This Is What Was Said About the Prisons the British Ran for Captured American Soldiers and Sailors. What Will History Say of Ours?

Most American History buffs worth their salt - if not many world history students - will recall the phrase, “Bring up your dead.” However, not as many may be aware of the extensive and terrible conditions in which captured soldiers of Continental Army during the revolutionary conflict with England were confined. Each morning a familiar command “Bring up your dead…” was issued by their British guards - though some English accounts have related it, “Rebels, Bring up your dead…” as thousands during the colonist’s struggle for independence, died of sickness and starvation. The prison ship HMS Jersey, stripped for just this purpose, was said to have housed some 8,000 prisoners in the waters of New York Harbor over seven years with as many as eight captives a day housed there being buried ashore in shallow graves near what is today, Brooklyn, New York.

In 2010 Kate Hinds, Associate Producer of WNYC interviewed park ranger and amateur historian Anne Reid at The Fort Greene Park’s Prison Ships Martyrs Monument. Reid states that “Somewhere between 8,500 and 11,500 were said to have died on the various prison ships during the seven year conflict.” Moreover, “Approximately three times as many people died on the Prison Ships as died in battle.” A daily proposition was offered by English guards; “Swear allegiance to the crown and you’ll be set free.” It is said that none accepted, though it is unlikely that any who might have acquiesced would have received much historic note.

“The British readily admitted-- even back then there were rules of war and holding prisoners-- that they were happy to brag about how much money they saved by not giving them the full rations they were allowed.” Reid continued.

Captious critics have suggested that the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army was reluctant to exchange prisoners with England for whatever reasons, though that is by no means substantiated or even perceived practical in the straits of those times. What is horrifying, is the deliberate withholding of proper rations or medical treatment from human beings for the purpose of profits. And yet this has occurred throughout history. Prison conditions were appalling during the American Civil War, on both sides, with frequent deaths due to disease and malnutrition in violation of the legal frameworks of the day which stipulated equal treatment for combatants and internees alike.

On the one hand, constituents today embrace America’s political correctness in restricting prison-labor under any circumstances, even for self sustaining purposes; perhaps, in a perceived apprehension of association with slave-labor. Repulsive though, is the notion that the sustenance of imprisoned criminals should become included in the capitalist profit model, inculcated now as wholesome for most every purpose. A nice thought, but more and more we are discovering if we wish to look, the horrors associated with “prison healthcare for profit” business models. The moral aspects may easily abscond from us with concern lacking for the likes of a Charles Manson or a John Wayne Gacey of lawlessness, versus humane treatment for far less culpable men and women imprisoned. A micro-search of recent revelations of private healthcare abuse proffers the following:

“47-year-old former financial adviser has sued the Arapahoe County jail and Correctional Healthcare Companies, a private business that provided treatment for the man currently serving a two-year probation sentence for two misdemeanors.”

“Department of Corrections Secretary Mike Crews is threatening to stop payments to a Missouri-based company that won a five-year, $1.2 billion contract to provide health care to the majority of the state’s prisoners, accusing Corizon of failing to provide adequate treatment.”

“After a large lump emerged on his spine, he was told by Corizon medical staff that it was a pulled muscle. He was given ibuprofen.”

“Just months after all medical care in state prisons was privatized, the count of inmate deaths spiked to a 10-year high”

A class-action suit filed by Arizona's ACLU and a California-based law firm alleges the care is inadequate.

How shall we excuse ourselves from these matters to our next generation as those in the past have done?