The Poor Unhappy Transported Felon's Sorrowful Account

Figure 1.1: The title page from an early version of James Revel's account.

To begin with, educators can incorporate Revel's poem into the classroom within a discussion of transportation as one method of colonial labor supply. Whereas AP and introductory courses often cover indentured and slave labor, transported laborers remain unacknowledged and this misses an opportunity to display the interconnectedness of the Atlantic economy. Speci cally, a lecture on transportation would t well within a U.S. course section on the late colonial period. The height of transportation was from 1718 (thepassage of the British Transportation Act) to the early 1770s (the build-up to the American Revolution). 

One possible classroom exercise would be to read Revel's poem alongside another primary document set, such as the transported passenger lists printed within Peter Wilson Coldham's Bonded Passengers to America (full biographical details follow the module). While the poem attaches a personal face to this labor phenomenon, the lists present the broader picture of where the convicts departed from, the dates they departed, the arrival locations, and, on occasion, the crimes supposedly committed.

Educators can choose to incorporate one lecture focusing speci cally on transportation, or they can take a more integrated comparative approach and make the evolution of labor systems a theme within their courses, as the College Board suggests. This comparative approach can be accomplished through exercises analyzing the similarities and di erences between transported labor, indentured labor, and slave labor. 

For example, in the lecture section focusing on colonial development, educators can ask students to compare the lives of the three `types' of laborers in one location, such as Virginia. For this exercise the Revel poem serves as the source on the lives of a transported laborer, while primary documents from Warren Billings's The Old Dominion provide personal accounts of indentured and slave life. 

Categories of comparison can include everything from daily diet to the nature of punishment. Revel facilitates this comparative approach by describing how, after his conviction, he was transported overseas bound with an iron chain, was sold in Virginia like a horse, and then worked with his fellow slaves among the tobacco plants.