Most people know that Australia was originally a penal colony to thin out the population of Britain’s overflowing jails, but did you know that the province of Georgia was founded in 1732 as a penal...

Most people know that Australia was originally a penal colony to thin out the population of Britain’s overflowing jails, but did you know that the province of Georgia was founded in 1732 as a penal colony for British criminals (mostly debtors)? Later, criminals were transported to other cities in the South, where plantation owners could bid on them along with the African slaves. It is estimated that a quarter of all British colonists during the eighteenth century, some 50,000 people, arrived that way (Coleman, 1991).