Many Americans are descended from UK criminals ... Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America

Most Americans are unaware of this fact because American politicians and historians are embarrassed by this fact.

The number of descendants of the original UK criminals transported to the US may number many tens of millions.

Australians have long been mocked for having criminal ancestry, however, the fact that the UK transported ~50,000 criminals to America has been swept under the carpet and kept hush-hush because it is embarrassing.

In the context of Donald Trump labeling Mexicans and other Latinos as criminals it is arguably hypocritical. In fact Donald Trump's grandfather was reputedly a deserter from the German army and is arguably a criminal.

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/bri...88 until 1868,shipped off to colonial America.

 

Well mainly Britain emptied it's debtors prisons...

 

"Criminals" by a very uncertain standard of crime.
Furthermore, as being "criminal" is not a genetic trait, there is zero relation to propensities in the current population.

 

It's not taught in schools? That is very sad. I wonder... The British were marvelous record keepers. I'm sure there are records kept that can be accessed.

 

I'm pretty sure that the British at the time considered everyone in America as seditious criminals after we rebelled, so, yeah, I don't really care what the brits labelled our ancestors as.

 

Going back to the early 1600s, convicts had been sent to America. In 1670 authorities in Virginia passed an act that prohibited convicts from being sent to the area. That act was overruled by King. By the early 1700s British convicts were sent over in droves, and free Americans weren’t too happy about it. In fact, even before the Transportation Act of 1718 really opened the doors for Britain’s dumping of undesirables in America, some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice.

https://www.familytree.com/blog/british-convicts-in-american-colonies/

 

A reminder they were convicts not indentured servants who worked in exchanged for their passage to America.

https://www.familytree.com/blog/british-convicts-in-american-colonies/

 

In 1615, English courts began to send convicts to the colonies as a way of alleviating England's large criminal population. This practice was unpopular in the colonies and by 1697 colonial ports refused to accept convict ships. In response, Parliament passed the Transportation Act of 1718 to create a more systematic way to export convicts. Instead of relying on merchants to make arrangements on their own to ship felons to the colonies, the British government subsidized the shipment of convicts through a network of merchants, giving a contract for the service to one individual at a time. Between 1700 and 1775, approximately 52,200 convicts sailed for the colonies, more than 20,000 of them to Virginia. Most of these convicts landed and were settled along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. Although many were unskilled and thus put to work in agriculture, particularly tobacco production, others with skills were sold to tradesmen, shipbuilders, and iron manufacturers, and for other similar occupations. Convict laborers could be purchased for a lower price than indentured white or enslaved African laborers, and because they already existed outside society's rules, they could be more easily exploited. Nevertheless, Virginia tried repeatedly to pass laws to prevent England from sending convicts, though those laws were overturned by the Crown.

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Convict_Labor_During_the_Colonial_Period

 

I imagine there are lots of peeps in the US who can claim they have convict ancestors... maybe even you dear reader.

 

Is that why America has more people incarcerated per 100k population than any other country.

USA has 715 per 100,000 of population compared to Europe average of 150 per 100,000.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Prisoners/Per-capita

 

Trump's ilk?

 

Of course you don't.

 

That is because of the soft criminal justice systems in Europe. They coddle their criminals, part of the nanny state mentality.

 

More likely it was the war on drugs that did that. Prisons are a great source of jobs and profits.

 

Or You.

 

You should take a closer look at those statistics. Your reasoning does not hold up because of a couple of simple facts. Blacks make up about half the prison population.. Blacks were not among the criminals sent to the US.

 

Perhaps the police forces in the US just round up and incarcerate innocents because real criminals fight back and shoot back.

 

What?

I’m sure that made sense as your conceived it but it lost all sense when you typed it.

I’m not even sure what you are trying to say. That the police are cowards and only go after those who wont resist? Is that it?

 

Perhaps the UK didn't have a felony like 'being in proximity to police while black.'

 

Maybe the those blacks in Britain complied with police orders.

 

By the way. Slavery ended in Britain in 1833. British criminals were sent to the US prior to that date. I am sure they did not want to send their valuable slaves to the US.

 

No, not me. I'm 2nd generation Aussie. My Grandparents migrated to Australia from Wales and South Africa.

 

People from Georgia brag about their family's criminal history, and how their ancestors overcame it and prospered. I've heard many of these oral histories.

 

They just took a more round about route.

 

I'm 7th generation American. My ancestors came here before it was America. You like to point fingers at others, what's your point?