Introduction: A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies

[First paragraph] In 1415, the Portuguese Empire used convicts as part of an expeditionary force sent to conquer the Moroccan presidio (fort) of Ceuta in North Africa. This marked the first known use of condemned criminals by a European power in an expansionary imperial project. Numerous other global powers emulated the Portuguese example in the years, decades and centuries that followed. The Spanish, Dutch, Scandinavians, British, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russians and Soviets all transported convicts over large distances of land or sea; as did the independent states of Latin America, including Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina. Transportation was a means of punishment, deterrence, and population management and, through the expropriation of convict labour, of occupying and settling distant frontiers. Convicts travelled multi-directionally, shipped outwards from Europe and other metropolitan centres, within nations, and between colonies and the so-called peripheries of empires and polities. Excepting Antarctica, its extent touched every continent of the globe.