The British Empire’s global expansion during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries led to considerable cross-cultural pollination, which in
turn significantly influenced social, political, and legal decision-making
across the colonies. To maintain law and order, Mauritius, a British colonial
possession in the Indian Ocean, introduced intra-colonial convict
transportation, adding to the coerced labour pool circulating between
colonies. For families of transported convicts, the separation was enduring
and most often permanent. The Mauritian convicts shipped to the
Australian penal colonies also lost their cultural and social frameworks.
Subsequently, their experiences and life trajectories in the penal colonies
often depended on their ability to forge new social connections, form
personal relationships, or find patronage.