Inscribed stone honouring Irish prisoner John Mernagh
Apenal colony orexile colony is asettlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distantcolonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to acorrectional facility located in a remote location, it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority.
Historically, penal colonies have often been used forpenal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than aprison farm.
With the passage of theTransportation Act 1717, the British government initiated thepenal transportation ofindentured servants toBritain's colonies in the Americas, although none of the North American colonies were solely penal colonies. British merchants would be in charge of transporting the convicts across the Atlantic to the colonies where they would be auctioned off to planters. Many of the indentured servants were sentenced to seven-year terms, which gave rise to the colloquial term "His Majesty's Seven-Year Passengers".[1][2][3][4] It is estimated that between 1718 and 1776 about 30,000 convicts were transported to at least nine of the continental colonies, whereas between 1700 and 1775 about 250,000 to 300,000 white immigrants came to mainland North America as a whole. More than two-thirds of these felons were transported tothe Chesapeake to work forSouthern landowners; in Maryland, during the thirty years before 1776, convicts composed more than one-quarter of all immigrants.[5] However, it is commonly maintained that the vast majority of felons taken to America werepolitical criminals, not those guilty of social crimes such as theft; for example, it was noted of Virginia that "the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political, and the number transported for social crimes was never considerable."[6] Thecolony of Georgia, by contrast, was planned byJames Oglethorpe specifically to take indebtors and other social criminals. Oglethorpe referred to them as "the worthy poor" in a philanthropic effort to create a rehabilitative colony where prisoners could earn a second chance at life, learning trades and working off their debts.[7][8] The success of Oglethorpe's vision is debated.[9]
Without the allocation of the available convict labour to farmers, topastoral squatters, and to government projects such as roadbuilding, colonisation of Australia may not have been possible,[citation needed] especially considering the considerable drain on non-convict labor caused by severalgold rushes that took place in the second half of the 19th century after the flow of convicts had dwindled and (in 1868) ceased. A proposal to make theCape Colony a penal colony was deeply unpopular with local residents, sparking theConvict crisis of 1849.
Bermuda, off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed inhulks were used to build theRoyal Naval Dockyard there, and during theSecond Boer War (1899–1902), Boer prisoners-of-war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of the smaller islands.[citation needed]
InBritish India, the colonial government established various penal colonies. Two of the largest ones were on theAndaman Islands andHijli. In the early days of settlement,Singapore Island was the recipient of Indian convicts, who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works.[citation needed]
France sent criminals to tropical penal colonies includingLouisiana in the early 18th century.[12]Devil's Island in French Guiana received some 80,000 forgers and other criminals between 1852 and 1939. At its worst the mortality rate was 75%, earning it the nicknamed the 'Dry Guillotine'.New Caledonia and itsIsle of Pines inMelanesia (in theSouth Sea) received transported dissidents like theCommunards,Kabyles rebels and convicted criminals between the 1860s and 1897.
Gorgona Island in Colombia housed a state high-security prison from the 1950s. Convicts were dissuaded from escaping by the venomous snakes in the interior of the island and by the sharks patrolling the 30 km to the mainland. The penal colony closed in 1984 and the last prisoners were transferred to the mainland. As of 2015[update] most of the former jail buildings are covered by dense vegetation, but some remain visible.
Mexico uses the island ofIsla María Madre (in theMarías Islands) as apenal colony. With a small population (fewer than 1,200), the colony is governed by a state official who is both the governor of the islands and chief judge. The military command is independent of the government and is exercised by an officer of the Mexican Navy. The other islands are uninhabited. Mexico announced on 18 February 2019 that it will close the Islas Marías Federal Prison, replacing it with a new cultural center.[17]
Ecuador has used two islands in theGalápagos archipelago as penal colonies: the Island ofSan Cristóbal (1869–1904) andIsabela Island (1945–1959).
Paraguay's first ruler and supreme dictatorJosé Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia opened the penal colony ofTevego in 1813, where mostly petty criminals were sent. It was abandoned in 1823, but re-established in 1843 as San Salvador. It was evacuated towards the end of theParaguayan War of 1864–1870; soon afterwardsBrazilian troops destroyed it.
Following Alexander the Great's conquest of modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan, theGreco-Bactrian Kingdom was used as a penal colony.[22] Today, 18% of the population ofPeshawar has Greek genetic markers.[23]
TheQing Empire of 1636–1912 used general-ruled provincesJilin (Ningguta) in north-east China andXinjiang in north-west China as penal colonies.[24]
Imperial Russia usedSiberia andRussian Far East for penal colonies (katorga) for criminals and dissidents. Though geographically contiguous with heartland Russia, Siberia provided both remoteness and a harsh climate. In 1857 a penal colony was established on the island ofSakhalin. The SovietGulag system and its tsarist predecessor, thekatorga system, provided penal labor to develop forestry, logging, and mining industries, construction enterprises, as well as highways andrailroads across Siberia and in other areas. In the modern Russian Federation,corrective labor colonies are a common type of prison.
TheKingdom of Hawaii under the rule of KingKamehameha III (reigned 1825–1854) replaced the death penalty with exile, andKahoolawe became a men's penal colony sometime around 1830, while Kaena Point onLanai served as the female penal colony. The law making the island a penal colony was repealed in 1853.
Apartheid South Africa usedRobben Island as a penal colony for anti-apartheid activists.
The Netherlands had a penal colony from the late 19th century. The Department of Justice took over the town ofVeenhuizen (originally set up by a private company to "re-educate" vagrants from the large cities in the west likeAmsterdam) to turn it into a collection of prison buildings. The town stands in the least populated province ofDrenthe in the north of the country, isolated in the middle of a vast area of peat and marshland.
North Korea operates apenal system including prison labor camps and re-education camps.[26]
Tarrafal operated as a Portuguese penal colony in theCape Verde Islands, set up in 1936 by the head of the Portuguese government,Salazar, where opponents of this right-wing regime were sent. At least 32 anarchists, communists and other opponents of Salazar's regime died in this camp. The camp closed in 1954 but re-opened in the 1970s to jail African leaders fightingPortuguese colonialism.[27]
Spain maintained a penal colony onFernando Po in present-day Equatorial Guinea.[28] The tiny island ofCabrera was also a short-lived penal colony in which approximately 7,000 Frenchprisoners of war from theBattle of Bailén (1808) were left on their own for years; less than half of them survived.[29]
Taiwan had a penal colony atGreen Island during Chiang Kai-shek'sWhite Terror of 1949–1987. As of 2015[update], the island is a tourist destination.
^Butler, James Davie (October 1896), "British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies",American Historical Review 2, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, p. 13 "Writing of the early Virginians, he [Bancroft] said: 'Some of them were even convicts; but it must be remembered the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political. The number transported to Virginia for social crimes was never considerable.' Most other writers have held that, among transports shipped to America, political offenders formed a large majority."
^Guantanamo Could be Terrorist Penal Colony. John Mintz.The Washington Post. Washington, DC. Reprinted bySouth Florida Sun-Sentinel. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 13 February 2002. Accessed 11 November 2022.Archived.
^ab"Historia".Museo de Sitio Castillo de Niebla (in Spanish). Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural. Archived fromthe original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved7 April 2020.
^For example:Feig, Konnilyn G. (1981).Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness (reissue ed.). Holmes & Meier Publishers. p. 296.ISBN978-0841906761. Retrieved29 June 2015.[...] a forced-labor camp [...] named ArbeitslagerTreblinka I [...] an order exists, dated 15 November 1941, establishing that penal colony.
^Jager, Sheila Miyoshi (2013).Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea. Profile Books. p. 458.ISBN978-1847652027. Retrieved29 June 2015.Prison labor camps, orkwalliso, were first established in North Korea after liberation from Japan to imprison enemies of the revolution, landowners, collaborators, and religious leaders. After the war, these places housed un-repatriated South Korean prisoners of war. [...] There are six such camps in existence today, according to a May 2011 Amnesty International report, 'huge areas of land and located in vast wilderness sites in South Pyong'an, South Hamyong and North Hamyong Provinces.' ... Perhaps the most notorious penal colony iskwalliso no. 15. or Yodok [...].
^Stewart, John (2006).African States and Rulers (3rd ed.). McFarland & Company. p. 96.ISBN978-0786425624. Retrieved29 June 2015.From 1879 the Spanish basically used Fernando Po as a penal colony for captured Cuban rebels.
^Gates, David (1986).The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War. W W Norton & Co.ISBN0-393-02281-1.
Diiulio, John J.,Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional Management, Simon and Schuster, 1990.ISBN0-02-907883-0.
Dupont, Jerry, "The Common Law Abroad: Constitutional and Legal Legacy of the British Empire", Wm. S. Hein Publishing, 2001.ISBN978-0-8377-3125-4.
Johnsen, Thomas C., "Vita: Howard Belding Gill: Brief Life of a Prison Reformer: 1890–1989",Harvard Magazine, September–October 1999, p. 54.
Serrill, M. S., "Norfolk – A Retrospective – New Debate Over a Famous Prison Experiment,"Corrections Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 4 (August 1982), pp. 25–32.
Mun Cheong Yong, V. V. Bhanoji Rao, "Singapore-India Relations: A Primer", Study Group on Singapore-India Relations, National University of Singapore Centre for Advanced Studies Contributor Mun Cheong Yong, V. V. Bhanoji Rao, Yong Mun Cheong, Published by NUS Press, 1995.ISBN978-9971-69-195-0.
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