"Banishment in the Early Atlantic World: Convicts,..." Topic

…Rebels and Slaves.

"This book is a study of the exercise of imperial power in the early modern era and the way authorities at all levels moved, expelled, and transported people within the British Empire. Morgan and Rushton investigate some of the processes by which a wide variety of peoples under many different circumstances were forcibly moved. With the appropriate documents, they focus primarily on the perspective of the authorities, the legal developments of the 17th and 18th centuries connected to those processes, and the degree to which authorities did or did not follow the law in these matters. In some cases they use materials published in the period to address the response to these sometimes controversial policies. This study follows Morgan and Rushton's work on criminal transportation in the 18th century, which focused more on the criminals who were transported within the empire.(1) Above all, the authors demonstrate the various forms of banishment (and there were many) and criminal transportation that authorities practiced and the development of law that made such actions legitimate. From their sweep through the transatlantic British Empire to find case studies of banishment and criminal transportation, two important themes emerge. First, the views of authorities regarding the banishment of rogues, vagabonds, religious and political dissenters, and others underwent an important shift in the early modern era. Previously authorities had been concerned merely with getting rid of unwanted elements, whereas in the 17th and 18th centuries they became interested in transporting banished peoples to other places in their empire, so that those peoples might supply labor or other needs and thus be useful to the imperial cause. This shift reflected a growing transatlantic, imperial way of thinking about social and political problems and solutions. Second, while important legal developments occurred that supported this trend, authorities sometimes went beyond the law to accomplish these imperial ends, and in spite of protests, they got away with it.

The book is structured into two parts. Part one, entitled ‘Diverse patterns of banishment in Britain and Ireland', investigates the foundations of English, Scottish and Irish banishment policies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here Morgan and Rushton show how gypsies, vagrants, rebels, criminals, Quakers, Catholics, Covenanters and others were transported from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland across the Atlantic to strengthen the empire. In the mid 17th century, authorities sent most of them to the Caribbean, but from late in that century until the War of American Independence they sent most banished peoples to the Chesapeake colonies. The first two chapters address English judicial origins of banishment and Scottish similarities and differences. Thereafter follows a chapter on religious persecutions that focuses primarily on Quakers. Then come case studies of Irish, Scots, and Presbyterian Covenanter rebels during the Interregnum, and Jacobites after 1715 and 1745. Among other things, the authors make it clear that a well-developed system evolved in the 17th century that led to the transportation to the Americas of thousands of people banished for a variety of reasons…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting. My father has done quite a bit of research into our ancestry. As it turns out, our direct line in the US goes back to a "gypsy" debtor who was sent to the New World in mid-17th century. Non of the female colonists would marry him on account of his "dark, swarthy" disposition so he married a Native American woman. His son became governor. Fascinating stuff.

Happy you enjoyed it my friend.
Quite interesting history in your family!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand