Originally Posted by Maurice Clark
Hi Greg,
Convicts from England were sentenced to transportation to Georgia for several decades, mostly to be used as labour.
Once a group of terrorists (as the British called them) overthrew British rule, England had to find somewhere else to send their convicts. The place chosen was originally Botany Bay, but on arrival they found Port Jackson, AKA Sydney much more suitable.
The system for Australia was the same as for Georgia. Therefore if Australia is said to have been a penal colony, so was America.
While it might be argued that not all of America had convicts, neither did all states in Australia.
Cheers,
Maurice
Sorry but once again you are off the mark..... The U.S. was initially comprised of 13 colonies and none of the North American colonies were a penal colony. One of the 13 colonies, Georgia was founded by a visionary reformer who had the intention of giving English prisoners an opportunity to farm, own land, and rebuild their lives in Georgia. Emigrating to Georgia was intended to be a new opportunity, it was not a punishment.
The state of Georgia was not a penal colony in the sense usually meant, although it was initially settled almost entirely with convicts. Its founder was given the authority to take volunteers from the royal gaols, and he relied on debtors, prostitutes and the odd pickpocket for most of his initial population. No violent offenders were invited to become colonists, and no one was sentenced to Georgia directly by a judge, they were sentenced to gaol the usual way and then approached by a colonial agent with a presumably tempting alternative to serving their sentence. In fact, Oglethorpe pitched the colony to George II as a rehabilitative measure but it was never a penal colony in the sense that Oz was.
