Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T11:05:24.073Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Transatlantic Market for British Convict Labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Farley Grubb
Affiliation:
Farley Grubb is Professor, Department of Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716. E-mail: grubbf@be.udel.edu.

Extract

Convicts account for at least one-quarter of British migration to mid-eighteenth-century America. Their transportation to and disposal in America was essentially an experiment in privatizing post-trial criminal justice. A model of this trade is developed that yields testable implications regarding the relative distributional moments of convict auction prices, the size of shipper profits, and how convicts were selected for transportation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

“Annapolis Port of Entty Record Books, 17481775.” Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, Unpublished Manuscripts #21, #670, and #2355.Google Scholar
Bailyn, , Bernard, . Voyagers to the West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.Google Scholar
“Baltimore County Court (Convict Record), 1770–1774, 1783.” Annapolis: Maryland Hall of Records, Unpublished Manuscript, Microfilm #CR 40, 516–2.Google Scholar
Barnard Ella, K.. Letters and Other Papers of Daniel Kent: Emigrant and Redemptioner. Baltimore: New Era Printing, 1904.Google Scholar
Beattie, J. M.Crime and the Courts in England. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Beier, A. L.Masterless Men. London: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
Browne, William Hand, ed. Archives of Maryland, Vols. 2, 6, 14, 15, 25, 31. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1884, 1888, 1895, 1896, 1905, 1911.Google Scholar
Buettner, , Carl, Johann. Narrative of Johann Carl Buettner. New York: Chas. Fred. Heartman, 1915.Google Scholar
“Cheston-Galloway Papers.” Annapolis: Maryland Hall of Records, Unpublished Manuscript #1994.Google Scholar
Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988.Google Scholar
Coldham, Peter Wilson. Emigrants in Chains. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.Google Scholar
Coldham, Peter Wilson. Supplement to The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.Google Scholar
Eddis, , William, . Letters from America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Efron, Bradley, and Tibshirani, Robert J.. An Introduction to the Bootstrap. New York: Chapman & Hall, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekirch, , Roger, A.. Bound for America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Fogelman Aaron, S. “From Slaves, Convicts, and Servants to Free Passengers: The Transformation of Immigration in the Era of the American Revolution.” Journal ofAmerican History 85 (06 1998): 4376.Google Scholar
Galenson David, W.White Servitude in Colonial America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “The Market for Indentured Immigrants: Evidence on the Efficiency of Forward-Labor Contracting in Philadelphia, 1745–1773.” This JOURNAL 45, no. 4 (1985): 855–68.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Immigrant Servant Labor: Their Occupational and Geographic Distribution in the Late Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic Economy.” Social Science History 9 (Summer 1985): 249–75.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Redemptioner Immigration to Pennsylvania: Evidence on Contract Choice and Profitably.” This JOURNAL 46, no. 2 (1986): 407–18.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Morbidoty and Mortality on the North Atlantic Passage: Eighteenth-Century German Immigration to Pennsylvania.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17 (Winter 1987): 565–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “British Immigration to Philadelphia: The Reconstruction of Ship Passenger Lists From May 1772 to October 1773.” Pennsylvania History 55 (07 1988); 118–41.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Servants Auction Records and Immigrant Servants.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 133 (06 1989): 154–69.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, .“The Long-Run Trend in the Value of European Immigrants Servants, 1654–1831: New Measurements and Interpretations.” Research in Economic History 14 (1992): 167240.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . Runaway Servants, Convicts, and Apprentices Advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728–1796. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Fatherless and Friendless: Factors Influencing the Flow of English Emigrant Servants.” This JOURNAL 52, no. 1 (1992): 85108.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, . “Lilliputians and Brobidingnagians, Stature in Early America: Evidence from Servants, Convicts, and Apprentices.” Research in Economic History 19 (1999): 139203.Google Scholar
Grubb, , Farley, , and Stitt, Tony. “The Liverpool Emigrant Servant Trade and the Transition to Slave Labor in the Chesapeake, 1697–1707: Market Adjustments to War.” Explorations in Economic History 31 (07 1994): 376405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Clayton Colman, ed. Archives of Maryland, Vols. 33, 34, 35. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1913, 1914, 1915.Google Scholar
Hill, George Birkbeck, and Powell, L. F., eds. Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934.Google Scholar
Howard, , John, . The State of Prisons in England and Wales. London: William Eyres, 2nd edn., 1780.Google Scholar
Lamoine, , , Georges, ed. Bristol Gaol Delivery Fiats 1741–1799. Bristol: Bristol Record Society, Vol. 40, 1989.Google Scholar
Mackeson John, F.Bristol Transported. Bristol: Redcliffe Press, 1987.Google Scholar
McCusker John, J.Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meredith, , , David, and Oxley, Deborah. “Designing Colonial Labour: Were Useful Convicts Selected for Transportation to Australia?” Working paper. Sydney: University of New South Wales, Economics Department, 1996.Google Scholar
Meredith, , , David, and Oxley, Deborah. “‘A Shameful & Unblessed Thing:’ Crime, Punishment & Colonization,” Working paper. Sydney: University of New South Wales, Economics Department, 1998.Google Scholar
Morgan, , , Gwenda, and Rushton, Peter. Rogues, Thieves and the Rule of Law. London: University College London Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kenneth, . “The Organization of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph & Cheston, 1768–1775.” William and Mary Quarterly 42 (04 1985): 201–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, , Kenneth, . “English and American Attitudes Towards Convict Transportation, 1718–1775.” History 72 (10 1987): 416–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, , Kenneth, . “Convict Transportation from Devon to America.” In The New Maritime History of Devon Volume 1, edited by Michael, Duffy et al. , 153–54. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Morgan, , Kenneth, . Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris Richard, B.Government and Labor in Early America. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Neible George, W., ed. “Servants and Apprentices Bound and Assigned Before James Hamilton Mayor of Philadelphia, 1745.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 30–32 (19061908).Google Scholar
Nicholas, Stephen, ed. Convict Workers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Oxley, , Deborah, . Convict Maids. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Pleasants, , Hall, J., ed. Archives of Maryland, Vols. 52, 55. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1935, 1938.Google Scholar
“Record of Indentures of Individuals Bound Out as Apprentices, Servants, Etc. and of German and Other Redemptioners in the Office of the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia October 3, 1771, to 10 5, 1773.” Philadelphia: City Archives, Unpublished Manuscript.Google Scholar
Rappaport, , Steve, . Worlds Within Worlds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, , Hall, Frederick. “British Convict Servant Labor in Colonial Virginia.” Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Williamsburg, VA: The College of William and Mary, 1976.Google Scholar
Shaw, A. G. L.Convicts and the Colonies. London: Faber and Faber, 1966.Google Scholar
Smith, Abbot Emerson. Colonists in Bondage. New York: W. W. Norton, 1947.Google Scholar
Strauss, , , John, and Thomas, Duncan. “Health, Nutrition, and Economic Development.” Journal of Economic Literature 36 (06 1998): 766817.Google Scholar
Steiner, Bernard Christian, ed. Archives of Maryland, Vol. 38. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1918.Google Scholar
The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Vols. 3, 4, 5. Pennsylvania: Clarence M. Busch and William Stanley Ray, 1896, 1897, 1898.Google Scholar
Whately, , Richard, . Bacon's Essays. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1973.Google Scholar