Between 1788 and the end of transportation in 1868 over 174.000 men, woman and children were deported to Australia. The typical convict was a petty thief, a poor man who stole food or property to feed his family, a burglar, vandal, pickpocket or shoplifter. Although some where forgers, swindlers and white collar criminals. Serious crimes such as rape, murder and the like were capital offenses so only petty criminals were ejected from their land of birth. From the moment of capture the conditions they were subjected to were hellish, once sentenced to transportation to the antipodes they knew they would never see their home or family again. It was an horrific experience underpinned by class, upper classes often receive fines or custodial sentences whereas the laboring classes faced deportation. They were kept manacled in dank communal cells, fed starvation rations and those who survived passage on rat infested, disease ridden ships found only further misery. Treated like beasts of burden they worked 12 hour days tilling fields, breaking rocks, constructing buildings, carving roads out of the wilderness and were flogged for the most minor infraction. Many committed suicide, those who survived to be given a ticket of leave (parole), were often broken emotionally by the experience or forged hard as nails, it was an inhuman system which turned good men bad and bad men evil.

Old San Francisco

Once released from prison the vast majority of convicts chose to stay in the colonies, the social stigma of being a convict made it unlikely they would be welcomed by family or friends and with little chance of finding a decent job there was little to lure them back to the country which had expelled them. To dissuade those eligible for repatriation to the United Kingdom authorities gave them land grants and a one of payment to establish themselves, but even in Australia it was hard for ex-cons to make a decent living or to go straight as settlers feared them. When gold was discovered in Australia many sought their fortunes prospecting, although few if any found it. Prospecting was an itinerant profession, those who sought gold traveled the globe. In 1848 one of histories greatest discoveries was made at Sutter's Mill on the American River, 100 miles northeast of San Francisco, California, causing the worlds most famous Gold Rush.