Penal colony A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location , often an island or distant colonial territory . Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners overseen by wardens or governors having absolute authority . Historically penal colonies have often been used for penal labour in an economically underdeveloped part of a state ' s ( usually colonial ) territories , and on a far larger scale than a prison farm . In practice such penal colonies may be little more than slave communities . The British , French , and other colonial empires heavily used North America and other parts of the world as penal colonies to varying degrees , sometimes under the guise of indentured servitude or similar arrangements . British Empire . The British used colonial North America as a penal colony through a system of indentured servitude . Merchants would transport the convicts and auctioned them off to ( for example ) plantation owners upon arrival in the colonies . It is estimated that some 50 , 000 British convicts were sent to colonial America , representing perhaps one - quarter of all British emigrants during the 18th century . The British also would often ship Irish and Scots to the Americas whenever rebellions took place in Ireland or Scotland , and they would be treated similar to the convicts , except that this also included women and children . When that avenue closed in the 1780s after the American Revolution , Britain began using parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements . Australian penal colonies included Norfolk Island , Van Dieman ' s Land ( Tasmania ) , Queensland and New South Wales . Advocates of Irish Home Rule or of Trade Unionism ( the Tolpuddle Martyrs ) sometimes received sentences of deportation to these Australian colonies . . Without the allocation of the available convict labor to farmers , to pastoral squatters , and to Government projects such as roadbuilding , colonisation of Australia would not have been possible , especially considering the considerable drain on non - convict labor caused by several goldrushes that took place in the second half of the 19th century after the flow of convicts had dwindled and ( in 1868 ) ceased . Bermuda , off the North American continent , was also used during the Victorian period . Convicts housed in hulks were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard there , and during the Second Boer War ( 1899 - 1902 ) , Boer prisoners - of - war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of the smaller islands . In colonial India , the British made various penal colonies . Two of the most infamous ones are on the Andaman islands and Hijli . In the early days of settlement , Singapore was the recipient of Indian convicts , who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works . Non - fiction . Charrière ' s account aroused considerable controversy . French authorities disputed it and released penal colony records that contradicted his account . Charrière had never been imprisoned on Devil ' s Island . He had escaped from a mainland prison . French journalists or prison authorities disputed other elements of his book , and said that he had invented many incidents or appropriated experiences of other prisoners . Critics said he should have admitted his book was fiction . In fiction . The concept of remote and inhospitable prison planets has been employed by science fiction writers . Some famous examples include :