Empire of chains
The human and cultural dimensions of penal transportation are the focus of this “collective biography” of convicts sent overseas to Britain’s imperial possessions.
Some of these convicts were transported following judicial process. In the period before the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay in 1788, though, others were kidnapped, inveigled or otherwise sent extrajudicially to North America and the Caribbean. According to author Graham Seal, over the four centuries in which the policy was in force, there developed a strong association between poverty and transportation. Alongside dissenters and
