28. The Light Fingered Maid
Britain, until well into the nineteenth century, routinely got rid of convicted criminals via penal transportation – a system of shipping undesirables to far away colonies. Upon arrival, the convicts were sold into indentured servitude for a fixed term. During the eighteenth century, Britain’s American Colonies and the West Indies were the most popular dumping grounds for such undesirables.
It was via penal transportation that Sarah Wilson (circa 1754 – circa 1865) arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1771. Once a maid in Buckingham Palace to one of Queen Charlotte’s ladies in waiting, Sarah had light fingers, and was caught stealing some of the queen’s jewels and gowns. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang – theft being one of the hundreds of crimes punishable by death in Britain back then. Luckily, her sentence was commuted to penal transportation. Like many immigrants, Sarah would reinvent herself in the New World. Unlike most immigrants, she would reinvent herself as a royal princess.