Abstract

During the 1850s, in the very moment that it was presenting itself as a champion of liberalism and constitutionalism in the Italian peninsula, the Kingdom of Sardinia forcibly removed exiles who had been arrested for taking part in insurrections or who were considered dangerous. From April 1853 until March 1855, three boats transported to the United States refugees coming from other areas of the Peninsula, as a means to guarantee the security of the State, silence the opposition and prove to Austria the willingness to keep revolutionaries at bay. However, the landing in New York of these refugees, neither charged nor sentenced, created issues related to the international law, the status of the transportees, and policies of immigration. Piedmont was accused of seeking to transform the United States into a penitentiary colony.