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DONNA CHRISTINE HALE

All Rights Reserved

CLIO AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS:
THE USE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODOLOGIES
IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH--THE CASE OF
AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORTATION

By

Donna Christine Hale

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

School of Criminal Justice

1980

ABSTRACT
CLIO AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS:
THE USE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODOLOGIES

IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH--THE CASE OF
AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORTATION

By
Donna Christine Hale

The history of crime, criminology, and the
criminal justice system was largely neglected until
the 19703. This neglect can be primarily attributed
to methodological problems encountered by historians
when applying social science techniques to historical
data.

This study is an attempt to describe these
'methodological problems and to relate how the
historian has endeavored to use the techniques of
the social scientist to understand the history of
society's criminal population, and to trace the
evolution of the criminal justice system apparatus.

The recommendation of this thesis is for an
eclectic approach to the study of the history of
criminology and the criminal justice system by

historians and social scientists.

Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. Gene E. Carte who
had a promising career, and to Rick Entrikin whose
friendship and encouragement of many years has
provided me a promising career.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people who have assisted and encouraged
me during the completion of this thesis.

I would like to thank the members of my graduate
committee for their patience and advice: Professor Marvin
Zalman, Professor Ralph Turner, Professor Timothy Bynum,
and Professor Gordon Stewart.

Not to be forgotten for their love and support are
the members of my family including my parents, my
sisters, and my brother. However, I especially want to
thank my grandparents Earl and Vena Fitzpatrick for the
encouragement they have always given me to continue to
study and excel in school. I also want to express my
gratitude to my dear Childhood friend, Polly Uebel
Clinkenbeard, who has continued to believe in me:

Thank you Polly for being my dearest and best friend.

At this point, I would like to dedicate this thesis
to the memory of Dr. Gene E. Carte, and to my alter
ego: Rick Entrikin. These two men, each in very
special ways, have made it possible fOr me to reach

this point in my career.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION .

II. A CASE STUDY OF QUANTIFICATION IN
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS .

III. A HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION OF GREAT
BRITAIN'S POLICY AND PRACTICE OF
THE TRANSPORTATION OF CRIMINALS

IV. SAMPLING IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH:
AN ANALYSIS OF TWO STUDIES

V. CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY .

iv

Page

46

74

104
118
123

INTRODUCTION

Until the 19703, the study of the historical
roots of crime and its control was largely neglected
by American criudnologists and social historians.

John Conley believes that this lack of historical
research is surprising considering the amount of
historical research conducted on criminal justice
during the 19203 by scholars such as Thorsten Sellin,
Harry E. Barnes, Negley K. Teeters, Roscoe Pound, and
Jerome Hall.1

Conley points out that the succeeding generations
of the above scholars have failed to follow the lead
of their "forefathers" who believed that in order "to
better understand law, crime, and justice, researchers
had to study the historical interrelationship between
these abstract notions and their implementation in
society.2

One of the objectives of this thesis is to describe
why the history of crime has been either overlooked,
or purposely ignored by scholars in both the fields of
history and social sciences. There are three inter-
related reasons for this phenomenon.

First, this oversight can be attributed to the

analysis of criminal statistics and their relation to

the actual incidence of crimes. Both social scientists
and historians view the accuracy of criminal statistics
as a difficult methodological problem and argue that
since most published sources of criminal statistics have
been drawn from court or judicial records, that only
"legal crime," i.e., those crimes that managed to
reach the stage of official adjudication, has been
recorded. Historian Robert Nye believes that these type
of data are not representative of the society's population.3
Historian Barbara Hanawalt, however, disagrees.
She states that:
iMany modern criminologists and

those studying the history of crime

refuse to use trial records because

of the incompleteness of the sample.

John Bellamy dismissed the whole

body of gaol delivery evidence with

the statement that "an accurate

assessment of incidence of criminal 4

misdeeds . . . may never be possible.
Hanawalt relates that in her own study she used the
gaol delivery rolls, in spite of their problems, believing
that otherwise she would only be making impressionistic
statements about crime that would be full of value
judgments. Furthermore, she believes that "the failure
of the subjective method in the study of crime is
depicted in the work of both Bellamy and Tobias. She
writes that a comparison of Bellamy's and Tobias' work

with the studies of L.L. Robson and Eric H. Monkkonen

can reveal the advantages of making an effort to cope
with criminal court records.5
Hanawalt also introduces the seCond.reason why
little historical research has been conducted concerning
crime: quantification. She believes that a quantitative
approach is the only viable way to deal with a large
body of evidence. She points out that although there
are errors and gaps in the records, there are also ways
to compensate for them. She states that her own study
concerning the participation of ordinary people in
criminal activities was benefitted by the quantitative
approach since
the sample for the study (was)

sufficiently large that minor information

losses would not be crucial. Since the

sample (was) drawn from eight very

different counties, local variations can

be detected in the trends being discussed.

Used together with infbrmation from

literary sources and outstanding

individual cases, it is possible to discuss

crime in both its quantitative and

qualitative aspects.

The third, and perhaps the genesis for the study

of crime, was the growth of the field of social history,
or "the study of society from.the bottoulup." This
subdiscipline of history is concerned.with the study
of the family, of immigrants, and of criminals. It
began in the 19503 with the Annales School of Lucien

Febvre and Marc Bloch. Journals specializing in social

history began to appear at the end of the 19503--the
first journal being comparative Studies in SoCiety and
History (1958).7
The rapid growth of social history since the 19503
can be attributed to several developments:

(1) the technical and institutional
changes within the academic
disciplines of social science;

(2) the deliberate specialization
of econonic history to fit in
with the requirements of the
rapidly developing economic
theory and analysis, Of which
the "new economic history" is
an example; and

(3) the remarkable and world wide
growth of sociology as an
academic subject.

Consequently, as a result of the above three
developments, historian E.J. Hobsbawm believes that the
most common definition of social history is that it can
be used in combination with economic history. He
states that economic and social history can be bracketed
together since historians, interested in the "evolution
of theegonomy have subsequently developed an interest
concerned with the structure and changes in society, and
more especially on the relationships between classes and
social groups. . . ."9

Hobsbawmfs definition of social history is directly

applicable to the scope of this thesis. A discussion of

Robert Fogel's and Stanley Engerman's Time on the Gross:

 

The EconOmics Of American Negro Slavery depicts the
interaction between social and economic history.
Chapter One describes how and why historians began
experimenting with the methods of social scientists.
Chapter Two is a case study of the controversial Tim;
on the Cross written by the two previously named
economic historians who applied quantitative techniques
to their analysis of the traditional interpretation of
slavery in America's South. Fogel and Engerman's
research culminated in a two-volume work which created
quite a reaction primarily froulhistorians alarmed by how
quantification had been used to reinterpret this

traditional historical subject. Time on the Cross

 

illustrates the problems quantification presents when
the data are incomplete and fragmentary. It also
depiéts the methodological problems encountered by
historians applying social scientific techniques to
historical data.

Chapter Three is a description of transportation
as punishment in eighteenth and nineteenth century
England. This chapter is to familiarize the reader
with the historical background necessary to understand
the content of Chapter Four which is an analysis of

the quantitative data of two scholars who individually

implemented social scientific methods to interpret an
historical question concerning who was transported and
for what offenses.

Realizing that the reader may be unfamiliar with
fihe terminology used in this interdisciplinary thesis,
I have defined the terminology used in this thesis in
the following pages of this chapter.

Cliometrics or cliometricians: These terms refer
to economic historians or historical economists trained
in econometrics and the application of quantitative
analysis to historical problems.

Content Analysis: This is a research technique
necessary for the objective, systematic, and
quantitative description of the content of communication.

Econometrics: The application of statistical
methods to the study of economic data and problems.

Generalization: A statement of a relationship
between two or more events which can be used in pre-
diction.

History: According to historian Leslie Stephens,
history is a mental construct of the past based on
evidence which has been carefully subjected to tests of
validity and then critically and systematically ordered
and interpreted to present a story of man's interaction

with other men in society.10

Historical Method: For purposes of this thesis,
historian Robert Shafer's definition will be used. He
distinguishes the methods of historians as not "uniquely
their own in most instances. They include methods
developed over several centuries by humanistic scholars
and others which have led to the great growth of the
social and behavioral sciences during the last century.
Insofar as historical study and literature are concerned
with men, events, developments, and institutions fer
their own sakes as examples of human activity, they are
humanistic; insofar as they seek regularities,
generalizations, and even tentative predictability,
they approach the social sciences.11

Quantification: This term refers to improved

 

methods of measurement and more sophisticated methods

of statistical analysis. In this thesis, quantification

is discussed jointly with the computer which is a

technical device for the manipulation of evidence.
Quantitative History: A subdiscipline of history

in which computers and statistics are applied by

historians to interpret their data.

Social Scientists: Scholars trained in bodies of

 

knowledge dealing with man and society: anthropology,
economics, geography, political science, and sociology.

They have developed useful theories and valuable concepts

as they have expanded our understanding of man in his
social setting—-30me have been applied to historical
study. In this thesis, these are: economics and
sociology.

Scientific Method: The basic components of this

 

step-by-step procedure for the solution of problems

are:

1. Recognition of the problem.

2. Definition of the problem in clear,
specific terms.

3. Development of hypotheses.

4. Development of techniques and measuring
instruments that will provide objective
data pertinent to the hypotheses.

5. Collection of data.

6. Analysis of data.

7. Drawing conclusions relative to the

hypothesis based upon the data.

Social Scientific Methods: These include opinion
polls, questionnaire studies, and experimental research.
Methods include certain tests of sampling and statistical
inference.

To conClude this chapter, it is the hope of the
author of this thesis that the material which will be
presented and discussed will reflect that the cross-
fertilization of history and the social sciences can
indeed provide insights into the field of criminology
and criminal justice. In addition, it is anticipated
by the author that the thesis will depict that the

study of the history of crime will reveal the

humanistic side of the past. As historian Leslie
Stephens has reflected:

. . History links us inexorably
to the men and wOmen of the past--to
their art, literature, and thOughts,
to the unmeasurable collective
experience of‘mankind. Without
disparaging the value of the
natural and the social sciences, we
can state unreservedly that those
branches of human knowledge cannot
sufficiently satisfy all of man's
needs. . . . History makes us aware
of life and its bond with all men
in every culture and in every
time--in short, of the human-ness of
man.12

The study of history as it applies to the study
of crime can make us aware of the problems in past
society, and perhaps allow us to better understand
the present criminal justice system, and the reasons

for criminality.

10

INTRODUCTION: FOOTNOTES

1. John A. Conley, A HiStory'of the Oklah0ma
Penal system, 1907-1967, A Dissertation for the
Degree of Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1977, 1.

2. ‘Ibid., 1-2.

 

3. Robert A. Nye, "Crime in Modern Societies: Some
Research Strategies for Historians," Journal Of SOCial
History, Volume 11, Number 4, Summer I978, 492.

 

4. Barbara A. Hanawalt, crime and Conflict in
English Communities 1300-1348, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1979, 17.

5. Ibid.

(I mention Hanawalt's opinion of the studies
of Robson and Monkkonen, since I have examined their
works in this thesis in order to reflect upon the
development of the historical approach to criminology
and criminal justice.)

6. Ibid., 17-18.

 

7. E.J. Hobsbawm, "From Social History to the
History of Society," Daedalus, Vblume 100, Number 1,
(Winter 1971), 22.7

8. Ibid., 23.
9. Ibid., 21-22.

10. Leslie Stephens, Probing the Past: 'A Guide to
the Study and Teaching of HiStOry, Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, Inc., 1974, 8.

11. Robert Jones Shafer, ed., A Guide to Historical
Method, Revised Edition, Homewood,FIlIinois: The Dorsey
Press, 1974, 3.

12. Stephens, o . cit., 13-14.

 

CHAPTER I

THE USE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODS
IN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

In a modern and increasingly
troubled world, the importance of
history and the development of the
American criminal justice system
may be difficult to see. The prob-
lems of our age--particularly those
that control our police, our courts,
and our prisons seem to be too
immediate. The study of these
problems as academic subjects in
a classroom appears to be a decided
contrast to the world of day-by-day
action. But there is a clear
relationship between the classroom
and the "real” world. Everything
that goes on inside the criminal
justice systems for example, depends
on a tradition that is older than
this country.

Only by understanding the
workings of this system--the police,
the courts, and the prisons-~and how
they developed, can a modern student
fully appreciate the complexities and
interrelationships of the system,

This introductory passage from a recently published
volume of historical articles describing the American
criminal justice system illustrates the concern of
criminal justice scholars on the state of historical
research in criminal justice.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss historical

research in criminal juetice by describing the differences

and subsequent problems existent in the respective fields

11

12

of history and the social sciences particularly as
related to social science methodologies adopted and
applied by historians.2
Historical research in criminal justice has not

been at the forefront of criminal justice research.
The reason for this lack of scholarly work can be
attributed to two characteristic problems: (1) the
denigration of nineteenth-century crime statistics
resulting primarily from the desire to establish
rates of offense for entire populations; and, (2) the
general lack of interest in systematically describing
the criminals, or the arrested themselves including
their social origins, demographic characteristics,
offenses, and treatment by the judiciary. Consequently,
the result has been an incomplete history which is
largely dependent upon commission reports and anecdotal
evidence, with an overall emphasis on the development
of police departments, bureaucracies, and institutions
with criminals only appearing in the aggregate when
reports and.newspapers provide summary data. Therefore,
historian Harvey Graff concludes

it is now time to focus our questions

and inquiries directly on the affected

population--to center on the criminals

and their treatment. The history of

social reform and of the creation of

institutional society is in many ways

dependent upon this information, as is

the study of social development and
differentiation, and‘modernization.4

13

However, the subsequent interface between history
and the social sciences (particularly sociology) has
contributed to the rapid growth of the history of crime
as a specific field of academic study. In addition,
this merger has been further evidenced by the publica-

tion of a journal Comparative Studies in Society and

 

History, and extensively developed by national and
international meetings convening to specifically

address problems inherent to the interdisciplinary
approach to the study of the history of crime.
Consequently, this merger has culminated with historians
adopting many of the conceptual and technical meth-
odologies of the social scientists; and similarly, the
social scientists are leaning toward the discipline

of history to provide insights to the historical

development of crime and punishment.

Criminal Justice History as an Area of Research

 

Criminal justice history has been cited as an
area in need of research. The criminal justice
literature produced in the last decade has been des-
cribed as ahistorical in structure, content, and
perspective. Furthermore, recent introductory
criminal justice textbooks completely lack historical
depth. When historical material is present, it is

concentrated in two areas: theories of crime causation

l4

6
and police developments Therefore, unless criminal

justice faculty are providing historical lecture
material to supplement the basic texts, or unless
undergraduate programs offer specific criminal justice
history courses, the students are receiving a narrow,
contemporary view of criminal justice.7 "It is safe

H

to assume, according to John Conley, "that little more

than cursory exposure is the norm."8
There are several reasons why little attention
has been given to the history of criminal justice and
criminology. First, and importantly, criminal justice
studies have been described by George Felkenes as an
American contribution to the university scene offering
"one of the greatest opportunities for the growth of
a viable, necessary, society~oriented educational
experience.” However, Felkenes sees changes occurring
in the field of criminal justice education and describes
the movement away from the emphasis on early criminal
justice programs on vocational or technical training
to a more scholarly approach to the study of criminal
justice. He writes:
The training approach era

was characterized during the 19603

by a great expansion in the number

of criminal justice programs and

graduates, coupled with a generally

low level of sophistication and

knowledge. It was a period of

inadequate quality control and
even less concern with standards

15

of education. There was little
in the way of scientific in-
vestigation of the problem of
crime. The period after 1970
is generally considered to be
the time of rapid growth of
criminal justice programs, with
the availability of LEEP (Law
Enfbrcement Education Program)
funds proyading the major
stimulus.

It was also during this period after 1970 that
research into the history of criminal justice and
criminology began to grow and develop. Prior to this
date,tthe only works existent were those describing the
history of police, of prisons, and of course, legal
history.

Legal history has been an established scholarly
area for some time. However, it is important to note
that legal historians, because of their professional
training have for the most part approached their
studies from a constitutional perspective, resulting
in a focus on appellate courts, especially the federal
Supreme Court. Records of these courts are more
accessible and better organized. Consequently, they
are much easier to work with than having to search
through the scattered files of a clerk of a lower
court or the unorganized records of an urban police

11
department .

16

John Conley indicates that the diverse cultural
heritage of the United States has also served as a
barrier to any synthesis of criminal law or criminal
justice history.12 While there may be an element of
truth to this phenomenon, it is important to indicate
that since the early nineteenth century, the statutory
and common law influence has been very strong.

The classic example of scholarly English criminal

justice history, Sir Leon Radzinowicz' History_of

 

Criminal Law, typifies the concern traditionally

 

associated with English scholars who, due to their
concern with history, have researched the development
of law in England including the areas of crime and
crime control institutions.l3

Consequently, it is evident that the study of
historical criminal justice and criminology is a field
that began to emerge as a discipline of study around
1970. Findings generated by specialized meetings on
the history of crime are proving to be of great
interest to all scholars in the areas of crime,
criminal law, and corrections. Why this interest has
occurred is not clear. Michael Hindus in "The History
of Crime: Not Robbed of Its Potential, But Still on
Probation," speculates that perhaps as a result of the

data being generated, the criminological myths are

being shattered; or, perhaps, historians are contributing

17

new theoretical and methodological insights which
social scientists can apply.14 Therefore, in the
next section of this chapter, the disciplines of
history and the social sciences will be discussed in
order to ascertain methodological techniques shared

and not shared by each academic area.

The Historical Method vs. the Social Scientific Method
When discussing the historian's craft, it is

important to stress that the historian, unlike the

archaeologist, is not simply interested in dating and

describing events, but in understanding them. In order

 

to understand events, it is necessary for the historian
to interpret, classify, and assess these events by
attempting to grasp the relationship of causal and
conceptual interrelation among the chronological
particulars. Therefore, the historian is interested

in generalizations. He concerns himself with them, not
because generalizations constitute the aim.and objective
of his discipline, but because they help to illuminate
the particular facts of history. In addition, the
historian can use the generalizations provided by
anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc. to facilitate

in his mission of understanding the past.15

18

The next question, then, is: What methods do
historians use?

According to Michael Hindus, "as a discipline,
history has no special rules, methodologies, or
theoretical assumptions."16 In agreement, James

Inicardi, states:

. historical inquiry is characterized
by no unique methodological frame of
reference; or stated more directly, there
is no specific research or investigative
strategy we might call an historical method;
historical endeavors simply follow the
prescriptions and prescriptions of scholarly

common sense.

In ”The Problem.of Uniqueness in History" two
historians, Joynt and Rescher, discuss the differences
between history and what are called the "historical
sciences," 143,, biology, anthropology, sociology, and
philology. The authors initially suggest that history
"has no monopoly on the study of the past,” since
representatives of the historical sciences also study
the past. Furthermore, (and counter to opinions of
Hindus and Inicardi), Joynt and Rescher emphasize that
there are no actual distinctions between history and
the historical sciences in research methodologies. The
essential difference appears only in the interplay of

data and theory.18

19

Consequently, once the perception of some
historical problem (which may emerge in the form of
something that is unknown about the past, an interpre-
tation that can be seriously questioned, or an incomplete
or perhaps unsatisfactory explanation of some historical
event) has been discerned,19 the historian locates his
source documents, and substantiates the accuracy of his
evidence. The steps by which he makes his assessment
constitute historical verification which is

required of the researcher on a
multitude of points--from.getting

an author's first name correct to
proving that a document is both
genuine and authentic. Verification
is accordingly conducted on many
planes, and its technique is not
fixed. It relies on attention

to detail, on common-sense reasoning,
on a developed "feel” for history and
chronology, on familiarity with human
behavior and on ever enlarging stores
of information.

The historical researcher mmst discriminate
between what may be valid or false, and truth is reached
through probability-—that the balance of changes, given
certain evidence and document records, did happen in
a specific way. The indicators of the accuracy of a
document and the reliability of data as fact reinforce
one another to increase probability. And in cases
where direct signs may not be available, "a concurrence

of indirect signs will establish proof."21

20

The pursuit of increased probability leads the
historical researcher to any variety of inquiries
regarding each source:

- What is the source?

What does it state?

Who is its author?

What do we know about the author?

What is his credibility?

How do his statements compare with others

on the same point?

- Is what he says both logical and possible?

- What is the relationship in time and space
between the author and his statements? 2

It is important to indicate that there are three
types of historical sources: (1) primary or original
sources; (2) secondary sources based on primary sources
which are derivative and interpretive; and, (3) tertiary
sources which are exemplified by most history textbooks,
and are sources which are based on secondary sources.

History differs from the social sciences in that
it is essentially a study of Change over time, while
social science is a study of man and his activities in
a limited and usually fairly current situation.23
The greatest difference between the social sciences
and history, however, lies with the goals of their
investigations. The social sciences, generally
speaking, seek to abstract from their investigations
generalizations regarding the behavior of men in
social, economic, geographic, psychological, political

and religious situations. The resultant generalizations,

21

though they are not laws of behavior, are useful in
understanding man, and for some social scientists,
they are potentially useful in learning to control
man's behavior. The historian, is searching for
unique, nonrecurring events in man's past. Thus he
is concerned with the particular rather than with
the general. . . . His generalizations, however,
tend to be applicable only to the particular time and
events under study. Those of the social scientists
are held to be applicable to the present and to the
future. But contrary to the charge of some historians,
generalizations from the social sciences are just
that-~generalizations. They are not held to be
universal, applicable for all times and in all situations
in the future. In other words, social scientiSts in
[general do not claim to have discovered absolute,
immutab 1e laws .

After the historian has identified the sources
which provide evidence on his t0pic, he then must
raise questions concerning their validity. Essentially,
he asks two major questions about each source: (1) is
the source authentic? (2) Is it reliable?

Once the authenticity of the source has been
established by making sure that it meets the stipulations

discussed on the preceding page pertaining to reliability

22

of data, the historian raises the second question: How
reliable is the source? To ascertain this, the historian
must apply tests of internal criticism, Since each
source has been produced by a human being, the historian
attempts first to identify the author of the source.
He needs to have information about two basic criteria
concerning the author: (1) his ability to report
accurately, and (2) his willingness to report truthfully.

In addition to the questions about an author of a
source, the historian criticizes his sources internally
by checking on the logical consistency of the author's
presentation, and, if possible, how well it can be
corroborated by other evidence. It is also important
for the historian to understand the spirit of the age
and the language of the time if his inquiry into the
reliability of a source is to aid him.in his search for
evidence. For these reasons, the historian sometimes
‘must make his case fer the reliability of a source on
intuitive grounds.

As mentioned above, the historian readily
acknowledges the role of intuition in the methodology
of his investigations. The social scientist, however,
is prone to reject intuition as a fruitful mode of
research. Even though it may be useful in the formu-
lation of hypotheses, intuition has no place in the

actual conduct of social research. Since intuition is

23

necessary to historical research, it runs counter to
the methodological canons of research in the social
sciences. The problem is that historians sometimes
overplay the contributions of intuitive insight to
their studies when more rigorous social science
methods might be applied. At the same time, it must
be recognized that many facets of the past simply will
not yield to social science methods.25
What is becoming apparent to an increasing number
of historians is that the social sciences, properly
applied, offer some new possibilities for probing the
past. In spite of the misgivings of some historians,
a new approach to analytical history which employs
methods, concepts, and theories from.the social
sciences promises to enhance our knowledge of man in
the past--and hence our understanding of man in the

present.26

History and the Social Sciences: A Merger?

 

In this section of the chapter, a discussion of
why historians are beginning to adopt many of the
conceptual models of the social sciences will be
presented.

Michael Hindus believes that though the reasons
for this development are unclear, the trend of

historians implementing social science methodologies

24

has evolved in three distinct stages.

The first involved the overshadowing of
institutional/political history which had dominated
postwar scholarship, and to begin exploring--in the
past-~some of the staple fields of sociological
inquiry, particularly the history of the family, of
social and geographical mobility, and of crime and
justice. In so doing, the historian concentrated
more on social processes, and less on finite events.
Historians soon discovered, however, that they were
often ill-equipped for this enterprise. As a result,
many obtained skills in quantitative methods.27

Consequently, the second and more significant
stage developed in which historians were using more
social scientific sources and data. Historians, in
effect, found that in order to understand the social
processes, rather than finite events, they needed to
employ different kinds of data which required new
skills to analyze properly. Rather than drawing
impressionistic conclusions from a sample of literary
evidence, historians now collected large amounts of
mundane data. It became possible for the first time
to measure a social phenomenon in the past and compare
and contrast it with contemporary observations. This
alone may be the most significant single contribution

of recent historiography.28

25

The third and last stage, and according to
Hindus, the inevitable result of the first two, was
that historians adopted a more explicit concern with
the theoretical implications of their findings. Like
the social scientists, they began to weave their data
into hypotheses. At this point, many historians became
social scientists by rigorously testing theory against
data.29

Due to the merger of history with the social
sciences and the subsequent concentration on social
processes, the usage of different data sources, and a
concern with theoretical implications of their findings,
historians have encountered several problems.

The first problem.concerns crime statistics and
the second problem (which Hindus attributes as a
direct result of crime statistics) is the general lack
of interest in systematically describing the criminals,
or the arrested themselves.30 (As stated earlier in
this chapter, these same two problems were cited by
another author as an explanation as to why historical
research in criminal justice has been neglected.) In

the next section of this chapter, these concerns will

be addressed.

26

Historians and Statistical Analysis

Beginning in the early twentieth century
(approximately 1910), because of the general development
of the social sciences along with the development of
subdisciplines of history, gyg,, political history,
economic history, and social history, the intellectual
climate became conducive for historians to seek greater
precision through expanded usage of quantitative data
and techniques. The culmination of this period was
reached in 1945 when a project which involved social
scientists, statisticians, and historians resulted in
a publication entitled Historical Statistics of the
the united States (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1949).
Following this pUblication, the techniques within the
historical profession for statistical rigor and the
systematic investigation of statistical data became

much more pronounced.31

Availability of Statistical Data

From.the eighteenth century, bureaucrats and
publicists have been collecting and publishing
quantitative data; and, since the early nineteenth
century, statistical societies and individual
scientists have been developing the principles of
their proper compilation and interpretation, all

without muCh effect upon the main stream of historical

27

writing.32

However, to do quantitative work on a topic in
the past, it is not enough to know a little about
modern data and the general principles of statistical
procedure; it is also necessary to know a good bit about
the quantified and quantifiable data of the period and
the place on which one is working: how was such data
prepared, by whom, and fer what purpose; and with what
confidence can it be used for various calculations?33

Sources of crime statistics traditionally used
have been either police arrest records or (particularly
for the nineteenth century and before) case records
from the lower criminal courts. However, the problem
with this type of data pertains to whether official
statistics can provide useful information for the study
of crime? It has been pointed out by one historian
that court case records can clearly provide useful
data for the study of court functions. He also states
that arrest statistics can be useful to the extent
that they, if accurate, can be an important data for
a study of what the police actually did. However, he
stresses that it is:mudh less clear that such data can
be of much help for statistical studies of criminals

for two reasons.34

28

First of all, the records are not likely to be
a good sample of the population of criminals, since
those arrested would not be a random sampling of those
actually engaged in criminal activity. The second
weakness of studies based primarily on statistics is
that the statistical analysis of court and arrest
data cannot answer the most interesting questions about
crime-~questions about criminal careers, the economics
of crime, the influence of crime on political power
and.criminal justice, or the relationship of crime
to urban geography. A primarily statistical approach
to crime history may often greatly limit the range of
questions that can be asked.35

However, historian Barbara Hanawalt in her

recently published (1979) book Crime and Conflict in

 

English Communities 1300-1348 believes that it is

 

possible to present a broad criminological study
which, is both descriptive and analytic, by combining

I?

a statistical approach to criminal court data

with an analysis of individual cases and contemporary
literary references to crime, ."36

Hanawalt states that this methodology is applicable
to both the investigator of medieval England (her

study), and to the investigator studying crime in modern

society due to the shared similarities including the legal

29

mechanisms for detection, arrest, and trial, the
ecological setting of the crimes which would encompass
the living conditions of the participants, their
kinship and community ties, their means of livelihood,
their power relationships, and the tensions they
might resolve through criminal means. Hanawalt

contends:

. With this background one may
inquire what the crimes were, how, where,
and when they were committed, and who
committed them, The relationship between
the two participants in the criminal data
tells much about crime and about social
interactions in general. Furthermore,
the historian of medieval England and
the modern criminologist, are not content
to describe the phenomenon of crime but
want to know as well what motivated
criminal actions and what the impact of
crime was on the society.37

Another important source of information which
has been ignored in the past and can answer important
quantitative questions pertaining to crime patterns
in general and the criminal specifically are jail
(or gaol) registers. These jail registers for the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are
surprisingly detailed and complete documents and are
widely available for large regions of Canada, mmeh

of the United States, and parts of Great Britain as
38
well.

30

These jail registers provide a wealth of direct
information on both the individual criminal and on the
offense for which he or she had been detained. In most
cases the register information is complete with the
following data recorded for each inmate: birthplace,
religion, place of residence, occupation, age, sex,
marital status, moral habits (temperate or intemperate),
and level of literacy or education. These variables
help to form a collective portrait of the accused
members of the population and are essential, when
joined with names, in tracing criminals to other
sources through methods of nominal record-linkage.
Additionally, jail registers provide full data on the
alleged crime and judicial treatment: date of committal,
offense, authorities' adjudication, sentence (guilty/
innocent, fine, place and period of incarceration,
and date of discharge). Importantly, a cross-reference
number corresponding to the relevant court docket may
be included in each entry. Therefore, if these court
dockets are joined with the registry information, mmeh
information can be derived pertaining to how the law
was manipulated in society.39

Through the use of jail registers, a collective
portrait of those accused of a crime can be compiled
based on enthno-religious, class or occupational,

residential, and demographic information provided for

31

each listing on the jail register. This ”composite”
will allow historians to make new statements regarding
the accused, and comparisons can be made by relating
religion, birthplace, sex, age, or occupation to the
type of crime committed, to the rates of acquittal or
conviction, and to the forms and magnitude of punishment.
Insights into the mechanisms of social differentiation,
social visibility, social distance, and community
prejudice on varying units of analysis can be determined
by comparison of the subpopulations represented with
comparable tabulations of the entire population.40
Jail registers can answer theoretical questions
concerning urban-rural disparities by examining place-of-
residence data. These data are useful for analysis of
urban-rural disparities concerning apprehended criminals,
types of crimes committed, and a number of offenses.
The feasibility of this type of research is a consequence
of the jail registers being organized on the county level,
encompassing towns and countryside, as well as urban
centers.41
Proponents for the usage of jail records believe
that this type of data is helpful in determining the
lifestyles and experiences of different groups of

individuals, e.g., youths, prostitutes, drunkards

and vagrants. Jail records offer statistics of

32

recidivism.and the frequency of certain individuals'
reappearances; therefore, our understanding of
lifestyles, economic insecurity, and the possible
uses of jail are broadened. Researchers have dis-
covered that jails may often have functioned as
quasi-welfare institutions, providing care for the
elderly, the indigent, and those without family or
voluntary associations to protect them.42
It must be stressed, however, that the employment
of jail registers is not a simple process. One
technical problem.encountered is nominal record-
linkage which occurs when a researcher is tracing
criminals either through the registers from year to
year, place to place, or to other sources. There are
also methodological and interpretative questions to
consider, since it is evident that all of those who
committed a criminal offense will not be located in
the registers, or for that matter even apprehended.43
Jacob Price indicates that even imperfect data
can tell us a lot, if handled prudently. But, over
ambitious use can create probleme. When comparing
data over time or space, biases or inadequacies in
recording must not shift significantly. If this is

not considered, contrasts may appear whiCh reflect

not underlying social realities, but mechanical

33

differences in the data collection process.

Another reason suggested for ignoring crime
statistics is that most historians have not been
trained in social history techniques, iy§,, statistical
analysis and computer usage. These techniques have
assisted in the development of social history, or what

has been described as "history from the bottomlup.”

Historians and the Computer

 

Historians have borrowed statistical techniques
from.the social scientists, and, concurrently, they
have borrowed the tool for simplifying quantification:
the computer. Historian Lawrence Stone indicates that
there are benefits for computer usage since large
amounts of data can be processed at rapid speed.
However, the data which the computer can process has
to be necessarily limited in order to allow a rapid
processing time. Stone states that the data has to
be in strict categories, and the questions presented
to the computer must be addressed in extremely clear,
precise, and logical format. While it is true that
the computer can answer more questions and test more
multiple correlations than any human mind could handle
in a life time, the data must be given to the computer

in precise package form arranged in clearly defined

34

categories, which, according to Stone, may well distort
the complexity and uncertainty of the reality.
Additionally, the preparation of the material for the
computer is immensely time-consuming, so that while
the computer may allow for the use of larger and
more complex analysis of variables, it may slow down
research rather than speed it up. Lastly, and perhaps
most importantly, computer usage precludes the
iterative process with sources by which the historian
normally thinks, since the historian must now wait
until the print-out is available before testing
hunches.45 Lawrence Stone recommends that the
computer is:

a machine in the elementary use of

which most professional research

historians should henceforth be

trained--a sixaweek course is

ample for that purpose--but it is

one which should only be employed

' as the choice of last resort.

Wherever possible, quantitative

historians are well advised to

work with smaller samples and to

use a hand calculator. Despite its

undeniable and unique virtues, the

computer is by no means the answer

to the social historian's prayer 46

that once it was hoped it might be.

However, since the mid-19603, many historians

have completed cram courses in machine languages
and a growing minority are undertaking comprehensive

instructional programs to acquire a basic understanding

35

of computers. Beginning with the summer of 1965,
pre-and postdoctoral historians have taken courses
in computerized historical data analysis offered
annually by the Inter-University Consortium at the
University of Michigan.47

The computer can be applied to history as an
aid in the interpretation of voting and legislative
roll-call data, economic statistics, social characteristics,
manuscript, and census materials. It can also be used

to find answers to important problems which are not

otherwise amenable to conventional methods of research.

Quantification

 

Since historians have turned more to statistical
techniques and the computer, or as one historian has
described it as ”history turning to quantification and

its handmaiden, the computer,”48

the impact on the
field of history has been so pervasive that within the
past few years a fascinating field has developed known
as quantitative history.

Quantification in history has stimulated studies
of social and geographic mobility, urban history,
economic history, and the history of the family.

Computer techniques have contributed to the continued

development of the field by facilitating linkage of

36

data from.such varied sources as census returns, tax
assessments, deeds, county histories, parish registers,
city directories, and similar documents.

The quantitative methods applied to historical
research are no different from other social science
methods: they possess certain advantages and suffer
certain limitations. Among the former are their
ability to render increased precision to the treatments
of numerical data, their capacity to yield a more
complete analysis of certain historical evidence, and
their efficiency in imparting greater insights into
actions of large groups, gyg., voting patterns, social
mobility, demographic factors, and conduct of legislative
bodies. The foremost limitation of quantitative methods
(as indicated by Lawrence Stone) is their inapplica-
bility to a considerable amount of historical evidence,
since classificatory schemes are frequently necessary
to apply statistical procedures, and this operation
requires forcing of data into categories. At best
quantification is simply "a convenient arrangement of

"49 and for that reason it is not

the evidence,
superior to some other arrangement.

Mereover, statistical techniques often require
the use of a population of data samples, and thus

certitude about such results can never be guaranteed.

37

This, however, is equally true of the traditional
sampling of manuscript sources, for while the historian
ideally exhausts all sources pertinent to his topic,

in practice, he often falls short of his goal. Reasons
as the restrictions on release of certain government
documents, the overwhelming number of sources available
on some topics, and the paucity of sources on others,
and the sheer limitations on time, prevent the attainment
of ideals. Hence, he is compelled to use a "sample"
though he generally prefers not to use that term,
Finally, the findings of a quantitative study no more
speak for themselves than do the facts in conventional
historical research; they must also be interpreted if

they are to convey any meaning.50

Content Analysis

 

One effective use of quantification is content
analysis. This method may be described as the counting
of the frequency of appearance of words, phrases,
and symbols in a given body of literature. The purpose
of content analysis is not merely to count, however,
but to explore attitudes and patterns of thought.

Based on the assumption that the frequent recurrence
of certain expressions is indicative of inward feelings,

content analysis often provides clues which may not be

38

verified through impressionistic analysis.
All content analysis involves some of the same

principles. After a working hypothesis has been
chosen, the sources to be studied are also selected,
if there is a choice. (Some research may involve a
hypothesis so closely connected to a specific source
that no choice is possible.) If the body of material
to be studied is large, there may be the additional
problem.of selecting a sample. Procedures are
specified, including the implications, words, or (in
more complex procedures) contexts to be identified.
A measurement device is then adopted and applied to the
text in order to establish the frequency of occurrence
for certain communications--words, situations, attitudes,
issues, etc. The investigator then infers the appropriate
conclusions from.the resulting measurement.51

Content analysis has been used in a number of
academic disciplines including law, art, music,
literature, marketing, journalismn and.psychology.
In history, content analysis has been used to test,
for example, the commonly accepted thesis that between
1825 and 1870 Americans thought of the western interior
as a great desert. Another example is the work of

Richard Merritt (which was primarily a frequency count)

in which he ascertained when the English colonies began

39

to consider themselves.Americans. The possibility

of the application of content analysis to the field
of criminal justice and criminology is highly feasible
by usage of newspaper accounts to measure public
reactions to the various societal and criminal events
that have occurred in American history.

Since the rapid growth of computer technology in
the 19503, more complex systems of content analysis
have been developed to permit more categories of
ideas to be analyzed and larger sets of data to be
used. However, it is usually necessary to reduce
similar ideas, expressed in various words, to some
sort of common denominator.

Furthermore, the technique of content analysis
demands an understanding of word symbols as they were
used in the past, capturing significant nuances and
understanding the favorable and unfavorable contents
in which an otherwise neutral word may have been
placed.52

Despite the great potential of content analysis,
the method must be used with great care. Like most
quantitative techniques, it is a helpful tool, but is
unlikely to be of much use if other methods are not
ueed to supplement it. Neither is it a substitute for

a thorough knowledge of the sources and of the general

4O

historical context of the era that produced them.
Failure to understand that point can lead to serious
difficulty, especially because there are limits to the

meanings that codes and categories can convey.53

The Case Study Method

 

Another method of historical research is the case
study method. “Wilbur R. Miller uses this technique in

his Cops and Bobbies: Police Authority in New York

 

and London, 1830-1870. In his study Miller has kept

 

quantitative information at a minimum, and relies
primarily on various textual materials based upon
published and unpublished records of the two police
departments, as well as other conventional sources as
newspapers, pamphlets, and popular literature to

construct his narrative. The focus of Cops and Bobbies

 

is on the evolutionary differences in organizational
structure, cultural patterns, and contrasting styles
of police authority. Miller compares the two different
strategies of legitimation pursued by the police forces
interacted with legal and judicial institutions. He
also discusses police recruitment patterns in each
society. The result is a study which combines

abundant factual detail with various sociological

analyses, and suggests new directions and research

41

possibilities in the study of policing functions in
Western societies.

Another historian, Douglas Greenberg, skillfully
combined literary and manuscript sources, quotations,
anecdotes, and secondary material with a "computer
assisted" analysis of 5,297 colonial New York
criminal cases for which records did exist.

Greenberg's book Crime and Law Enforcement in

 

the Colony of New Yorkygl69l-l776 has been described

 

as ahistorical since he had accounted for geography,
demography, and sociology, but had neglected history.
The historical events that were either "glossed over
or completely ignored” were events such as changes in
royal governors, major slave conspiracies, the Zenger
case, or the French and Indian War. A critic firmly
states that "history does not happen in a vacuum,
Dates, internal events, and changes, and even external
factors are important for understanding what did

happen.”54

42

CHAPTER I: FOOTNOTES

1. Joseph M. Hawes, ed., Law and Order in American
Histqu, Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press,
1979, 3.

 

2. I would like to inform.the reader that in this
thesis I am.not even touChing the area of psychohistory;
what I am concerned with is primarily law and sociology,
or law and social science quantitative research methods,
since these are the kinds of methods which tend to be
used.by sociologists, political scientists, and criminal
justice scholars.

3. Harvey J. Graff, "Crime and Punishment in the
Nineteenth Century: A New Look at the Criminal,"
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 7,
Number 3, (Winter 1977), 477-478.

4. Ibid., 478.

5. John A. Conley, "Criminal Justice History as
a Field of Research: A Review of the Literature,
1960-1975,” Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 5,
Number 1, 1977, 13.

6. page. 14.

 

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

As Conley discusses in this article there are
other indicators that support the contention that
history is not a priority in criminal justice education
and research. Conley cites as one example a 1975
publication in which E. Viano had stressed that more
applied research should be done in criminal justice
stating that "what matters is how future generations
will judge our contribution in solving major social
problems." But, Conley writes that while Viano
obviously appreciated the role of history, his book
did not have any model for or thrust toward historical
analysis.

9. George T. Felkenes, "The Criminal Justice
Component in an Educational Institution," Journal of
>Criminal Justice, Volume 7, Number 2, (Summer 1979),
101n102.

 

43

10. Ibid.

11. Conley, op._gi£., 15.
12. Ibid.

13. Ibid., 15-17.

14. Michael S. Hindus, "The History of Crime: Not
Robbed of Its Potential, but Still on Probation,”
Criminology Review Yearbook, eds. , Messinger, Sheldon L.,

and Bittner, Egon, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications,
1979, 217.

 

15. Carey B. Joynt, and Nicholas Rescher, ”The
Problem of Uniqueness in History," in George H. Nadel, ed.,
Selected Essays from History and Theory, New York:
Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965, 6~7.

 

l6. Hindus, 9p. cit., 217.

17. James A. Inciardi, Block, Alan A. and
Hallowell, Lyle A. Historical Approaches to Crime,
Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1977, 8.

 

18. Carey B. Joynt, and Rescher, Nicholas,
9.212112... 4.

l9. Lester D. Stephens, Probinggthe Past: A Guide

to the Study and Teaching of History, Boston: Allyn
and'Bacon, Inc. , 1974, 22.

 

20. Jacques Barzun, and Henry F. Graff, The Modern
Researcher, New York. Harcourt, Brace and World, 1957,

EBT7TFT"
21. Ibid.

 

22. 323g.

23. Lester D. Stephens, op. cit., 96.
24. Ipid , 96-97.

25. Ibid., 97.

26. Ibid.

—---‘.

27. Hindus, gpy_cit., 217.

44

28. Ibid., 218.

29. Ibid.

30. Henry J. Graff, op. cit., 478.

31. Jacob M. Price, "Recent Quantitative Work in
History: A Survey of the Main Trends," in Histogy
and Theory, Volume 8, Number 3, 1969, 3.

32. Ibid., 1.

33. Ibid., 1.

 

34. Mark Haller, ”Historians and the History of
American Urban Crime," A Paper Presented at the 1979
Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice
Sciences, 1.

35. p939, 1-2.

36. Barbara A. Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict in
English Communities 1300-1348, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
HarvardUniversity Press, 1979, 2.

 

 

37. Ibid.

 

38. Harvey J. Graff, 0p. cip., 478.
39. Ibid., 479.
40. Ibid., 481.

 

41. Ipid., 481-482.
42. Ibid., 482-483.
43. Ibid., 490.

44. JacobiM. Price, "Quantifying Colonial America:
A Comment on Nash and‘Warden, " Journal of Interdisciplinary

 

Higpgry, Volume 6, Number 4, Spring 1976, 701.

45. It is important to state that many social
scientists who use on— line computers "iterate” with
results analogous to those ways that historians do
while reading sources.

45

46. Lawrence Stone, ”History and Social Sciences
in the Twentieth Century," in The Future of History,
edited by Charles F. Delzell, Nashville, Tennessee:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1977, 27.

 

47. Robert P. Swierenga, ”Computers and American
History: The Impact of the "New" Generation," The
Journal of American History, Volume 60, Number 47‘
March 1974, 1050.

 

48. Richard E. Beringer, Historical Analysis:
Contemporary Approaches to CliO'leraft, New York:
John Wiley and Sons, 1978, 193.

 

 

49. Stone, pp. cit., 27.
50. Richard E. Beringer, op. cit., 194.

 

51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

 

CHAPTER II

A CASE STUDY OF QUANTIFICATION
IN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

In this chapter the findings and.methodologies

of a study conducted by two economic historians applying

quantitative techniques to the "traditional interpre-

tation" of the American slavery system will be pre-

sented and discussed. It is important to examine

this study for several reasons:

(1)

(2)

It was the first major research completed
illustrating the role of mathematics
and statistics (quantification) in
historical analysis. Furthermore, the
methods used are very important to

the historical approach to criminology
and criminal justice also relying on
quantifiable data.

It supports Hindus' statement that

the findings of the history of crime
may be shattering myths concerning

the topic and that new theoretical

and methodological insights have
provided new findings.1 Hindus'

statement can also be extended to

AA

47

Fogel and Engerman's findings, since

these authors acknowledge that there
exists an absolute truth con-
cerning social reality, that
this truth is apprehensible,
and that once discovered the
truth will replace previously
held "myths" more or less
automatically, with socially
beneficial results.

(3) It illustrates (as discussed in Chapter 1)
how the historian locates source documents
and substantiates the accuracy of evidence.
The study also depicts how historical
interpretation is dependent upon the
reliability and validity of the historian's
source materials.

The discussion of this chapter relies on critical
reviews of Time on the Cross. These reviews indicate
how the authors of the book differ interpretatively
from the traditional historian of American slavery;
and these critiques shed a great deal of light onto
the methodologies that the authors used which are

very apropos to the scope of this thesis.

One critic has view Time on the Cross as

 

not . . . a full theoretical
development nor an empirically
profound, focused operation.
Rather, (the critic continues)

it is a set of closely related
essays criticizing and "correcting"
what the authors see as some

48

traditional myths of slavery.
They concern themselves with
both myths and methods, and
their work becomes somewhat
difficult to review in any
concise manner precisely
because it is vulnerable to
as many myth-charges and
methodological criticisms,

on more levels of abstraction
and operation than the wgrks
on which it is critical.

Quantitative History and Economic History

 

Before proceeding to discuss Time on the Cross,

 

it is necessary to describe quantitative history
as it applies to economic history.

Since the 19303 historical research has been
making rapidly increasing use of quantitative sources
and of calculative and quantitative procedures.
However, it is important to emphasize from the
genesis of this discussion that quantitative history,
as Francois Furet indicates,

has come to be used so sweepingly
that it covers almost everything,
from critical use of the simple
enumerations of seventeenth-
century political arithmeticians,
to systematic application of
mathematical models in the
reconstruction of the past.
Sometimes quantitative history
refers to a type of source,
sometimes to a type of procedure;
always in some way or other,
explicit or not, to a type of
conceptualization of the past.4

49

In this thesis quantitative history will be
defined as referring to the aims and researches of
economic historians, who advocate total and systematic
quantification which they view as indispensable both
for the elimination of arbitrariness in selecting
data and for the use of mathematical models in their
processing.
Economic history, being at the intersection of
two disciplines, has often been involved in debates
about methods and techniques. Before the 19603,
however, these debates were generally between economic
historians and economists, and.were concerned with
the relative usefulness of abstract theory and of
detailed institutional knowledge in understanding the
past world and in prescribing policies for the
contemporary situation.6 One historian comments that
it seems safe to say that prior to
Werld War II most economic historians
fought their interdisciplinary battles
mainly against economic theorists, and,
in their own work, more often followed
the style and methods of historians
rather than those of economists.
In the period after world War II, most particularly
in the late 19503 and 19603, there occurred a significant
shift in the training and interests of economic historians.

A group of economic historians trained primarily as

economists began to engage in methodological debates

50

the.historians who dominated the field.8

The work of the post~l9503 generation of economic
historians was initially called the ”new economic
history,” but is also known as "econometric history,”

and "Cliometrics."9

This level of quantification was
introduced when statistical procedures were applied
to incomplete or otherwise inadequate data in order
to develop series that could be subjected to the
application of economic theory. Importantly,
quantitative work greatly expanded throughout the 19603
because of the use of the computer.10
Consequently, economic history is both an
historical and empirical subject, concerned with
using documentary records of the past to understand
what happened, no matter how much economics and
economic theory intrude and shape it.11
For purposes of this thesis the work by two
historians trained in economics, who in their book
Time on the Cross applied the methods of Cliometrics;
and, subsequently created much controversy primarily

within the history profession, will be the focus of

this chapter.

51

Focus and Content of Time on the Cross

Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman proposed to
correct what they identify as a commonly accepted
”traditional interpretation” of the American slave
system, first propagated by the abolitionists, which
Fogel and Engerman assert emerged from an "economic
indictment of slavery." The "traditional interpre-
tation" consists of the fellowing five propositions:

1. that slavery was generally an
unprofitable investment, or
depended on a trade in slaves
to be profitable, except on
new, highly fertile land;

2. that slavery was economically moribund;

3. that slave labor, and agricultural
production based on slave labor, was
economically inefficient;

4. that slavery caused the economy of
the South to stagnate, or at least
retarded its growth, during the
antebellum era; and,

5. that slavery provided extremely harsh
material conditions of life for the
typical slave.12

Fogel and Engerman believe that a racist ”myth of
black incompetence” has drawn sustenance fromlthis
view of slavery which incorrectly emphasizes the
Oppressiveness and brutality of the system, leading
to the unjustified inference that slavery left a

lasting negative imprint on black personality, family

structure, and culture.13

52

Fogel and Engerman attempted to negate the
”traditional interpretation” by presenting a more
optimistic picture of the slave system and its
impact, emphasizing the systemis rationality and
beneficience. They hypothesized that:

1. slave women were not exploited
sexually, nor was the slave
family undermined by sales;

2. planters gave their slaves ample
food, clothing, shelter, and
medical attention, and offered
them opportunities to improve
their lot within the system; and,

3. rational management and a responsive
labor force produced substantial
profits and contributed to rapid
economifi development in the
south.

Methodology of Time on the Cross

 

It is important to reiterate the furor that

this book created in the academic milieu. The
tremendous outcry by historians and social scientists
resulting in special conferences convening to discuss
the book and its methodologies depicts the concern
of professional academicians. Their primary concern
was with the application of the statistical methods
to the traditional interpretation of slavery which
historians had established in the century and a half

before when slavery had been the object of intense

53

scrutiny by the historical profession.

The authors of Time on the Cross are representatives

 

of cliometrics, which refers to economic historians
or historical economists trained in econometrics and
the application of quantitative analysis to historical
problems. Cliometricians believe that they can better
evaluate events and social conditions than the
traditional historian since they can apply computer
usage to large amounts of information which has never
been interpreted by the traditional historians. Therefore,
through the use of these new techniques, new discoveries
can be provided.15

By using statistical analysis (which most
historians are unfamiliar), Fogel and Engerman have
attacked many of the assumptions antislavery advocates
have cherished for two hundred years. In addition,
the authors devised an ingenious stylistic method to
present their findings to the general reader. They
divided their work into two short volumes, the first
of which contains the basic argument and the second
which presents the technical documentation. The
most disconcerting aspect of this type of presentation
is that all the documentation - including footnotes
and technical explanations - is in the second volume.

Consequently, the reader of the first volume is compelled

54

to accept what he reads on blind faith; since he has
no way of checking the evidence, or even discerning
what the evidence is without having the second
volume, or "handbook," to substantiate the statements
of the first volume. Even more alarming, as one
critic has commented is that:

Information on the existence of a

supplement is located only in two

obscure places not likely to be

read by the average reader-—the

publisher's note and ghe back page
of the cover jacket.1

Problems with Fogel and Engerman's Data Sources

There are several apparent difficulties with the
data sources examined by the authors. First of all,
they base their statement that the typical slave was
not poorly fed on the manuscript census data of 1860
which specified food crop calculations fer an unspecified
number of large rural plantations for the year 1860.
However, critics of Time on the Cross have indicated
that food crops were not usually produced for market,
so accurate records were often not kept, and enumerators
and planters together made a rough estimate of food
actually produced. In addition, Fogel and Engerman
base their estimates of meat production on national
(or northern) averages of crops fed to meat animals,

slaughter ratios, and dressed weight of animals for

55

years in the later nineteenth or even twentieth
centuries since the necessary figures do not exist
for the antebellum south. They consistently
substitute assumptions which raise slave consumption
of the higher quality foods.17
Another serious issue is that a number of potential
weaknesses of the figures cannot be discussed, since
not enough data was provided. Additionally, the size
of the sample, its geographical distribution, potential
biases resulting from.the failure to stratify the
original sample along the dimensions of size or
proximity to urban centers, and the representativeness
of the year chosen all pose potential problems.18
Furthermore, when Fogel and Engerman discuss the
sick days for slaves, the mortality rates for slaves,
their conclusions rest on scanty data. The estimate
of days lost through illness is based on the
experiences of only 545 field workers on 15 plantations,
not on a representative sample. (The authors do not
state how many plantations their sample contains.)
Census data and plantation records give only incomplete
and unreliable returns on mortality, especially of
slaves and most especially of infants, and therefore,
should have been subjected to the same sort of

criticisms addressed to the reports of observers.19

56

Fogel and Engerman argue that the sexual exploitation
of female slaves was quite rare, that in fact "the share

of Negro children fathered by whites on slave plantations

probably averaged between 1 and 2 percent.20

Critics Frank Tipton and Clarence Walker note that
Fogel and Engerman have proposed several arguments in
the source volume to support the statement above cited.
The critics indicate:

. First, though the census data
are inconclusive, they can give the
range within which the true ratio
might lie. The censuses report that
the share of mulattoes in the slave
population rose from 7.7 per cent in
1850 to 10.4 per cent in 1860. The
definition of "mulatto" used by the
enumerators is unknown, so the
proportion of mulattoes who might have
had mulatto children even if the other
parent had been black is also unknown.
But if the enumerators' perceptions are
assumed to have remained constant,
the lower limit of the percentage of
slave children fathered by whites
should lie between 0.61 and 6.05 per
cent, and the upper limit between 8.89
and 13.87 per cent. (11, 103-107).
Second, an intergenerational model
with the percentage of slave children
fathered by whites set arbitrarily at
one per cent yields fluctuations in
the mulatto population roughly
corresponding to the 1850 and 1860
census results (11, 107-111). Third,
the percentage of Caucasian genes
found in present American black
populations indicate rates of mis-
cegenation of about one per cent in
the rural south and five per cent in
the urban north (II, 110—113). Fourth,
only 4.5 per cent of the ex-slaves
interviewed in the 19303 indicated that
one of thgir parents had been white (I, 133;
II, 113).

57

However, Tipton and Walker believe the above
arguments to be tenuous and the data biased and
unreliable. Furthermore, the slave narratives are
the most suspect source, primarily since the interviews
were conducted by southern whites in whom ex-slaves
were unlikely to repose much confidence. Genetic
evidence is highly inferential and in fact leads only
to the trivial conclusion that "miscegenation was
inversely correlated with the degree to which masters
were able to keep their slaves isolated from whites"
(II, 112). The intergenerational model assumes
knowledge of the definition of a mulatto, but no
definition was given in either the 1850 or 1860
census.22

Two other critics support Tipton and Walker's
statements concerning the number of mulattoes in the
American population, and the complex genetic equation
used to estimate the percentage of slave children
fathered by a white father.23 However, the awareness
that black women were legally helpless against white
sexual exploitation and that sudh exploitation went
on must have affected.black psychology far more than
the figure of one in fifty can suggest.24

On the basis of incomplete and biased data, Fogel

and Engerman argue that relatively few slaves were

58

sold across state lines and that relatively few slave
families were destroyed by sales. The total of all
slave sales is based on a study of slave sales in
a single state (Maryland) in the decade of the 18303,
expanded to the entire south from 1820 to 1860.25

The authors also base their estimate of the
proportion of slave families broken by sale from data
on slaves sold in New Orleans, which contain no
listings of marital status, and.which were subject to
the unusual Louisiana law forbidding the destruction
of slave families.26

.Although Fogel and Engerman made many bold
assertions regarding the structure of the black family,
they present little or no information pertaining to
this to support their arguments. One example, is the
authors' statement that planters generally "promoted
family fermation through exhortation and through
family inducements”;27 this is based on one piece of
evidence - a letter from a plantation owner to his
overseer. The authors had previously criticized another
historian for making a similar conclusion on the basis
”of little more than a score of isolated transactions,”
that slave children were often separated from their

28

parents. This type of impressionistic evidence is

detrimental to Fogel and Engerman's argument since it

59

represents a danger that perhaps some of their other
conclusions are based on similar scanty evidence of
which the reader is not familiar since the evidence

is presented in volume two.

Reaction to Time on the Cross

Within a month of its appearance, Time on the

 

Cross had been reviewed in the New York Times Book

 

prigy, the New York Review of Books, and Newsweek,

 

 

and one of the authors had appeared on a television
talk show. The broad argument has been well projected
to reach the general public, but the specific details

of the authors' historical research are presented in

a way that precludes comprehension by that readership.29

One critic asks:

Why has Time on the Cross caused suCh

a furor in the scholarly world and

its environs? Why have critics all
over the nation picked up their pens

to write page after ponderous page to
praise or condemn it? Slavery and

the Civil War have been the climactic
phenomena in American history; they are
not to be viewed lightly. The book's
findings have serious implications

not only for academic theories but

also for contemporary interest groups.
And it is the first attempt to subject
what is known about slavery to a rigorous
cliometric model. These three reasons
alone will cause many persons to plow
through the two volumes.

60

After reading Time on the Cross and the critical

 

reviews commenting on the style and methodology of
the authors, it is evident that the scholars were
primarily concerned with the book's methodology.
Fogel and Engerman had used a different methodology
to interpret traditional history, and consequently,
had developed a new approach to the issue of slavery.
Scholars were upset with the manner in which
statistical methods had been applied to fragmentary
and impressionistic data. Therefore, it is evident
that while Fogel and Engerman did use quantification
in their study, they did not "control” for the biases
as discussed in this chapter. As one critic has

suggested the authors of Time on the Cross tend to use

 

traditional methods where their findings confirm
traditional interpretation, and when their findings
differ, they tend either to base their conclusions

on biased evidence or make assumptions which bias

the results of their statistical and econometric
calculations. . . . Their failure to consider

evidence which contradicts their thesis and reluctance
to examine the assumptions embedded in their own
approach have led the authors to a particularly
unbalanced evaluation of slavery. In addition, the

book's weaknesses illustrate some of the difficulties

61

of an attempt to apply systematic quantitative methods

to historical data.31

For many historians the question of whether
quantitative methods have a place in historical research
continues as one of the major controversies in the
field today. Generally historians believe that
quantitative'methods:

l. are merely mechanical procedures that
imply no unique theoretical assumptions;

2. can only be used with evidence that has
the capacity to be measured, and a lot of
important historical questions are not
susceptible to quantitative answers

3. are tedious percentages and detailed

footnotes, and consequently, agg "quite
boring and quite meaningless!

However, sociologist Philip Hauser believes that
whether or not historians are aware of it, by avoiding
numbers they are not eluding problems of measurement.
He indicates that the humanist-historian in seeking to
explain an event is dealing with a dependent variable
and a series of independent variables. His explanation,
like that of statisticians, is also affected by
questions of sampling, reliability, validity, and
33

precision.

62

As historian Herbert Gutman indicates, Time on

the Cross was the first major social history study

 

to rely primarily on quantitative data. However,

Gutman believes that while the authors of the book

did "celebrate the value of social history methods

and quantitative data, they did not use those data
carefully. . . ."34 Due to this misuse, it is inevitable
(Gutman surmises) that after reading Time on the Cross,

a number of scholars will denigrate the quantitative
techniques that can be useful to the social historian
who wishes taxbegin reconstructing neglected or
misinterpreted aspects of society. Gutman's final

reaction to Time on the Cross will serve as a conclusion

 

to this section of the chapter.

Whatever the book's importance
as economic history, detailed examination
of Time on the Cross -- its major arguments
and the evidence supporting them -- shows
convincingly that it is poor social history,
that its analysis of the beliefs and
behavior of "ordinary” enslaved Afro-
Americans is entirely misleading, that
it uses a thoroughly inadequate model
of slave socialization, and that it
contains frequent and important errors
of all kinds in its use of quantitative
(not to mention literary) evidence
essential to its major arguments.

 

63

History, Quantificationy_and the Social Sciences

 

It is evident from the last section of this

chapter how important Time on the Cross has been to

 

the development of economic and social history. It

is also equally evident that while the quantitative
method (as used by authors Fogel and Engerman) has been
severely criticized in reviews and publically harangued
at conferences, that the technique is indeed necessary,
if the social history tenet of studying society from
the bottom up is to be accomplished.

This requirement is supported by Robert Fogel in
his article "The Limits of Quantitative Methods in
History." He indicates that quantitative methods are
essential if the historian is to succeed in shifting
the attention of his discipline from.a preoccupation
with exceptional individuals to concentration on the
life and time of common people. He believes that the
application of quantitative methods in history has
opened up the possibility that with respect to such
concerns as the evolution of the family, the
determinants of occupational mobility, and the effect
of religion on political and social behavior, the
historian/social scientist may soon be able to say
more about the experiences of ordinary people than of

exceptional individuals.36

64

As has been stated in an earlier chapter of
this thesis, church records, probate records, tax
rolls, and similar sources containing detailed information
on a wide variety of human activities have been in
existence for quite some time. However, with the
approach of quantification in history,the long ignored
society at the bottom.no longer has to remain forgotten.
Importantly, for the field of criminology and criminal
justice, these same sources can be examined to describe
crime and the society which produced criminals in order
to discover what circumstances precipitated or con-
tributed to the criminality in society.

In the next section of this chapter, Eric Monkkonen's
The Dangerous Class: Crime and Poverty in Columbus, Ohio

1860-1885 (described by one critic as "the most ambitious

 

and systematic attempt to use social science methodology
to identify the criminal and dangerous classes and to
describe the interaction of these groups with the social

”)37 will be discussed

welfare and criminal justice apparatus
to illustrate how another historian has used quantitative
methods to research a social history phenomenon.

In his book, Monkkonen. quantifies aggregate
socio-economic data obtained from.court and poorhouse

records from 1860 to 1885 to make inferences about the

relationship of crime and poverty to urbanization and

65

industrialization without relying upon the conscious
explanation given at the time by the dominant class.
However, he acknowledges (unlike Fogel and Engerman)
that his data, consisting of a hodge-podge of state
and local records (including court records, census
data, city directories, and economic statistics), is
fragmentary. He also indicates that the poorhouse
records were insufficient data to use as an index of
pauperismL He does use matching where possible to
discern the social characteristics of paupers and
criminal defendants, but as Midhael Hindus notes
Monkkonen's usage of matching is weak in picking up
members of the marginal and mobile populations.38
Consequently, from examining the methodology
conducted by these authors, iyg., Engerman, Fogel, and
Mbnkkonen, several recommendations can be made per«
taining to the usage of fragmentary data and sampling

and.measurement.

Recommendations

 

Sampling and measurement (as have been discussed

in Time on the Cross and The Dangerous Class) have been

 

cited as two social science techniques which present
problems to the historian due to the fragmentary nature
and erratic distribution of his data.39 Random

sampling of a population is possible only if the sample

66

is drawn from data about the complete population; if
the data are incomplete, the kinds of omissions may
affect the representative character of the sample
which is drawn. As Cynthia Hay has indicated in her
article "Historical Theory and Historical Confirmation,”
historians have worked with biased samples of data
when they have known something about the total population
fromlwhich the sample was drawn and could make assumptions
to try to counter the effect of the biases.40
Fragmentary data affects historical measurement
just as much as they do historical sampling. Social
scientists have developed various formal models of
measurement, _;g., Guttman scales which have also
been used in historical analysis to analyze the
political complexions of nineteenth century British
members of parliament. However, most historians have
incomplete data for which they have no reason to
believe a random sample can be derived. Consequently,
the conditions fer applying the social scientist's
formal models of measurement are not fulfilled. Hay
indicates that in some simple cases assumptions can
be made to overcome the gaps in historical data and
apply a formal model of measurement which allows
inferences to be drawn; for the most part, however,

historians cannot overcome the limits of their data

67

41
and cannot make use of these models of measurement.

Therefore, Hay believes, historians cannot reach
the standards of confirmation of their hypotheses
which are considered acceptable in the social sciences.
Historians, Hay concludes, only rarely have complete
data on individuals in a population (with aggregate
or incomplete data on a population) and they can make
inferences only if certain conditions are fulfilled;
and they may not be fulfilled because of the vagaries
of historical data.42

Responses to Hay's remarks will be made in the
next section of this chapter addressing the problems

encountered when quantification is applied to historical

interpretations.

Conclusions and Recommendations

 

This chapter discusses the problems historians
have had when applying quantification to historical
interpretations. One of the limitations has been
attributed to fragmentary or incomplete data. Both

studies reviewed (Time on the Cross and The Dangerous

 

 

legp) had this type of data.
What is important to stress in this thesis is
that imperfect data can tell us much; but, it must

be handled prudently, since over ambitious use (as

68

exemplified by Time on the Cross) can create problems.

 

A researcher must'be conscious of the comparability
of his data over time or space, and, if he fails to
do so, biases or inadequacies will result.

At this point, in order to discuss Hay's statement
that unless historians have complete data on individuals
in a population, inferences cannot be made, several of
Eric Monkkonen's recommendations for systematic
research (especially as applicable to criminal justice
history) will be presented to illustrate that even
though the data may be fragmentary and incomplete, if
handled properly, mudh can be learned about a particular
population.

Monkkonen states that the researcher must avoid
the temptations of indictment rolls, court dockets,
police blotters, and jail and prison records because of
the incompleteness that may be existent.43 However,
it is important to remember that this data can be
helpful in avoiding strictly impressionistic
interpretations.

Monkkonen also emphasizes that when examining
manuscript documents (as did Fogel and Engerman, and
ankkonen himself), the researcher must know a great
deal about the locality, how these documents were

prepared, and their total context.44

69

In addition, when dealing with rates, whether
arrest, jailing, conviction, or imprisonment, the
researcher must consider the region or the country
from which the rates were taken. The research must
also ascertain the base figures from where rates were
taken, and must also have some notion of the processes
which generated these sources.
Monkkonen emphatically recommends that when
dealing with data produced by the criminal justice
system, that the historian should conceive of the
data as a biased sample of all criminal behavior; and,
therefore, recognize that although the biases cannot
be precisely estimated, some logical aspects of
their nature and direction can be determined. Rather,
than conceiving of the data as a sample, Monkkonen
suggests that it be considered as a specific universe
of formal interactions between the criminal justice
system.and the larger society; (for) Monkkonen continues,
if it is a sample, it is a sample of all such interactions,
not of all criminal behavior. Such an approach has both
logical and.methodological appeal--isomorphism.is a
given.46
Concerning measurement, Monkkonen stresses that:
There certainly are measurement
problems in criminal justice system

produced data. But careful thinking
about the nature and direction of the

70

biases can make the data useful
and powerful. To reject the use
of recent theory, models, and
statistical methods . . . is

both naive and irresponsible;

. . . The use of individual

level records to produce data

has a rich potential, but the
data must be used with sophistication,
embedded in social theory, and be
examined for its typicality by
comparison with previous work and
the available but under-utilized
aggregate data. Until this
happens, there can be no growth
or dialogue in social histozy of
crime and criminal justice.

Monkkonen's advice should be heeded. The history
of crime is rapidly becoming one of the important new
branches of social history. It is a field which is
an exciting one; and as historian Barbara Hanawalt
indicates, it is a field that historians of crime
will have much in common with each other regardless
of the century they study due to the similarity that
they are all trying to answer the same key questions,
to integrate modern criminology and anthropology with
historical materials, and to develop methodologies
for dealing with massive court and police records

which are often incomplete and fragmentary.48

71

CHAPTER II: FOOTNOTES

1. Midhael Hindus, "The History of Crime: Not
Robbed of Its Potential, But Still on Probation,”
Criminology Review Yearbqpk, Velume One, eds., Messinger,
Sheldon L., and Bittner, Egon, Beverly Hills: Sage
Publications, 1979, 217.

 

2. Frank B. Tipton, Jr., and Clarence E. Walker,
"Review of Time on the Cross: The Economics of American
Negro Slavery, and Time on the Cross: Evidence and
Methods, A Supplement by Robert William Fogel, and
Stanley L. Engerman, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.,
1974, in4Histopy and Theory, Volume 14, Number 1,

1975, 11 .

 

 

 

 

 

3. Roy Simon Bryce-Laporte, "Review Symposium:
Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro
Slavepy, andiTime on the Cross: Evidence and Methods,"
Contemporary Sociology, Volume 4, Number 4, July 1975, 353.

 

 

 

4. Francois Furet, "Quantitative History," Daedalus,
Volume 100, Number 1, (Winter 1971), 151.

5. gpgg., 152.

6. Stanley L. Engerman, ”Recent Developments in
American Economic History,” Social Science History,
Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 1977, 73.

7. Ibid., 74.

3. Ibid.

 

9. Ibid., 75.

 

10. Ibid., 77.
11. Ibid., 35.

12. Frank B. Tipton, Jr., and Clarence E. Walker,
op. cit., 91.

13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 91-92.
15. pp;g., 92.

72

16. Bryce-Laporte, pp. cit., 353.

17. Frank B. Tipton, Jr., and Clarence E. Walker,
op. qu., 93.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., 95.

20. Ibid., 98.

21. TpTQ.

22. Ibid., 98-99.

23. John H. Pruett, and Robert McColley, ”Book
Review of Time on the Cross: Evidence and Methods--A
Supplement, by Robert William FogEl and Stanley L. Engerman,
Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, and Company, 1974.
The Journal of Southern History, Volume 60, Number 4,
November 1974,—637-639.

24. .1313.

 

 

25. Frank B. Tipton, Jr., and Clarence E. Walker,
op. ng., 100-101.

26. Ibid., 101.

27. Peter Kolchin, "Toward a Reinterpretation of
Slavery: Review of Time on the Cross: The Economics
of American Negro Slavery, and’Time on the Cross:
Evidence and Methods: A_Supplement by Robert William
Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Boston-Toronto: Little,
Brown and Company, 1974, 107.

28. Ibid.

 

 

 

29. Paul A. David, and Peter Temin, ”Review
Article: Slavery: The Progressive Institution?"
Journal of Economic History, Volume 34, Number 3,
September 1974, 739.

30. Wilson Record, and Jane Cassels Record,
"Review Symposium: Time on the Cross: The Economics
of American Negro Slavery, and Time on the Cross:

Eyidence and Methods," Conte ora Sociology,
Volume 4,7Num5er54, July 1975, 36%.”-

 

 

73

31. Frank B. Tipton, Jr., and Clarence E. Walker,
921121£-. 92-

32. Richard E. Beringer, Historical Analysis:
Contemporary Approaches to Clio's Craft, New York:
John Wiley and Sons, 1979, 195.

 

 

33. Philip M. Hauser, "Schlesinger on Humanism.
and Empirical Researc ,” American Sociological Review,
Volume 28, Number 1, (February 1963), 98.

 

34. Herbert G. Gutman, Slavery and the Numbers
Game: A Critique of Time on the Cross, Urbana:
University of Illinois, Press, 1975, 13.

35. pg;g., 2.

 

 

36. Robert William.Fogel, "The Limits of
Quantitative Methods in History," The American
Historical Review, Volume 80, Number 2,April 1975,
345.

 

 

37. MiChael Hindus, p. gTE., 232.
38. Ibid., 233.

39. Cynthia Hay, "Historical Theory and Historical
Confirmation," Studies in the Philosophy of History,
Volume 19, Number 1, 1980, 55.

40. Ibid.

 

41. Ibid., 56.

 

42. Ibid.

 

43. Eric H. Monkkonen, "Systematic Criminal Justice
History: Some Suggestions," Journal of Interdisciplinary
History, Volume 9, Number 3, (Winter 1979), 453.

44. pp;g., 453-454.
45. Ibid., 454—455.
46. Ibid., 458.

”.5.“-

47. pp;g., 463 464.

 

48. Barbara A. Hanawalt, "Review of James Buchanan
Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth Century Epgland,
Stanford University Press, 1977, in the Journal of Social
figgtpry, Volume 12, Number 3, Spring 1979, 466—467.

CHAPTER III

A HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION

OF GREAT BRITAIN'S POLICY
AND PRACTICE OF THE

TRANSPORTATION OF CRIMINALS

In Chapter One a discussion of the methodological
problems encountered by historians when applying social
science research techniques was presented. The second
chapter of this thesis is primarily a case study
specifically focusing on how quantitative methodologies
had been used by historians to interpret a traditional
theory of slave history in America. In addition, the
subsequent reactions of other historians to the
quantitative methodology as applied to this particular
theory was discussed.

The purpose of Chapter III is twofold. First,
historical background on transportation as punishment
and reasons why the English government decided to
implement the ancient practice of transportation to
mitigate their criminal code will be provided. The
second purpose is to explain the historical development
of transportation itself to prepare the reader for
Chapter IV which is an analysis of quantitative data

describing the characteristics of convicts transported

to Australia.

74

75

'What becomes apparent fromlboth Chapter III and
IV is the effeCt that transportation as punishment had
on the development and growth of the British colonies.
One of the striking aspects of British imperialism is
the similarity exerted on her colonies (America,
Australia, and Cape Town, South Africa) by using them
as "dumping grounds" for an unwanted population at home.
Authorities believed that the transportation system
‘would be both a humanitarian and economical means of
crime control. Therefore, the social and economical
reasons fer why it was believed necessary to employ
transportation as punishment will be addressed briefly
in this chapter.

Ultimately, this chapter depicts that through the
study of history, scholars of criminology and the
criminal justice system will become aware of phenomena
which will enlighten their understanding of the
operations of the criminal justice system, Therefore,
history is a viable academic disciple applicable to
the enrichment of education in the field of criminal

justice and criminology.

An Overview of Transportation as PuniShment in England
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

three important economic changes occurred in England

76

contributing to the demise of the old status of English
society. These catalysts (l) the enclosure policy;
(2) the growth of commerce; and (3) the increase of

population size of towns1

will be briefly discussed to
illustrate how these three interrelated factors led to

the eventual increase in the crime rate which necessitated
transportation as a measure to relieve the economical

and societal problems of the country.

The enclosure policy, beginning during the latter
half of the fifteenth century and effective during most
of the sixteenth century, was a direct result of the
increased demand fer wool both for export and domestic
purposes. Since sheep must be raised in fenced
boundaries, the old manorial system of open fields was
not conducive to sheep production. Therefore, in order
to obtain a sufficient amount of land to enclose for
sheep grazing purposes, the rich landholders evicted
not only the poor but the tenants as well. This eviction
led to an increase in the size of towns' population, since
many of the displaced and impoverished people sought
employment in the towns. The economic crisis occurring
as a result of this migration culminated with much

suffering and criminality among the people. The number

of criminals multiplied so extensively that the old jails were

77

inadequate to house the debtors and those detained for
trial.2 To further complicate the already precarious
situation, the old methods of punishment, Tpg.,
multilations, whipping, the pillory, stocks and other
secondary methods of punishment were found to be
inadequate and ineffective in coping with with the
growing crime problem.3

However, at this time labor was needed to establish
new colonies in America and the question arose as to
whether England could supply the needed labor and at
the same time be rid of law-breakers by transporting

them beyond the seas.4

Indeed, historian George Rude
believes that one of the reasons why the transportation
system was suggested.was to provide labor for the
colonial government and settlers.5
Important to point out is that transportation could
be easily adapted to the Bloody Code (as the criminal
law was popularly known) since in practice the application
of penalties was flexible and allowed a large measure of
play for judicial discretion.6
Furthermore, the code was also modified in practice
by the traditional privilege of benefit of clergy. Until
1705, benefit of clergy had been a privilege enjoyed
only by clerics. However, after this date, offenders

convicted of a range of minor capital crimes could plead

benefit of clergy to save themselves from the gallows.

78

The use of benefit of clergy, or pardoning, contributed

to the rapid growth of transportation as a punishment,

but it is important to indicate that beginning in 1716

acts changing the punishment for petty larceny from
whipping to transportation, acts substituting transportation
for whipping as a penalty for robbery, minor kinds of
coining, and the receipt of stolen goods also can be

perceived as an indication of the judicial habit of using

transportation as punishment.7

It has been stated by historian J.J. Tobias that
while the Bloody Code was severe, in fact

[o]nly a small proportion of
offenders were sentenced to death,
and only a small proportion of those
on whomxsentence was passed were in
fact hanged. Figures have been
collected for the years 1761-5.

In those five years almost half of
those sentenced to death in London
were reprieved, together with two-
thirds of those sentenced in the
Midlands. It does not seem that

at any time in the eighteenth
century, in any part of the country,
more than sixty per cent of those
sentenced to death were actually
executed, and over much of the
century and in many places a figure
of one-third is more typical.

Tobias continues that while this amount seems a
"horrifyingly large number of executions to modern
ideas, the eighteenth century relied more on the
threat of execution than execution itself."9 Tobias

further indicates that the reprieve was readily

79

available as an important part of the philosophy of
the system.and served to reinforce the authority of
the ruling classes.10

Therefore, it is evident that the practice of
transportation was considered to be a means of alleviating
the overpopulation at home by serving as a means to
populate the colonies as well as providing a labor force
to the settler. Transportation was also a panacea for
decreasing the overcrowding in the jails and the prisons
at home. It is important, however, to stress that

transportation was a practice of ancient origins, and

this will be discussed in the next section of this chapter.

Historical Origins of the Development of Transportation
as Punisfiment

 

 

The idea of transporting criminals or political
offenders to the American colonies was not new, when
England decided to implement the practice in the early
seventeenth century. Transportation had evolved from
the practice of banishment which had been used as a
punishment in primitive society. Banishment developed
into exile, a practice of outlawry. However, banishment
was different from exile because it carried with it
certain religious and ritualistic accompaniments while
outlawry had a pOlitical motive.11 The first European

nation which employed transportation and penal labor in

80

the colonies as a mode of punishment appears to have
been the Portugese.12
However, transportation as a modern method of
punishment had its origins in Englandl3 and its develop-
ment can be attributed to two different factors. The
first of these determining factors was the decline of
the galleyship as an effective warship and its replacement
by sailing vessels. During the Middle Ages and down to
the time of Elizabeth many criminals sentenced to death
and many captured outlaws had been sent to sea as galley
slaves. By the close of the sixteenth century the
galley-ship had been replaced by the sailing vessel making
it mandatory that a substitute be found as a means of
punishment for those who had formerly been consigned to
sea. Furthermore, as discussed in an earlier section of
this chapter, England was experiencing a marked increase
in crime as a result of the confusion and misery accomr
panying the breakdown of the manorial system,14
The origins of the English system of transportation
are found at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries in legislation and proclamations permitting
the transportation from.the country of vagrants and
rogues. The first law authorizing transportation was
passed in 1597 and listed the punishments for these

"rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars.‘ As a consequence

of the breakdown of the manorial systemn many laws were'

81

promulgated as an attempt to control the landless

men ("sturdy beggars") who had become a disturbing
element in the population.15 The Act of 1597 reads as
follows:

If any of the said Rogues shall
appear to be dangerous. . . or
otherwyse be such as will not be
reformed, That in every such case it
shall and may be Lawfull to commit
that rogue to the Howse of Correccion
or otherwyse to the Gaole. . . there
to remain untill the next Quarter
Sessions. . . and then such of the
Rogues so committed as . . . shalbe
thought fitt not to be delivered,
shall . . . be banyshed out of this
Realme and all the domynions thereof

and shall be conveied unto such
partes beyond the seas as shalbe at any
tyme hereafter for that purpose assigned
by the Privie Counsell. . . And if any
such Rogue “so banyshed as aforesaid
shall return agayne into any part of
the Realme. . . without lawfull
Lycence or Warrant so to do, that in
every such case the offence shalbe
Fellony and the Party offending
therein Suffer Death as in case of
Felony.16

Additional legislation was passed in an attempt
to improve the conditions, Tpg., compulsory apprentice
laws (5 Elizabeth, cap. 4) and forced contributions for
the poor (43 Elizabeth, cap. 2). WOrk was to be provided
for those who were able to do it, and relief for those
who were not. Poor children were to be trained for
some trade and the idle were to be punished. But
statutory remedies failed to afford adequate relief,

and, in spite of the general prosperity during

82

Elizabeth's reign, the condition of the poor classes
was deplorable.

However, the use of the 1597 Act permitted the
American colonies to be used as a dumping ground for
England's surplus or idle population, and this proviso
was implemented to legitimize transportation.

The prevalence of the practice of transporting
unwanted population during the seventeenth century under
the Act of 1597 can be deduced only from hints in state
papers and occasional mention in private correspondence,
but we know that judges and town councils adopted
transportation as a remedy for dire conditions at home.
In 1621 the Virginia Company unsuccessfully sought
parliamentary legislation requiring city corporations
to send their poor to Virginia and in a petition to
parliament in 1624 the Company gave as one of its
objectives the removal of destitute persons, thereby
leaving improved opportunities for those who remained.17

Although the surplus population theory predominated
during most of the seventeenth century, it contained
within it the first formulations of the transportation
idea.18 While benevolence perhaps played some part in
it, the principal motive was clearly one of convenience
in enabling England to rid herself of persons she did

not want.19 A. G. L. Shaw in his book Convicts and

 

83

the Colonies writes:

 

Execution is a simple punishment,
quick, effective, economical,

but not merciful. Hence perhaps

the resort to what seemed to many

to be the next best thing--banishment.
This at least satisfied the society
from which the criminals were ex-
pelled, if no one else. There was

no need to worry about their
behaviour in the future; the

process was cheap; the receiving 20
society could usually be ignored. . .

Penal transportation first received legislative
sanction during the reign of Charles II. The Act 18,
Charles 11, Chapter 3, authorized transportation to
northern America of felons under the sentence of death:
they were given their choice between hanging and
transportation, so the latter was in effect a
conditional pardon.21 Transportation proper was
established by an Act of Parliament in 1717 (4 George 1,
Chapter 2), which noted the need for servants in America,
and provided for the transportation to America of
persons convicted of certain felonies.22 The preamble
to this Transportation Act stated that its purpose was
both to deter criminals and to supply the colonies with
labor.23

A further extension came with the statutes of 1718
and 1720. Transportation now became the regular

sentence for larceny and felonious stealing and not

merely a commutation at the discretion of the judge. The

84

reason given for the change was the great need for

servants to develop the colonial plantations.

Transportation cost the government little. Until

1772, the contractors received a grant of five pounds

per convict. Later, they did not charge anything

because, having become owners of the convicts, they

were able to derive enough profit by disposing of

their labor.24
Under the legislation of the early Georges,

prisoners were turned over to contractors who agreed

to transport them to America without cost to the

government on condition that the contractor had the

right to sell their services for from.seven to fourteen

years to planters in America. For a time, four or

five hundred convicts were shipped to Maryland annually;

others were sent to Virginia.23 The planters bought

them. In effect, they were slaves, for a term of years;

and the traffic in convicts was a form of competition

with the African slave-trade. Actually since there was

a demand in the American colonies for cheap labor, negro

slavery eventually was established in the United States.26
In the course of the eighteenth century, a number

of Acts made transportation to America common under the

provision of the cornerstone Transportation Act of 1717,

Robson states

85

Calculations have been made concerning
the total number-of persons transported
and it appears that certainly 30,000
prisoners were conveyed from Baitain
during the eighteenth century.

Transportation to America ceased when the American
colonies revolted in 1775. The outbreak of war between
the colonies and Great Britain and the subsequent
American Declaration of Independence Of 1776 had

far-reaching consequences for all English prisoners.28

The Hulks

 

After the American Revolutionary War, the English
government tried to resume transportation. The English
government felt that the old system of convict trans-
portation could be resumed, and after the peace was
signed in 1783, they immediately started arrangements
fer shipping more convicts to America. One cargo of
eight felons was landed in Maryland, but Abbott Smith

states in his book Convicts in Bondage that there is

 

no certain evidence of further successful shipments.29

In 1788 the Continental Congress of the United States
recommended to several states that they pass proper laws
to prevent transportation of convicted malefactors from
foreign countries into the United States. This advice
was taken and a permanent end was put to transportation,
obliging England to seek other outlets for her criminal

population. The increasing crime rate and the end of

86

transportation to America forced England to find
another means of confining criminals.

In 1776 the English county authorities had been
ordered by 16 George III, Chapter 43, Section XIII to
prepare and enlarge their jails to meet new conditions.
However, they did not pay much attention. Therefore,
since there was not enough roomlin.the jails and the
American colonies were no longer receiving convicts,
the hulks were used as jails.30 (Hulks were old
sailing vessels, generally men-of-war, permanently
made fast in rivers or harbors.) The conditions in the
hulks were even worse than the local prisons, "being
crowded, dirty, and verminous, with men and boys all
in irons, often in double irons, for greater security."31
The hulk system was established only as a temporary
expedient for dealing with the large number of criminals.

The permanent system intended for implementation
was the establishment of penitentiaries. It had been
authorized by Parliament in the preamble to an Act of
1779 that government-run penitentiaries should be built
for the purpose of deterrence of crime and reformation
of criminals. This authorization was deemed necessary,
since the loss of the American colonies meant that there
was no suitable place left for criminals in large

numbers.32

87

However, it was easier to use the existing hulks
than to build penitentiaries and the more expedient
alternative was chosen. DuCane states that it is
impossible to tell the amount of crime and corruption
that would have been avoided, or the benefit that
might have resulted both to England and her colonies
had these penitentiaries been built.33

Charles Dickens considered the hulks to be the

most brutal and degrading form of prison. In his novel

Great ExpeCtations it is evident that Dickens was in

 

favor, as many humanitarians were, of the transportation
system, Magwitch, who had been transported to Australia,
returns to England at the end of the novel a very
prosperous man. The humanitarians in England thought
the conditions in prisons abhorrent and considered

transportation to be a lesser evil. In the beginning

 

of Great Expectations, a discourse occurs between the
protagonist Pip and his sister Mrs. Joe concerning the
hulks which were anchored near their home. Pip asks,

"And please what's hulks?" to which Mrs. Joe,

exasperately explains that, "Hulks are prison-ships, right
across the marshes." Pip ventures another question to

his sister, "I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and
why they're put there?" She replies that "People are

put in hulks because they murder, and because they

rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad. .'134

 

88

In this novel, Dickens is protesting against a system
that first neglected an abandoned child like Magwitch
and then, when the boy had drifted into crime, proceeded
against him under a legal apparatus whose rigors were
intensified by class fears and prejudices. The
humanitarians in England felt transportation less harsh
when compared to the detestable conditions in both the
prisons and in the hulks. Sir John Fielding, writing
in 1773, summed up the English opinion concerning
transportation:
The wisest, because it is

most humane and effectual,

punishment we have, viz. ,

transportation--which immediately

removes the evil, separates the

individual from.the abandoned

connextions, and gives him a

fresh opportunity of being an

useful member of society, thereby

answering the great ends of

punishment, viz., exapple, humanity,
and reformation .

Attempts in Founding New Penal Colonies

England's dilemma of not having adequate places of
confinement” for prisoners resulted in her attempt to
locate penal colonies in other regions. One was in
Sierra Leone, but due to the high mortality rate
resulting from.the intense heat, this venture was un-
successful and was abandoned. 3‘6 The next site

considered as a future penal colony was the eastern

89

coast of Australia. (Australia had attracted the
attention of the English government, due to the voyages
of Captain Cook in 1770, 1773, and l777.)37 Lord
Sydney in August 1786 advised the King to select
New South Wales for his penal settlement, and an Order
in Council in agreement with the terms of the Act was
made.38
In addition, the same Order in Council appointed
Commodore Alfred Phillip Governor of New South Wales,
and on May 13, 1787 the first expedition, consisting
of 11 vessels, left for Australia with approximately
seven hundred and eighty convicts sailing in the First
Fleet to New South Wales. The majority of these convicts
were under sentence for seven years, which indicates that
under the prevailing laws, their crimes were not very
serious. The paper accompanying the convicts gave only
name, age, place of trial and length of sentence, but
many times the crime committed was not recorded.
Consequently, it was impossible to segregate them; but,
there were some governors like Macquarie who thought it
a circumstance in the convict's favor. He (the convict)
left his crime behind him.and worked out his sentence.39
Commodore Phillip's expedition arrived at Botany

Bay after a voyage of eight months. The settlement was

actually formed at Port Jackson (now Sydney) about five

90

miles from Botany Bay, on January 26, 1788. Phillip
established the colony at Port Jackson, after he
discovered the ground of Botany Bay to be low and unfertile;
he recorded that ”there was a small run of water there,
but it appeared to be only a drain from a marsh."40

The beginnings of the convict colony at Port
Jackson were disastrous. None of the transports had had
any experience with farming, or any expertise with
building shelters. Moreover, insufficient guards had
been provided for the prisoners, and.it was almost ink
possible to get them to work, unfitted as they were for
the tasks set them, Additionally, many of the convicts
were suffering from scurvy and other diseases generated
during the voyage. Consequently the labor force,
originally fixed at just over six hundred, was reduced
to little more than two hundred.41

Commordore Phillip, according to one historian
appeared "to have been a man of high character, and
for those times, not devoid of humanity." He tried to
teach his men to become self-supporting and to a degree
self-governing. His authority was greatly augmented by
the bestowal upon him by the Crown of the right of
42

conditional pardon.

However, when the convicts' terms of sentence

began to expire, Phillip had no alternatives to offer

91

them in the colony. The majority of the convicts
refused his offers of concessions of land, employment,
government aid and even though Phillip warned them of
the alternative if they (the convicts) returned to
England, they completely ignored his offer and his
advice. By the end of 1792, Commodore Phillip was
eXhausted, and applied to be relieved of his responsi-

bility.43

Resistance to Transportation in Australia

The penal colonies were managed by governors
appointed by the British government. From the
appointment of Commodore Phillip through the appointment
of General Brisbane in the early 18003, the free settlers
did not object to convict presence in the colony.
However, under the administration of General Brisbane,
the division of "emancipist" and the "exclusionist":
(the former wished to give the convicts a voice in the
Government, but the latter were radically opposed to
convict colonists) became very evident. This division
was the first symptom of the ultimate failure of the
entire system, The adaptation of Australia to sheep
husbandry and the growing of wool attracted the English
free settler. Brisbane, by concessions in land, induced

them to assume the charge and maintenance of convicts,

92

and this gave rise to the troubleSome and dangerous
system.of assignments. The parties assigned to a planter

were known as a "clearing gang.' The money paid for their
labor was paid to the Government. Since a higher price
could be obtained for the better class of convicts as
mechanics, only the worst of them went to the clearings
and sheep farms.44
As the number of emancipists, as those convicts
were called who had served their time and had been
freed, increased, a problem.arose in Australia which
had not appeared in America. In America the convicts
being few were absorbed in the population. In Australia,
on the other hand, because of the danger of the settler
being outnumbered by the emancipists, a strong hostility
arose among the free emigrants against the discharged
convicts. They refused to fraternize with the convicts
who had served their time. The distance between the
two classes continued to grow wider and a movement arose
in Australia to stop transportation. By 1835 this
movement was rampant.45
The opposition became so violent that the government
decided in 1837 to cease assigning convicts to private
persons, and in 1840 prohibited the sending of convicts

to Australia. Consequently, the convicts were diverted

to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).

93

Even though there was much opposition to trans-
portation, the Imperial Government did not wish to
abandon this method of ridding the mother country of her
prisoners. Lord Stanley, Seeretaryof State in 1844,
believed that Australia should be maintained for this
purpose. Lord Grey also agreed with this and said,

"The country is perfectly justified in continuing the
practice of transportation in Australia, the colonies
being only entitled to ask that, in arrangements in
conducting it, their interests and welfare should be
consulted as far as possible."46

It was at this same time that the home government
decided to extend transportation to South Africa. The
idea had first been suggested in 1842, but the English
and Dutch settlers in the Cape had made it clear that
they would not welcome transportation of convicts 47
The Cape inhabitants considered it an insult to the
loyalty of the colonists that their "country should be
made 'a receptacle' for criminals of any descripe
tion . . . 3'48 In.addition, it was believed that due
to the vastness of the land and the sparse population that
it would be difficult to maintain an effective police

force, and consequently there would be danger to the

population.

94

Nevertheless, the English Government, in
September 1848 passed an Order-in-Council declaring
the Cape of Good Hope as a place to which convicts
could be shipped. However, an anti-convict association
had.been fermed in the Cape, (similar to the one formed
in Australia) and'when the convict ship "Neptune"
arrived, the ship was not allowed to unload the

49 The situation was corrected when Lord

prisoners.
Grey sent a dispatch directing the prisoners to be

sent on to Van Diemen's Land. The "Neptune" sailed to
Van Diemen's Land in February 1850. The Order-in-Council

was later revoked.50

The End of Transportation

Under the Bloody Code, transportation to the
colonies had been the main substitute for the death
penalty. The Select Committee of 1837 strongly
criticized the practice of transportation. Consequently,
the system was modified in the following years, but
the refusal of one colony after another to accept any
more transports brought about the virtual end of
transportation by 1852; the last convict ship left
England in 1867, and the Gibraltar convict prison, the

last refuge of the system, was closed in 1874.51

95

One historian writes:

Penal history might have taken
a different course, if transportation
had remained a practical possibility.
This was a punishment with a morally
less objectionable look to it than
hanging, for it had originated as a
measure of executive clemency for
capital offenders and even after it
had developed into a punishment at
the disposal of the criminal courts it
was still represented as merciful.
Though a sentence to exile and force
labor, which was what transportation
meant, might be for life, it was
ordinarily for a fixed term of either
fourteen or seven years, so that in
most cases the punishment was
theoretically no more exterminatory
than imprisonment. In practice,
however, transported criminals
very rarely returned home to
plague the community anew, and this
was so for two very divergent reasons.
On the one hand, there was better
than an outside chance that they
would not live long enough to
complete their sentence. On the
other hand, if they did survive the
horrors of the long voyage in a convict
ship and the likely brutalities of
their subsequent servitude, they were
eventually given every encouragement
to stay put as free settlers and gpne
at all to repatriate themselves.5

Transportation in Retrospect

Transportation to the American colonies and
plantations was in many ways like the later Australian
system. It was economical to the government. The
prisoner had to work for the public good; his services

were assigned--in America to a settler, later, in

96

Australia, to the governor. His master had a
"property and intereSt" in his services for the term
of his sentence, and had to be compensated if the
convict was pardoned earlier, though the latter could
buy his freedom.if he could afford it. This process
was supposed to be a punishment; even so, any persons
over fifteen, including minors, who desired employment
and were inclined to be transported and enter into
services in some of His Majesty's colonies and
plantations in America, were specifically allowed to
make a contract for their transportation for any
period up to eight years. Thus, in America, convict

transportation can be considered only as a particular

53
type of indentured labor. '

Phillipson states that the result upon the criminals
transported to America appears to have been beneficial:

The system seems to have met, in
certain respects, with some success.
The new associations, the salutary
agricultural labour, the strict
supervision exercised, rendering
impossible the continuance of vicious,
nefarious practices, combined to effect
a reformation in the case of even some
of those who had before been the most
abandoned criminals. Many of them,
after the expiration of their term,
became farmers and planters on their
own account, and came to lead
respectable lives, and in some cases
even rose to wealth. The natural
abilities of thieves, burglars,
forgers, false coiners and other
clever enemies of society' were

97

diverted to simple and more useful
purposes; and their labour, especially
in Maryland, was found to be such a
valuable asset that arrangements were
‘made to convey them without any cost
to the government, which had before
allowed five pounds a head. '

In Australia, the system.of transportation
economically aided Australian development through the
provision of a labor force. Transportation made
private investment more profitable and caused very
substantial government expenditure in the colonies.

A. G. L. Shaw writes:
For the United Kingdom, transportation
at first had seemed a merciful means
of getting rid of part of its criminal
population; but as crime became a more
serious social problem, penal reformers
came to stress the need for a severe
deterrent punishment. Here transporation
failed, partly because it was misunderstood
at home, partly because it is hopeless to
rely solely on deterrence to get rid of
crime. Because of this failure, government
opinion slowly turned against it.55

Finally, it is important to point out that the
practice of transportation served as an essential means
of punishment at a time when the unreformed gaols made
long terms of imprisonment virtually impossible§6'
Until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War the American
colonies had received the banished criminals of England;
but, after 1776 America was superseded by Australia. It

is apparent that there was little need for a prison

system during the period of active transportation when

98

England had colonies willing to receive convict labor.
During the years of transportation, the jails in England
were used chiefly for the detention of those accused of
crimes who were awaiting their trial. Consequently, the
majority of those confined in the prisons were primarily
debtors and political and religious offenders.57

Rusche and Kirchheimer in their book Punishment and

 

Social Structure give an excellent summation of the
English system of transportation. They write:

The history of English transportation
gives us a clear and straightforward
picture of the effects of changing
social and economic conditions on
criminal policy. The starting point
was the impossibility of accommodating
the increasing number of criminals in
the existing prisons at a time when the
labor market was oversupplied. If they
were not to be executed, a policy opposed
by prevailing population theories even
before humanitarian principles made
themselves felt, the only way to dispose
of them was to banish them from the
country. For a time, this solution
coincided with the need for labor power
in the colonies. But American conditions
had already demonstrated the limited
possibilities of absorbing convict
labor. The colonial economic system
made its continuance impossible long
before political conditions finally

put an end to transportation. In New
South Wales and Van Diemen's Land it was
shown that convict labor with financial
assistance from the mother country was

a possible foundation for further de-
velopment, but that convict labor could not
compete with free labor the moment the
latter begpn to assume appreciable pro-
portions. 3

99

To conclude this chapter, I would like to quote
Leonard Orland who states in his book Prisons: Houses

of Darkness what effect transportation had upon the

 

.American criminal justice system as it specifically
relates to the correctional system, As I have said
this is just a concluding remark, for in order to
discuss this outgrowth further, another paper would
have to be written. Mr. Orland writes that just

as the early English law
had sent its lawbreakers into the
forest to live as outlaws, later,
seafaring English merchants
banished their felons to new
and larger wildernesses. Ironically,
it was from.this innovation, the
practical economic notion of
populating colonies with society's
outcasts, that the modern
penitentiary grew. For, in
fact, it was the American descendants
of those transported pariahs who
created still another place to which
society could sent its rejects, what
we now call the prison and what
they called "the penitentiary."59

100

CHAPTER III: FOOTNOTES

1. John Lewis Gillin, Criminolo ‘ and Penolo ,
New York: The Century Co., 1926, 365-368.
2. Ibid., 369.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. George Rude. Protest and Punishment: The
Story of the Social and Political Protesters Transported

to Australia 1788-1868, OxfOrd: OxfordUniversity Press,
1978, 166.

 

6. Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain:
The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850,
New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, 17.

7. Ibid., 18-19.

8. J.J. Tobias, Crime and Police in England, 1700-
1900, New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1979, 140.

9. Ibid., 140-141.
10. Ibid.

 

11. Harry E. Barnes, The Study of Punishment: A
Record of Man's Inhumanity to Man, Montclaif, New Jersey:
Patterson Smith, 1972, 68.

 

l2. L.L. Robson, The Convict Settler of Australia:
An Enquiry into the Origin and Character of the Convicts
Transported to NewISOuth Wales an39Van Diemen's Land
1787-1852, Melbourne: Melbourne—University_Press, 1965, 5.

 

 

l3. Gillin, op. cit., 366.

14. Barnes, op. cit., 68-69.

15. rprq.

l6. rprg.

17. Trevor R. Reese, "The Origins of Colonial
America and New South Wales. " The Australian Journal

of Politics and History, Volume-7, Number 2, (November
1961), 188.

 

101

18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.

20. A. G. L. Shaw, Convicts and the Colonies: A
Study of Penal Transportation from Great Britain and
Ireland to Australia and Other Parts ofgthe British

Erpire, London: Faber and Faber, 1966, 21.

 

21. Gillin, op. cit., 370.

22. Barnes, op. cit., 70.

23. rprg.

24. Georg Rusche, and Otto Kirchheimer, Punishment

and Social Structure, New York: Columbia University
Press, 1939.

 

 

25. Frederick Howard Wines, Punishment and
Reformation: A Study of the Penitentiary System,
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Publishers, 1919,169.

 

26. Gillin, op. cit., 371.

27. Robson, o . cit., 5.

28. rprg., 5-6.

29. Abbott E. Smith, Convicts in Bondage: White

Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776,
Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1965, 123- 124.

 

30. George Ives, A Historyyof Penal Methods:

Criminals, Witches,,Lunatics, London: Stanley Paul and
Company, 1914, 124.

31. Gillin, op. cit., 371.

32. Giles Playfair, The Punitive Obsession: An
Unvarnished History of the English Prison System,
London: Victor Gollancz,'Ltd., 91971, 14- 15, 23.

33. Colonel Sir Edmund F. DuCane, The Punishment
ppd Prevention of Crime, London: MadMilIan and—Co.,
85, 117.

 

34. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, New York:
The Bobbs-Merrill, Co., Inc., 1964, 13-14.

 

102

35. Sir John Fielding in the Calendar of Home
Office Papers, IV, Number 39 cited in Abbott E. Smith,
ConVicts in Bondagg; White Servitude and Convict
Labor in America 1607 1776, Gloucester, Massac59setts:

Peter Smit5,1965, 123-124.

36. ‘Wines, op. cit., 169.
37. Ibid.

 

38. Ives, op. cit., 127-130.
39. Marjorie Barnard, A.History of Australia,

New York. Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publisher, 1963,
209.

40. Eris O'Brien, The Foundation of Australia
1786-1800: A Study in English Criminal Practice and
Penal—Colonisation 1n the Eighteenth Century, London:
Sheed and Ward, 1937, 215.

41. Ibid., 221-225.

42. Ives, op. cit., 127.

43. Wines, op. cit., 171.

44. Ibid., 174.

45. Gillin, op. cit., 373.

46. John H. Rose, A. P. Newton, and Benians, E.A.,
The Cambridge History of the British Empire. Volume II:
The Growth of the New Empire: 91783-1870. Cambridge:
The Univers1ty Press, 1940, 433.

47. Ibid.

48. W.P. Morrell, British Colonial Policy in the

Age of Peel and Russell, London: Oxford UniversityPress,
1930 , 403.

49. Rose, Newton, and Benians, op. cit., 433.
50. Morrell, op. cit., 405-406.
51. Ibid.

52. Playfair, op. cit., 22.

103

53. Shaw, 0p;'cit., 30-31.

54. Gillin, op. eit., 371.

55. Shaw, op. cit., 358.

56. Ibid., 359.

57. Harry E. Barnes, The Repression of Crime: Studies
in Historical Penology. New York: George H. Doran Company,
1926; reprint ed., Montclair, New Jersey: Patterson
Smith Publishing Corporation, 1969, 86-87.

58. Rusche and Kirchheimer, op. cit., 123.

59. Leonard Orland, Prisons: Houses of Darkness,
New York: The Free Press, 1975, 19.

CHAPTER IV

SAMPLING IN HISTORICAL
RESEARCH: AN ANALYSIS
OF TWO STUDIES

In the preceding chapter a brief overview of
transportation as punishment in England was presented.
The purpose of this chapter is to examine two studies
pertaining to transportation and the convicts transported
to Australia. The first is for the entire period of
transportation and the second study discusses only
the first four year period (1788-1792). The first,

L.L. Robson's The Convict Settlers of Australia: An
Enquiry into the Origin and Character of the Convicts
transported to New South Wales and van Diemen's Land

1787-1852 is important to the field of social history

 

since it employs quantitative techniquesto provide
answers to important historical questions. The second
study to be examined, John Cobley's The Convicts:

1788-1792, is important to the social historian because

 

it is an example of how sampling techniques can be
misunderstood. Both these studies are important
because they reflect the historian using social

scientific techniques to historical questions.

104

105

R.S. Schofield in "Sampling in Historical

Researc , indicates that in some fields of history,
e.g., family history, migration studies, and studies
necessitating the interpretation of criminal statistics,
"the quantity of evidence is so overwhelming that it
would take an unacceptably long time to assess every
item fully."1 Therefore, he continues, "the usual
strategy adopted.in the face of an unmanageable
quantity of evidence is a narrowing of the scope of
the enquiry, in time, in space, or in subject matter."2
But, he cautions that while in many instances narrowing
the scope of inquiry may be an acceptable solution,
there are occasions when it is

an unwelcome one. For example,

interest may be precisely in the

development of a large area over a

long span of time, or the evidence

may be quite manageable except fer

one vital series of documents of

gargantuan size which alone would

swallow up the time available for

research.

However, Schofield reassures the historian that
there is an alternative strategy available: sampling.
Through sampling, the historian can discover all that
is needed to be known by examining only part of the
evidence; furthermore, sampling can radically reduce
the amount of time required to complete the research.
Importantly, sampling allows the historian to conduct

research projects which would otherwise have been

106

impossible, and the range of historical reSearch can
be extended by considering further eVidence, or the
depth by reflecting longer on the evidence of the
research.4 The feasibility of sampling in any
particular instance, Schofield maintains, clearly
depends on how evenly information which is relevant
to the research is spread amongst the documents to
be sampled, and if relevant information occurs in
only a few documents, sampling is clearly inappropriate.
On the other hand, if every document contains

relevant information, and interest is centered on the
typical rather than on the bizarre, then sampling will
provide an acceptable summary of the evidence with an
expenditure of only a fraction of the time and effort
that a full perusal would entail.5

In this chapter, a discussion of two historical
studies both using sampling techniques to describe
characteristics of the convict population transported
to Australia will be presented to illustrate how
sampling can be applied to history.

The two studies are based on the same evidence.
L.L. Robson researcher and author of the first study
to be discussed relates the following information
pertaining to the records he examined, and how he

derived his sampling method for his study entitled

107

The ConviCt Settlers of AuStralia:"An'Enquir ,Into
the Origin and CharaCter of the ConviCts transported
to New South wales and van Diemen‘s Land 1787-1852.

Australia is possibly the only
nation in the world for which there
exists a comprehensive reCord of a
large proportion of the first settlers,
both free and bond, because New South
Wales and Van Diemen's Land were
administered as virtual police states
in the first years of their settlement,
and thus it is not surprising that
dossiers of one sort or another
formed a large proportion of records,
and that convict administration
occupied much of the attention of the
early governors.6

Robson's data was sampled from complete population
lists, consequently his sampling could be effectively
conducted. Regarding his documents, Robson states:

The principal relevant documents
are in the Public Record Office, London,
among the Home Office papers. These
records, which are the transportation
registers, list the name of the convict,
place and date of conviction, and period
for which transported, and are apparently
complete except in the case of the felons
on the first Fleet, which left England
in 1787. Fortunately there is in the
public records a list of prisoners on
that fleet, and although it has been
claimed that this is not complete the
numbers reckoned go be missing are no
more than twenty.

Robson further checked the completeness of these
registers by primarily noting the despatches of the
various governors of the colonies, since the chief

executives recorded the arrival of convict vessels, and

108

the number on board. TheSe'reCords, allowing for
deaths on the way out, agree with the Home Office
lists very closely in general, and eXactly in the
great majority of cases. Secondly, examination of
the Blue Books disclosed a high degree of agreement,
and thirdly, a publication listing all the convict
vessels from Britain, with the details of numbers,
also agrees very closely with Home Office documents.8
Robson's population was very large (147,580) and
consequently it was very difficult to draw a random
sample,since it is necessary at some stage to assign
a number to each item in order to have a random.sample.
Therefore, in order to simplify sampling, a systematic
sample of every twentieth convict was taken from a
total list based on Home Office 11 documents and the
indentures and associated documents.9 Consequently,
Robson's sample was comprised of 6,131 male convicts
and 1,248 female convicts for a total sample of 7,379.
It is important to remember that the sample is one of
5 per cent, and therefore an indication of the true
totals would be obtained by multiplying by twenty.lo
After drawing his sample, Robson recorded the data
on punched cards, and he reassures us that "from.various
sources, the variables in the survey were completed as

far as possible, and then coded on to the punched cards,

109

which were counted, and totals drawn up for the

categories distinguished.11

Robson's findings in general are:

Approximately 123,000 men and 25,000
women were transported to New South
Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and 1.8
per cent died on the voyage out.

Most of them (130,000) came after 1815,
half were sent out for seven years, and
a quarter fer life.

Two convicts out of every three were
tried in England, about one in three
in Ireland, and a few in Scotland and
abroad.

The average age was twenty-six years,
approximately 75 per cent of the
prisoners were single, and nearly all
were from the labouring classes.
Certainly one-half, and probably
two-thirds, had formerly been

punished, usually for forms of
theft.

Eight out of every ten were transported
for larceny of various kinds.

Two-thirds were Protestants, and one-third
Roman Catholic.12

John Cobley's study The Convicts: 1788-1792 was
limited to convicts transported to New South Wales
which embarked.from:England and Ireland between 1787
and 1792 in order "to annotate the available details
of the lives of the "First Colonists."13

Cobley's methodology was to use Robson's sample

of the convicts embarking in England and Ireland and

110

arriving in New South Wales between the years 1788 and
1792 inclusive. Cobley states that he used Dr. Robson's
sample deliberately, "so that a comparison of his
results for the whole of transportation and of the
more restricted study of a five year period would be
possible."14

Cobley checked each name in Dr. Robson's series
from.the source used and a card was made for each convict.
On this card, basic data, such as name (with aliases),
sex, age, the place and date of trial, the sentence
and the name of the ship in which the convict embarked,
were recorded. Cobly added some names (approximately
92),15 as it was found that Dr. Robson had not sampled
the part of the complement of the Lady Juliana which
appears only in the Colonial Office Records.16

On the cards, in addition, was written any fact
recorded about each person up to and including 1792.

Cobley emulated Robson who had systematically
sampled every twentieth name from a list of 147,580.
Robson's sUbsequent sample was a total of 7,379. Cobley's
population of convicts comprised of those transported
beginning with the First Fleet in 1788 to the Fourth Fleet
in 1792 totalling 4,973 was sampled by selecting every
twentieth name resulting in a sample of 248.

This presents a methodological problem, Cobley

states that he used Robson's sample (my emphasis)

 

 

111

of convicts embarking in England and Ireland and
arriving in New South Wales between the years 1788-
1792 inclusively. Cobley then systematically
selected every twentieth person from.this Sample.
Consequently, Cobley is sampling a sample. As stated
in an earlier section of this chapter, Robson had
systematically selected his sample from the entire
convict population of New South wales and Van Diemen's
Land for the entire period of transportation (1787-
1852) totalling 147,580 men and women inclusively.
Robson believed that by systematically selecting every
twentieth name from the lists his sample would be random“
In Cobley's project, by sampling Robson's sample, even
though he checks the source of each convict's data
‘with the original source, he increases the sampling
error by using Robson's sample.

It is important to stress that Robson analyzed
a sample of 7,379 from a population of 147,580; Cobley
is only analyzing a sample of 248 which he had
selected from another sample of 4,973 which he states
he derived from Robson's sample. It is not clear
whether Cobley selected the 4,973 from.Robson's
sample of 7,379 or from his population of 147,580.
If Cobley selected his sample from Robson's sample

of 7,379 by choosing every twentieth name he would

 

112

have had a sample of approximately 369. If Cobley
selected every twentieth name from Robson's
population of 147,580, he would have derived the
same sample as Robson had for his study of the
entire period of Australian transportation.

It may be speculated, since Cobley does not
clearly describe how he actually derived a total
number of 4,973, that he used Robson's population
of 147,580. By systematically selecting every
twentieth name (after first locating the beginning
convict that met the characteristics of being in
the 1788-1792 period), Cobley could have preceded in
this manner until he had a sample number of 4,973.
However, his sample would not have been likely to
be a strictly one in twenty study, since it is
unlikely that every twentieth name that occurred in
the sequence would have been a convict that met the
requirements for inclusion in Cobley's study.

Finally, after Cobley analyzed his sample, he
concluded that the small number of data items due to
the incompleteness of the earlier records (igg., the
period 1788-1792) made comparison with Robson's more
detailed sample impossible. Perhaps, Cobley could
have eliminated this problenxby increasing the size

of his own sample, or indeed, by analyzing the entire

113

population of 4,973 (remembering that Robson had
interpreted a sample of 7,379).

It is important, however, to note Cobley for
the additional descriptive material provided in the
appendix of his study including especially the
description of the records used and the transcript
of a trial from.the Old Bailey Sessions papers.

It is unfortunate that Cobley could not compare
his findings with the general findings of Robson.
Other historians have made assessments concerning the
characteristics of the Australian convict population.
One historian, A.G.L. Shaw has argued that most
convicts, were not innocent victims of an unjust
criminal justice system, but instead were unjust
victims of urban overcrowding and unemployment, or
as Shaw has described them "the ne'er-dodwells from
the city slums."17

L.L. Robson concludes from his study that the
majority of the convicts were young urban thieves.

However, his study is more extensive than Shaw's, and
he bases his conclusions on a far wider range of descriptive
questions, such as: where did the convicts come from?
what crimes had they committed, including the one that
led to transportation? how many were men and how ueny

were women? how many were English? to which colonies

114

were they sent? what happened to them.when they

got there? what further offenses were committed in

the colony? how old were they? what were their
occupations, their marital status, the length of

their sentence, their religion and place of birth?

and why did they commit the crime that brought them

to Australia?18 By using quantitative methods, Robson
could analyze these questions and provide insights as to
why the convicts committed crimes and subsequently

were sentenced to transportation.

George Rude has indicated that historians sudh as
the Hammonds (who have also studied the convict
population) view the

convicts as more sinned against

than sinning and as victims of

a harsh and vindictive criminal

code which made little distinction
between a murderer and a man convicted
of resisting enclosure, stealing a
loaf of bread, or taking the
elementary precautions to protect
himself against the grosser Evils

of an industrial revolution. 9

From this chapter, it is evident that the
transportation phenomenon has been studied from both
the qualitative method and the quantitative method.

It is apparent that the quantitative method can provide
additional insights to the problem, if the study is

conducted in both a reliable and valid manner with

the data being selected and coded correctly. The

115

eclectic approach, therefore, can provide relevant
answers that will not only describe the criminal but
the society and the criminal justice system of the

period as well.

116

CHAPTER FOUR: FOOTNOTES

1. R. S. Schofield, "Sampling in Historical
Research," in Nineteenth-Century'Boeiety:"ESsays_ip,
the Use of’Quantitative'MethOds‘fbr the Study Of Social
Data, edited7by E.A. wrigley, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1972, 146.

 

 

2. pg.
3. Ibid.
4. 333g.
5. 193g.

6. L.L. Robson, The Convict Settlers of Australia:
An Enquiry into the Origin and Character of the ConviEts
transported to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land
1787-1852, Melbourne: MelbOurne University Press, 1965,
162.

7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 164.
It is important to state that many estimates
have been made of the number of convicts transported
to Australia, e.g., the 1812 committee on transportation
and the 1837 committee listed totals, as well as Charles
Bateson in his study The Convict Ships 1787-1868 (Glasgow,
1959).
10. Ibid., 176.
11. Ibid., 164-165.

12. Ibid., 9.

 

 

 

13. John Cobley, The Convicts:‘ 1788-1792,
Surry Hills: The Wentworth Press, 1965, 1.

14. Ibid. , 4.
15. Ibid., 55.
16. Ibid., 2

 

117

17. A.G.L. Shaw, in Sydney Mornipg Herald,
29 June 1953, cited in George Rude, PrOtest and Punishnent:

The Story of the Social and Political PrOteSters
Transported to AUStralia’l788el868, Oxford: Oxford
UniverSity Press, 1978, 239.

18. George Rude, op. cit., 239-240.

19. Ibid., 238.

CONCLUSIONS

It has been the intent of this thesis to address
the three interrelated reasons why little research
has been conducted in the fields of criminology and
criminal justice: (1) the gargantuan amount of
criminal statistics, (2) quantification, and (3) the
growth of social history as a subdiscipline of history.

In order to understand these three components, the
dilemmas of quantification and computer usage in the
field of history were presented in Chapter One. Chapter
Two was a description of the subsequent fervor which
resulted when the findings of two economic historians
who had applied quantification to a traditional
interpretation of slavery in America's South were
presented in their book Time on the CrOss: The
Economics of American Negro Slavery. In Chapter Three
background information on transportation as punishment
in eighteenth and nineteenth century England.was
presented to serve as an introduction to Chapter Four
an analysis of two historical studies which had
applied quantification to interpret data describing
men and women transported to Australia.

From.these four chapters, it is evident that

past difficulties experienced by historians concerning

118

119

quantitative interpretation of historical questions
are beginning to lessen. Consequently, more studies
in the fields of crindnology and criminal justice are
beginning to appear. It is evident that the growth
and development of social history has contributed to
the interest of historians in the areas of criminology
and criminal justice.

Of course, historians have no foolproof solutions:
to the methodological problems encountered when
implementing the techniques of the social scientists.
Historians attempt to become familiar with all aspects
of the culture of the period they are studying. From
this type of investigation, the historian derives
"hunches" or intuition pertaining to certain events,
ideas, and structures of relationships. The historian
tests these "hunches" by further reading and checking
the primary sources of the period. ‘(It is important
to state that social scientists also follow "hunches"
or intuition in their research and follow these "leads"
by further reading in the area.) It is important for
the criminologist to employ this type of research tool
in combination with the quantitative data to permit
his study to be more historical in content. As
Monkkonen has recommended, researchersconducting

studies in criminology and the criminal justice system

120

must be aware of the period they are studying, careful
in their selection of data (being aware of the biases
that Monkkonen discusses) and willing to work with
colleagues in understanding theoretical and technical
problems.1

E.J. Hobsbawulhas raised the question concerning
how much historians, particularly social historians,
can derive from social scientists. He writes:

It is clear that social history
has since 1950 been powerfully
shaped and stimulated not only
by the professional structure of
other social sciences, and by
their methods and techniques, but
also by their questions.

Furthermore, Hobsbawm.chides the historians and
tells them that social scientists are attempting to
do historical research because the historians have
failed to provide answers to the questions of the
social scientists.3 As a consequence, he continues,
there are now a few social scientists who have made
themselves "sufficiently expert in our field to
command respect, there are more who have merely
applied a few crude mechanical concepts and models."4
Hobsbawm recommends, therefore, a combined effort by

historians and social scientists. He credits the

techniques and methods of the social scientists:

121

Given the nature of our
sources, we can hardly advance
much beyond a combination of
the suggeStive hypotheSis and
the apt anecdotal illustration
without the teChniques for the‘
discovery, the statistical
grouping, and handling of large'
quantities of data, where necessary
with the aid of division of research,
labor and technological devices,
which other social sciences have
long developed.

To conclude, it is the recommendation of the author
of this present thesis that an eclectic approach be
adopted by the historian and the social scientist.

This approach would assist in alleviating the serious
lack of historical perspective in the fields of
criminology and criminal justice. As criminal justice
student Jay Berman indicates in his masters thesis:

There is a serious lack of
historical perspective in the
field of criminal justice. In
a field where new advancements
have occurred so rapidly that few
of us can forsee where we are
going, it would do well for us to
consider where we have been. In
order to fully understand and
appreciate the implications of current
conditions and problems, as well as
to effectively plan for the future,
it is essential to gain a clear
insight into the past.

1.

122

CONCLUSIONS: FOOTNOTES

Eric H. Monkkonen, "Systematic Criminal

Justice History: Some Suggestions, " Journal of

Interdisciplinary Histogy, Volume 9, Number 3,
inter , - .

2.

 

E.J. Hobsbawm, "From Social History to the

History of Society," Daedalus, Volume 100, Number 1,
(Winter 1971), 25.

3.
4.
5.

6.

Ibid., 26.
Ibid.
Ibid., 26-27.

Jay S. Berman, Prophets'Without Honor: The

Wickersham.Commission and the :Development of American
Law EnfErcement, A Masters Thesis, Michigan State
University, 1973, 6.

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Hanawalt, Barbara A. Crime and Conflict in English
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Hauser, Philip M. "Commentary: Schlesinger on Humanism
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127

History and Quantifitation (continued)

 

 

Marczewski, Jean. "Quantitative History." Journal of
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Price, Jacob M. "Quantifying Colonial America: A Comment
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"Recent Quantitative Werk in History:

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Shorter, Edward. The Historian and the Computer: A
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Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. "The Humanist Looks at Empirical
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Swierenga, Robert P. ”Clio and Computers: A Survey of
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Tilly, Charles. The Vendee. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
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Winchester, Ian. "The Linkage of Historical Records by
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History and the Social Sciences

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128

History and the Social SeienCes (continued)

Cochran, Thomas C. 'The Inner Revolution: 'Esspys on the
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Eliot, Thomas D. "The Use of History for Research in
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Grew, Raymond, and Steneck, Nicholas H., eds. Society
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Hughes, H. Stuart. "The Historian and the Social Scientist."
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. History as Art and as Science: Twin
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Landes, D. and Tilly, C., eds. HistOry as Social Science.
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Salvemini, Gaetano. Historian and Scientists: An ESSay
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Stinchcombe, Arthur L. Theoretical Methods in Social History.
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Stone, Lawrence. "History and Social Sciences in the
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Historiography

Barnes, Harry E. A History of Historical writing. New York:
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Barzun, Jacques, and Graff, Henry F. The Modern Researcher.
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Benson, Lee. ToWard the Scientific Study of History.
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129

Historiography (continued)

 

Beringer, Richard E. 'Historical’AnalySis: ‘Contem orary
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Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. A Behavioral Approach to
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Carr, E.H. What is History? New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

Hay, Cynthia. "Historical Theory and Historical Confirmation."
Studies in the Philosophy of History, Volume 19, Number 1,

Hexter, J.H. Doing History. Bloomington: Indiana University
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Hockett, H.C. The Critical Method in Historical Research and
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Joynt, Carey B. and Rescher, Nicholas. "The Problem of
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New York} Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965.

Nevins, Allan. The Gateway to HistOry. Boston: D.C. Heath
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Shafer, Robert Jones, ed. A Guide to Historical Method.
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Stephens, Lester D. Probing the Past: A Guide to the
‘Study and Teaching 6f HiStOry. Boston: Allyn and
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Walsh, W.H. Philosophy of History: An IntroductiOn.
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Winks, R.W., ed. The Historian as Detective: Essays on
Evidente. Newaork: Harper and Row, 1968.

 

130

Punishment

 

Barnes, Harry E. The Repression of Crime: Studies in
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. The Story of Punishment: A Record
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Patterson Smith Publishing Corporation, 1972.

 

 

Cadogan, Edward. The Roots of Evily_Being a Treatise
on the Methods ofIDealing‘with Crime and the
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Centuries in Relation to Those of a’More Enlightened
.Ag_. London: John Murray, 1937.

Collins, Philip. Dickens and Crime. London: Macmillan
and Company, Ltd.,bl962}

 

DuCane, Col. Sir Edmund F. The Punishment and Prevention
of Crime. London: MacMillan and to., 1885.

 

Gillin, John Lewis. Criminology and Penology. New York:
The Century Co., 1926.

 

Ignatieff, Michael. A Just Measure of Pain: The
Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolutioni 1750-1850.
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Ives, George. A History of Penal Methods: Criminals,
Witches, Lunatics. London: Stanley Paul and Company,
1914.

 

Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, I974.

Orland, Leonard. Prisons: Houses of Darkness. New York:
The Free Press, 1975.

 

Pike, Luke Owen. A History of Crime in England Illustrating
the Changes ofithe Laws in the Progress of Civilisation.
Volume II. London: Smith, Eldbr, and Co., 1876.

Playfair, Giles. The Punitive Obsession: An Unvarnished
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Pugh, Ralph B. Imprisonment in Medieval England.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

131

Punishment (continued)

Radzinowicz, Leon. 'A History of English Criminal Law
and Its Administration from 1750. Vblume One:
ThebMovement fer Reform.1750-1833. New York: The
Macmillan 66., 1948.

 

Rusche, Georg and Kirchheimer, Otto. Punishment and
Social Structure. New York: Columbia University
Press,*1939.

 

 

Sellin, J. Thorsten. Slavery and the Penal System.
New York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co.,
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Walker, Peter N. ‘Punishment: An Illustrated History.
Newton Abbot: David and Charles,‘l972.

 

Wines, Frederick Howard. Punishment and Reformation: A
Study of the Penitentiary SyStem. NeWCYofk: Thomas Y.
Crowell Company, Puinshers, 1919.

 

 

Transportation: American

Andrews, Charles M. 'The Colonial Period of American
History. Volume Four: ‘Engand's CoIOnial and

ommercial Policy. New Haven: IYalelUniversity
Press, 1934.

 

 

 

Beier, A.L. "Social Problems in Elizabethan London."
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
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Bruce, Philip A. Economic History of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry into the Material
Condition of thebPeople, Based upon Original'andl
Contemporaneous Recofds. New York: Macmillan and
COmpany, 1896.

 

Butler, J.D. "British Convicts Shipped to American
Colonies." American Historical Review, Volume 2,
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McCormac, Eugene I. White Servitude in Maryland: 1634-1820.

 

 

Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1904.

Morris, Richard B. Government and Labor in Early Amerita.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1946.

 

132

Transportation: American (continued)

 

Reese, Trevor R. "The Origins of Colonial America and
New South Wales." 'The Australian Journal of
Politics and'History,lVolume’7, Number 2,
(November 1961), 186-197.

Smith, Abbott E. Convicts in Bondage: White Servitude
and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. Chapel Hill:
Ththniversity ofINorth Carolina Press, 1947.

 

Transportation: Australian

Barnard, Marjorie. A History of Australia. Sydney:
Angus and Robertson Ltd., 1962.

 

Blainey, Geoffrey. The Tyranny of Distance: How DiStance
Shaped Australia's HistOry. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1968.

 

Clark, C.M.H. A History of Australia. Volume One: 'From
the Earliest Times to the Age of Macquarie. Melbourne:
Melbourne University’Press, 1962.

 

Clark, Colin. Australian Hopes and Fears. London:
Hollis and Carter Limited,Il958.

Cobley, John. The Convicts 1788-1792: A Study of a One-in-
Twenpy Sample. Surrthills: The wentworthiPress, 1965.

' . 'The Crimes of the First Fleet Convicts.
Sydney, Australia: Angus andinbertson Lth, 1970.

 

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. New York: The
Bobbs-Merrill, Company, Inc., 1964.

 

Morrell, W.P. British Colonial Policy in the Age of Peel
‘and Russell. ’London: OxfOrd University Press, 1930.

 

Nadel, George. Australia's Colonial Culture: Ideas, Men,
and Institutions in Mid-Nineteenth CenturyIEastern
Australia. Cambridge, MassaChusetts: HarvardIUniversity
Press, 1957.

 

O'Brien, Eris. The Foundation of Australia (1786-1800): A
Study in Englisthriminal Practice andIPenal
Cblbnibation in the Eighteenth Century. (London: Sheed
and Ward, 1937.

133

Transportation: Australian (continued)

Robson, L.L. The Convict Settlers of Australia: An
Enquiry into the origin and Character of the ConViCts
Transported to New South wales and VanIDiemen's Land)
1787-1852. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1965.

Rose, John H., Newton, A.P., Benians, E.A. The Cambrid e
History_of the British Empire. Volume II: The Growth
of the New Empire: I783-l870. Cambridge: The University
Press, 1940.

 

 

 

Rude, George. Protest and Punishment: The Story of the
Social and Pblitical Protesters Transpprted to
Australia 1788-l868. Oxford: Oxforthniversity
Press,tl9787

 

 

Shaw, A.G.L. Convicts and the Colonies: A Study of Penal
Transportation frOm Great Britain and Ireland to
Australia and Other—Parts of the BritishtEmpire.
London: (Faber and Faber, 1966.

Tobias, J.J. Crime and Police in En land, 1700-1900.
New York: St. Martin‘s Press, nc.,‘1979.