Dissertation
'Altogether Useless': Women, Crime, and the Creation of Unfree Labor for the British Atlantic Colonies 1660-1783
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2014
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/112015
Abstract
Between about 1607 and 1783, there emerged in England a large impoverished class, some of whom turned to theft to survive, especially in the rapidly growing metropolis of London. Over this period more than 50,000 people -more than 11,000 women - were caught, convicted and sentenced to labor in England's Atlantic colonies. While contemporaries framed transportation as a way for criminals to pay their debt to society via labor, I argue instead that the government deliberately created a system by which the poorest and most vulnerable members of society were, in many cases, forced into crime or criminalized, and then dispatched to the Atlantic colonies as a source of free labor. In investigating the overall system as an Atlantic process, this study illustrates not only the ways in which England viewed poor and criminal women, but also how the colonies were perceived: as locations to deposit England's "altogether useless," women.
This dissertation begins with a study of the experiences of women within the metropole where changes in the social order pushed them to commit theft (the dominant crime for which they were sentenced to penal transportation). As the death sentence, mandated in cases of felony theft, increasingly appeared unduly harsh, legislators searched for sentencing solutions. While a transportation sentence had been an option since 1615, the 1718 Transportation Act made it easier to transport felons, representing a marked shift in sentencing policies in England; this development is analyzed by exploring its impact on the lives of women who came to the attention of the courts before and after that date. Once sentenced, the unique problems and experiences of women, from incarceration to the voyage across the seas are explored within the framework of the transformation brought about by the 1718 act. This study then investigates the labor, lives, and prospects of women sold in the colonies, by contrasting their experiences in the West Indian (before 1718) and North American (after 1718) contexts. In the end, it becomes clear that the criminal justice system was used predominantly to provide an inexpensive labor force, rather than as a path to redemption.
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Details
- Title
- 'Altogether Useless': Women, Crime, and the Creation of Unfree Labor for the British Atlantic Colonies 1660-1783
- Creators
- Terisa J. Rond
- Contributors
- Sue Peabody (Advisor)Susan Armitage (Committee Member)Jennifer Thigpen (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 364
- Identifiers
- 99900581445601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation