Recent claims by former President Donald Trump, alleging that other countries are emptying their prisons and sending criminals across U.S. borders under President Biden’s watch, have sparked heated debate. While these claims are controversial and lack substantial evidence, they echo a historical precedent that carries a bitter irony: Britain’s practice of transporting convicts to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries. This policy, designed to relieve overcrowded prisons and bolster colonial ambitions, led to devastating consequences for Australia’s Indigenous peoples, including dispossession, enslavement, and genocide. The parallels, though not identical, highlight a recurring theme of using marginalized groups—whether convicts or immigrants—as tools of state policy, often with catastrophic human costs.
Beginning in 1788, Britain sent over 160,000 convicts to Australia, primarily to New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). This was a response to overcrowded prisons and the loss of American colonies as a dumping ground for undesirables after the Revolutionary War. The convicts, ranging from petty thieves to political prisoners, were shipped across the globe to establish settlements in a land already inhabited by Aboriginal peoples for over 60,000 years. The irony lies in the narrative. Much like modern claims of “undesirable” immigrants flooding borders, Britain framed its convicts as a societal burden, yet leveraged them to expand imperial power. These prisoners, often victims of poverty and harsh legal systems, were repurposed as labor to build a colonial foothold. However, their arrival unleashed chaos on Indigenous communities, mirroring the fear-mongering rhetoric of today’s debates about unchecked immigration.
The arrival of British convicts and settlers marked the beginning of a brutal era for Aboriginal peoples. Dispossessed of their lands, they faced violence, disease, and systemic destruction of their cultures. Convicts, often granted land or freedom after serving sentences, became complicit in these atrocities. Frontier violence was rampant, with settlers and former convicts forming militias to “clear” land for farming and grazing. Massacres, such as the Myall Creek massacre of 1838, where a group, including former convicts, slaughtered at least 28 Aboriginal people, exemplify the horrors inflicted.
Enslavement was another grim reality. Aboriginal people were forced into labor on colonial farms, often under brutal conditions. Women faced sexual violence, and entire communities were displaced to make way for settlements. The introduction of European diseases like smallpox decimated populations, with some estimates suggesting up to 70% of Aboriginal people in affected areas perished. By the 19th century, policies of forced assimilation and child removal—later known as the Stolen Generations—further eroded Indigenous cultures, constituting what many scholars now recognize as genocide under international law.
The irony of Trump’s accusation lies in its historical blindness. The United States, itself a former British colony, was shaped by similar dynamics of displacement and violence against Native American peoples. Britain’s use of convicts to colonize Australia parallels the fear-driven narrative of “criminal” immigrants destabilizing society—a trope that oversimplifies complex migration patterns and ignores the humanity of those involved. Just as Britain’s convicts were both victims of a harsh system and perpetrators of colonial violence, modern immigrants are often scapegoated for systemic issues beyond their control.
The atrocities committed in Australia serve as a sobering reminder of what happens when state policies dehumanize one group to exploit another. The British convicts, cast out as societal refuse, became tools of empire, wreaking havoc on Indigenous peoples who bore no responsibility for Britain’s prison crisis. Today’s rhetoric about “emptying prisons” risks similar dehumanization, painting migrants as threats rather than addressing root causes like global inequality or political instability.
Reflecting on Britain’s colonial experiment, the real lesson is not about the dangers of migration or exile but about the consequences of policies built on exclusion and exploitation. The genocide of Aboriginal peoples was not an inevitable outcome of convict transportation but a result of unchecked power, greed, and indifference to Indigenous rights. Modern debates about immigration would benefit from this historical perspective, recognizing that scapegoating vulnerable groups often fuels division and suffering rather than solutions. As we navigate contemporary challenges, the atrocities of Australia’s colonial past urge us to reject fear-driven narratives and prioritize humanity. The irony of history is that those labeled as “criminals” or “outsiders” are often pawns in larger systems of power, while the true costs are borne by the most vulnerable.