America Founded By Kidnappers and Populated By Criminals

The Transported Involuntary Servitude. In their anxiety to secure
settlers, the companies and proprietors having colonies in America
either resorted to or connived at the practice of kidnapping men, women,
and children from the streets of English cities. In 1680 it was
officially estimated that "ten thousand persons were spirited away" to
America. Many of the victims of the practice were young children, for
the traffic in them was highly profitable. Orphans and dependents were
sometimes disposed of in America by relatives unwilling to support them.
In a single year, 1627, about fifteen hundred children were shipped to
Virginia.

In this gruesome business there lurked many tragedies, and very few
romances. Parents were separated from their children and husbands from
their wives. Hundreds of skilled artisans--carpenters, smiths, and
weavers--utterly disappeared as if swallowed up by death. A few thus
dragged off to the New World to be sold into servitude for a term of
five or seven years later became prosperous and returned home with
fortunes. In one case a young man who was forcibly carried over the sea
lived to make his way back to England and establish his claim to a
peerage.

Akin to the kidnapped, at least in economic position, were convicts
deported to the colonies for life in lieu of fines and imprisonment. The
Americans protested vigorously but ineffectually against this practice.
Indeed, they exaggerated its evils, for many of the "criminals" were
only mild offenders against unduly harsh and cruel laws. A peasant
caught shooting a rabbit on a lord's estate or a luckless servant girl
who purloined a pocket handkerchief was branded as a criminal along with
sturdy thieves and incorrigible rascals. Other transported offenders
were "political criminals"; that is, persons who criticized or opposed
the government. This class included now Irish who revolted against
British rule in Ireland; now Cavaliers who championed the king against
the Puritan revolutionists; Puritans, in turn, dispatched after the
monarchy was restored; and Scotch and English subjects in general who
joined in political uprisings against the king.