| INTRODUCTION IN THE SHADOW OF THE MYTH | | 11 | |
| CHAPTER ONE A PLACE FOR THE UNWANTED | | 21 | |
| Elizabethan adventurers dreamed of an American empire that would give them gold and glory. |
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| Others saw the New World as a dumping ground for England's unwanted poor. |
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| CHAPTER TWO THE JUDGE'S DREAM | | 33 | |
| A highwayman who became Lord Chief Justice planned to colonise America with criminals. |
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| He began to empty England's gaols and set a precedent. |
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| CHAPTER THREE THE MERCHANT PRINCE | | 47 | |
| The mastermind behind the first successful English colony in America was reputedly Britain's richest man. |
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| He kept a fledgling Virginia going and paved the way for the first white slaves. |
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| CHAPTER FOUR CHILDREN OF THE CITY | | 75 | |
| The Virginia Company wanted youngsters to work in the tobacco fields. |
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| The burghers of London wanted rid of street children. |
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| So a bargain was struck and hundreds of children were transported. |
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| CHAPTER FIVE THE JAGGED EDGE | | 89 | |
| The New World was a magnet for the poor. |
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| To get there, they had to mortgage their labour in advance. |
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| They were not to know that they had contracted into slavery and might well die in bondage. |
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| CHAPTER SIX 'THEY ARE NOT DOGS' | | 99 | |
| Virginia was run by planters who pushed through laws that relegated 'servants' and 'apprentices' to the status of livestock. |
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| Notionally they had rights but planters were literally allowed to get away with murder. |
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| CHAPTER SEVEN THE PEOPLE TRADE | | 113 | |
| In the 1630's, almost 80,000 people left England for the Chesapeake, New England and the Caribbean, most of them indentured servants. |
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| A ruthless trade in people developed in which even a small investor could make money. |
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| CHAPTER EIGHT SPIRITED AWAY | | 127 | |
| Untold numbers were kidnapped or duped onto America-bound ships and sold as servants. |
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| The 'spiriting' business became as insidious and organised as the cocaine racket today. |
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| Even magistrates took a cut of the proceeds. |
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| CHAPTER NINE FOREIGNERS IN THEIR OWN LAND | | 137 | |
| Ethnic and religious cleansing in Ireland became a model for Native Americans being cleared from the Chesapeake. |
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| During the Cromwell era, still more were displaced and Ireland became a major source of slaves for the New World. |
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| CHAPTER TEN DISSENT IN THE NORTH | | 155 | |
| Until the 1650's, Scotland fought shy of transporting its unwanted to any English colony. |
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| Then religious and political dissent were made punishable by transportation to the Americas. |
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| Sometimes more died on the way than ever reached the New World. |
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| CHAPTER ELEVEN THE PLANTER FROM ANGOLA | | 169 | |
| The idea that Africans were Virginia's first slaves is revealed as a myth through the story of one who became a planter himself and went on to own whites as well as blacks. |
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| CHAPTER TWELVE 'BARBADOSED' | | 177 | |
| In the 1640's, Barbados became the boom economy of the New World. |
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| The tiny island's sugar industry would outperform all its rivals in profits �� and in its ruthless use of slave labour. |
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| CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE GRANDEES | | 193 | |
| A planter aristocracy emerged in the Chesapeake. |
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| Its members dealt in men, land and influence, creating dynasties that dominated America for centuries. |
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| But stories of brutality deterred would-be settlers from emigrating. |
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| CHAPTER FOURTEEN BACON'S REBELLION | | 205 | |
| The planters' nightmare of a combined uprising by blacks and whites came true when a charismatic young aristocrat turned an Indian war into a campaign against his own class, the English grandees. |
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| Swearing never again, the grandees set out to divide the races. |
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| CHAPTER FIFTEEN QUEEN ANNE'S GOLDEN BOOK | | 213 | |
| Bogus promises of free land persuaded hordes of Europeans to sell up and leave for America. |
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| They began a nightmare journey that left some so impoverished they sold their children to pay the fare. |
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| But some outfoxed their exploiters. |
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| CHAPTER SIXTEEN DISUNITY IN THE UNION | | 227 | |
| Scottish clansmen were sold as servants in the Americas while their chieftains were allowed a comfortable exile in France �� two different fates for Jacobites after 1715. |
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| Merchants made fortunes selling the clansmen in six different colonies. |
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| CHAPTER SEVENTEEN LOST AND FOUND | | 233 | |
| The tide of kidnapping continued under the Hanoverians. |
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| In two famous instances, victims returned, as if from the dead, to denounce their abductors. |
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| One claimed to be heir to an earldom, kidnapped by the man who stole his birthright. |
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| CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 'HIS MAJESTY'S SEVEN-YEAR PASSENGERS' | | 247 | |
| After 1718, England subsidised the convict trade and America was deluged with British jailbirds. |
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| Paranoia grew, with soaring crime rates and epidemics blamed on convicts. |
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| Only employers were happy: a convict servant was half the price of an African slave. |
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| CHAPTER NINETEEN THE LAST HURRAH | | 271 | |
| Having won their liberty in the War of Independence, Americans had no intention of allowing their country to serve as a penal colony ever again. |
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| Britain had other plans and an astonishing plot was born. |
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| NOTES | | 283 | |
| SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY | | 301 | |
| INDEX | | 313 | |
