This is thought provoking.  One must take into account who is making the statements.  Similar statements can be found in the Missionary Journal of New York State, 1803, written by Timothy Mather Cooley (a Mather descendant) as he made his way across northern NYS where people were without ministers and urban, or even village, level education.
   The key points I took from Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family is that  Africans sold Africans to European and American slave traders for qualities that weren't desirable - including enemy tribal membership, thievery, adultery, etc,. but who also possessed attributes that the slave owners found worthwhile to make an investment in - physical stamina, intelligence, hard working.

Honor Conklin

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In various accounts of early American settlements and frontier communities I've read descriptions of  the substantial numbers of  their residnets that were criminals, n'er-do-wells, drunkards, loafers and othe drags on society .  But these accounts are only anecdotal.

I wondered if many of these miscreants were the result of Great Britain dumping its unwanted in the colonies, as they exported criminals to Australia. My question is, could anyone direct me to studies of the number of lawbreakers and/or convicted criminals that were sent from the British Isles and Ireland ( or from any other nation, such as France, if that were the case) to the American colonies?

 [I understand, of course, that many emigrants from England labeled as criminals were only financial failures from debtors' prisons, or political revolutionaries, such as those from Ireland and Scotland].

                                                               William Ringle