Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
The Criminal Prisons of London, of Henry Mayhew
Charles Dickens' Times

A "hulk" (old ship) used as a prison

Prisoners were often "transported" as "ticket of leave" men (or women or children). They were transported to penal colonies. In order for the mother country to maintain posession of a colony, the colony had to be peopled. "Discovering" gold was one way to people a country. What better way to people a colony than to force men, women and children to go to a colony? England had several penal colonies in Australia, Van Dieman's Land, and the New World locations of Virginia, Georgia, Demerrara, etc. This method of posessing colonies was also used by France in French Africa, and French Islands in the Indian Ocean, and in France's New World posessions such as French Guiana (Cayenne). The infamous French Devil's Island prison "le bagne" (located at the Îles du Salut, including Île du Diable) is yet another example of the use of forced labour. Similarly, the Dutch peopled Surinam in the Dutch New World penal colony. Portugal of course used the same system in Angola and Lourenço Marques (Mozambique). Spain used its colonies in Puerto Rico and Cuba, in the New World. The Russians were as astute as these other countries, and sentenced criminals to "katorga" or hard labour in Siberia. China had been doing the same thing for centuries, sentencing political prisoners to work in the Mancurian north. Thus it is easy to understand that the what is considered criminal behavior may be viewed as a method of legally assigning labour and may have little basis in a view of "morality". Until people could be transported (or hung), they had to be housed somewhere, and "controlled". but how?

Workhouses were effectively prisons. Insane asylums were also effectively prisons. Jails are costly to construct, but "hulks" (old ships) could be used to house people. Of course, using what we now know to be true, people might simply "slip through the system", a euphemism meaning that people could be "disappeared" (extrajudicially murdered). Then, there were the "old" tried and proved methods of population removal: "ethnic cleansing" or "pogroms". There are those who would say that this never happened. May we all be so naieve.

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