Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Dale C]

18th century England had a strange judicial system very different from what we have today. The sentence of choice was transportation, the idea being to put an ocean between England and the criminals and malcontents. They sold them into indenture to the American colonies until the revolution broke out. they began sending them to New South Wales later called Australia, not for indenture but as slave labor for a term of 7 years. That was a real horror story of abuse, avarice and mismanagement.

At any rate I believe England avoided major unrest by simply moving those that might cause problems elsewhere.

I have no links but I just finished a historical fiction "Morgans Run" by Colleen McCullough of Norfolk Island. It's from the convicts POV. She went into some detail in the afterword on her research, Lol and really how can one doubt a lady with a name like Colleen.