Colonization outside prison in Spain: projects and realities

Abstract

Convict’s transportation to the colonies was developed for the very first time as a new kind of “secondary punishment” by Portugal in the XVth century. England also started a policy of convict’s transportation to the colonies for agricultural or building labour since 1597; and, at the end of the Old Regimen, France and others European countries joined this project of colonization in a general search for new penalties. This work attempts to inquire the Spanish projects and facts of colonization by convicts.