austarlian transportation, I assume that she was transported to either North America or the Caribbean (or were there other places that convicts were sent?)

What next? Are there any helpful websites that deal with this subject? Are there any places that list the convicts that were transported, or the names of any convict ships?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all the feedback, but I really do know everything there is to know about Australian convicts, and where to find the information relating to them. My children's father has nine convicts in his family, so I've been there, done that. It's just that 1771 is too early for someone sentenced to transportation (which, according to Old Bailey records, she was) to have been sent to Australia (as the First Fleet came here in 1788). Any information specific on transportation to the Americas and Caribbean would be wonderful. Thanks.

Answer 1

Great Britain "transported" convicts to Bermuda for most of the 1800s, but I'm not sure when they began doing so. The government unit responsible was called the "Convict Service"; searching on that exact phrase may yield additional locations, sources, etc.
If you visit the Rootsweb, Ancestry, or GenForum websites you'll find that each offers Surname and/or Geographic location message boards. Select the Bermuda message board and search or browse for convict info, or pose a question of your own. Be sure to include as much info as you can provide.

Answer 2

Convicts were transported to North America during the time of the Stuart Kings, especially the Scottish Covenanters who survived at the Battle of Bothwell Brig in 1679. It ceased when the USA gained its Independence. Consequently the British government turned its attention to Australia as its dumping ground. Court records would record the convicts sentenced to transportation.

Answer 3

When prisoners were condemned to transportation, they knew there was little chance they'd see their homeland, or their loved ones again. Even if they survived the long, cruel journey they didn't really know what fate awaited them in a land on the other side of the world.
Relatively few convicts returned home - partly because the system of reprieves extended to so few and partly because they tended to settle in Australia. Three quarters of the convicts were unmarried when they left home, so those who found a partner during the voyage or once they arrived in Australia weren't likely to leave them behind.

Nevertheless, transportation was a terrifying prospect. As they awaited their fate, prisoners were detained in the rotting hulks of old warships, transformed into makeshift prisons and rammed up against the mud at Portsmouth Harbour and London's Royal Docklands.



Love Tokens
Hulks and love tokens
Holed up in the hulks awaiting the dreaded voyage to begin, it was common practice for transportees to spent their days engraving love-tokens which they would give as last mementoes to friends and relatives. Many used the 1797 copper cartwheel penny, and the inscriptions range from just the name and date of deportation to elaborate poems and etchings of convicts in chains and boats. Professional engravers were even allowed on board the hulks, and prisoners would commission them to craft a poignant keepsake on their behalf.


The voyage

The journey was long and hard. For the first 20 years, prisoners were chained up for the entire 8 months at sea. The cells were divided into compartments by wooden or iron bars. On some ships as many as 50 convicts were crammed into one compartment.

Discipline was brutal, and the officers themselves were often illiterate, drunken and cruel. Their crews were recruited from waterside taverns. They were hardened thugs who wouldn't shrink from imposing the toughest punishment on a convict who broke the rules.

Disease, scurvy and sea-sickness were rife. Although only 39 of the 759 convicts on the first fleet died, conditions deteriorated. By the year 1800 one in 10 prisoners died during the voyage. Many convicts related loosing up to 10 teeth due to scurvy, and outbreaks of dysentery made conditions foul in the confined space below deck.

Convict ships transporting women inevitably became floating brothels, and women were subjected to varying degrees of degradation. In fact, in 1817 a British judge acknowledged that it was accepted that the younger women be taken to the cabins of the officers each night, or thrown in with the crew.::

Answer 4

Hmmm I won't be any help but I'm pretty sure I've read of that, but not much, sentence to transportation. I think they'd be auctioned off on arrival for some period of years' servitude. After all who'd be paying their fare? I don't think it was real popular, maybe a way to get rid of troublemakers.

Germans and Scots were early popular human trade items for their skills and hard work but definitely unwelcome at Massachusetts Colony - maybe more like VA & PA.