The first Europeans in the Americas had few advantages over the native people. Their guns were rudimentary. Their ships were small. Their knowledge of how to survive in the North American wilderness was so limited that most of the early colonies failed.

It has been estimated that over half the native population in the Americas died within a few decades of the arrival of Europeans, but not from conquest. Instead, new diseases swept across the land leaving behind the illusion that it was largely uninhabited.

Homelessness and poverty were issues in Victorian England that many charities sought to alleviate. One response was homes for homeless children. But soon, many of these kids were being forced to emigrate to the colonies where they worked as child labour.