Penal colony

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

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Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/penal-colony

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is Penal colony known for?Provided essential labor for infrastructure development and resource extraction in colonial territories
2. What is the primary state functions?Social control, territorial expansion, and economic development through forced labor
3. What is the geographical strategy?Selection of remote, often resource-rich, locations to ensure containment and facilitate exploitation
4. Why did governments send prisoners to islands?They sent prisoners to islands to solve crowded prisons and to keep the people who had done wrong away from the towns. It also helped the government build roads, ports, and other things in new areas.
5. How did prisoners help the colonies grow?Prisoners worked hard to build roads, ports, and forts, and to use natural resources. Their work helped the colonies become places where people could live and work.

Penal Colony: A settlement established in a remote location for the purpose of exiling and exploiting the labor of convicted criminals.
Absolute Authority: Unrestricted power and control vested in the administrators of a penal colony over its prisoner population.
Penal Labor: Forced work undertaken by prisoners as part of their sentence, often for public works or economic development.
Metropole: The governing country or administrative center of an empire or colony.