Australia

In the United States and Europe little is known about Australia.  It's just too far away from everywhere else to leave a mark on people's consciousness.  Talk Germany and people think of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.  Talk Japan and people associate it with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the first atomic bombs ever to be dropped killed thousands of people.  Talk France and wine comes to mind, Russia, the Bolshevik revolution and Mexico is at least home of Speedy Gonzalez.  But Australia, Australia what... 

Now get into Australian history and you'll definitely draw a blank card.  People might know that they were (or are?) some kind of aboriginals.  If you are not British you might even have a hard time remembering that Australia was a British colony and now belongs to the Common Wealth of Nations, with Queen Elizabeth II still as its nominal head of state.   

But the fact that Australia was populated by British criminals and convicts who were sent to that big island because the homeland couldn't deal with them any more, that's news. 

It was in 1849 when Australia was declared a British penal settlement.  By 1850 the first criminals left England on huge ships, to be carried off to this inhospitable land.   

In the second half of the 18th century England continued to transport her thieves and murderers to her colony Australia.  Approximately a total of 50,000 British outlaws and criminals were sent there.  This practice came to a halt between 1775 and 1783, when the British needed all their ships to transport their soldiers to what was at that time the American crown colonies, who were busy fighting a war of independence against London, which, as we all know, they eventually won, thus creating in 1776 the United States of America. 

The first recorded massive transport of criminals took place at the end of 1787, when eleven ships of the first fleet set sail from Portsmouth, carrying 1,350 voluntary and involuntary passengers.  The involuntary passengers were 780 convicts, the oldest of which was an 82 year old woman.  20% of the convicts were women who had been charged with thievery and prostitution.  Most of the criminals had gone to trial in Middlesex, Kent and Sussex. 

By the end of January 1788 they arrived in Botany Bay, but didn't like what they saw there.  So the commander of the fleet ordered it to travel a bit further and they settled eventually in Sydney Cove. 

Between the first arrival of convicts and 1791 two more fleets filled with unfortunate souls rejected from England arrived in Australia.  By 1793 word had gotten out that Australia was after all a fertile continent and the first free settlers arrived, forming the colony of Van Diemen's land, whose name was later changed to Tasmania.  Other settlements were made at Risdon and Hobart.   

More and more convict ships were sent steadily directly from England to Australia between 1812 and 1853.  A total of 67,000 soldiers and convicts arrived on the shores of this continent.  There were about 15,000 Irish citizens who had been convicted of some crime or another in English or Scottish courts.  Many people who broke the law on the old continent were first sent to Australia, to be tried and sentenced there.