what do me and this girl have in commmon

[Lisa Claus]

I mean penal colonies

many of the british colonies were used as penal colonies and Georgia was founded SPECIFICALLY just as one, that does not mean the other colonies were not used as penal colonies, they were and you already mentioned another one, Jamestown

and yes many of the the prisoners were sent under indentured servitude which amounts pretty much to slavery, unlike though with the African slaves this slavery of whites was what is called an "open system of slavery" as in once their debt to society, period of time or financial debt was paid they were released from the slavery and became free men, unlike the African slaves who were in a "closed system of slavery" which no amount of time would release them from and which they were not criminals to begin with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

many of the British convicts were sent to North America under this system... I mean that was the whole idea of convicts and penal colonies, it wasn't to lock them up in prisons, it was to send them to a place they couldn't escape from and force them to work and colonise the continents... the idea was that these criminals would end up being self governed in the end and in time have their own criminal system... that a class of criminals would emerge from what was orginally a class of criminals and it would up to them how to deal with them. It was to keep the "civilised" people safe from the criminal class... just transport them to other not yet established colonies and basically have them do all the work. The political prisoners often quickly rose to the top of these newly founded hierachies.

The convicts were of the same nature that were sent to Australia, North America was the primary and first penal colonies for britain until the war of independence at which point Australia was used. Britian still holds some territories in America even today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...as_Territories

"A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority.

Historically penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state's (usually colonial) territories, and on a far larger scale than a prison farm. In practice such penal colonies may be little more than slave communities. The British, French, and other colonial empires heavily used North America and other parts of the world as penal colonies to varying degrees, sometimes under the guise of indentured servitude or similar arrangements."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony