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White Slaves in Colonial America
My Research | March 23 2015 | Me

Posted on 03/23/2015 9:28:55 AM PDT by Ben Mugged

I am certain we never heard this in school.

The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

You might check these publications, "Without Indentures: Index to White Slave Children in Colonial Court Records" by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., paperback, 2013, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD. I got a copy several months ago for research. Then there's "To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland" by Sean O'Callaghan, paperback, 2001, "The Irish Slaves: Slavery, indenture and Contract labor Among Irish Immigrants" by Rhetta Akamatsu, paperback, 2010 and "They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America" by Michael Hoffman, paperback, 1993.

There are more, but my point, is that the average American only knows about black slaves, who were almost invariably captured and sold into slavery by fellow blacks in Africa by the way.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Education; History
KEYWORDS: colonialamerica; fartyshadesofgreen; indentures; ireland; irish; miscegenation; slavery
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To: BenLurkin

Not NY, Chester Pennsylvania. When he served out his indenture he bought a 700 acre farm in Tennessee where he met, bought, and married an Irish slave woman.


21 posted on 03/23/2015 10:01:35 AM PDT by Ben Mugged (The number one enemy of liberalism is reality.)
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To: Ben Mugged

No sir. I’m talking about MY German ancestor.


22 posted on 03/23/2015 10:02:46 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: Ben Mugged
What? Was Errol Flynn one of your ancestors? Interesting that this history of white slaves in the Caribbean was known well enough in the 1930's for a hit movie to be made.


23 posted on 03/23/2015 10:02:51 AM PDT by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: Ben Mugged

My guy never served out his indenture. He was cut loose along with the other Germans which some British Lord had dragged over here and was unable to feed. Went to upstate NY and pioneered.


24 posted on 03/23/2015 10:04:07 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: BenLurkin

We might be related......


25 posted on 03/23/2015 10:06:27 AM PDT by Ben Mugged (The number one enemy of liberalism is reality.)
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To: centurion316
I researched white slavery in the new world some time ago and your post is accurate. What I found is that black slaves were slaves sold as slaves, so the philosophy started to take hold in the new world of permanent slavery. The Virginia House passed a serious of laws and declarations justifying permanent slavery of an inferior race.
26 posted on 03/23/2015 10:07:34 AM PDT by 11th Commandment ("THOSE WHO TIRE LOSE")
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To: BenLurkin
BenLurkin : "30,000 Irish in 1625 and now we are overrun with them."
Irish blight on our Anglo-Saxon nation.
We should have picked our own damn tobacco."

Yeah , those dammed Irish lemmings, and Catholics to boot !
They're freaking everywhere !
And no Catholic birth control, ..just good Irish Whiskey
or they'd take over the world ! .. /s

27 posted on 03/23/2015 10:11:10 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: Ben Mugged

The Lurkin ancestor was from a place in Southwestern Germany.

At least that’s the conclusion of my brother the amateur genealogist.


28 posted on 03/23/2015 10:14:58 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

I’m glad your sarcasm detector was working this morning!


29 posted on 03/23/2015 10:15:41 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: BenLurkin

When was that ???

The 3,000 Palatine-Germans that Queen Anne sent here in 1710 were to cut down pine trees and make pitch and tar to seal the wooden English warships...but the pine trees grew further south in the Carolinas..they were in West Camp, NY

They were mostly farmers and ended up across the Hudson in Schorie and German Flatts..

Mine ended up in Herkimer County on the Mohawk..


30 posted on 03/23/2015 10:18:51 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: BenLurkin

Wait,,,,my parents are from Italy. I did not know a lot of facts about the Irish.

I could have worn Orange very easily!


31 posted on 03/23/2015 10:22:09 AM PDT by Uversabound (Our Military past and present: Our Highest example of Brotherhood of Man & Doing God's Will)
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To: Tennessee Nana

I’m checking with my brother now, but IIRC it was later than 1710 but before the Revolutionary War.


32 posted on 03/23/2015 10:24:52 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: Uversabound

Very few people today on this side of the pond know the history behind it.


33 posted on 03/23/2015 10:26:14 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.a)
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To: cripplecreek

I’d bet that most Americans, if they search their family tree closely enough, would find at least one, if not more, of their ancestors came to Virginia as indentured servants.

As you point out, that was a contract. A very, very strict one, but a contract nonetheless. It wasn’t chattel slavery. That came later, mainly with the importation of black Africans.


34 posted on 03/23/2015 10:27:48 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

FWIW I’m just old enough to remember that in my world growing up,

The priests were Irish, the cops were Irish, and on Sunday the working class Irish showed up for Mass dressed to the nines.

“You don’t have to be Irish to be Irish” went the saying.


35 posted on 03/23/2015 10:29:29 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel. My bullets are dipped in pig grease.")
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To: BenLurkin

for the Prince of Orange..

Northern Ireland was called “Orange Ireland” by my mother’s family when I was a child...


36 posted on 03/23/2015 10:29:53 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: BenLurkin

My Palatines came from Idar-Oberstein and Rohrbach in SW Germany


37 posted on 03/23/2015 10:33:45 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Ben Mugged

And that is how CAPTAIN PETER BLOOD came to the Caribbean, as a slave.


38 posted on 03/23/2015 10:35:29 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Ben Mugged

I have an ancestor from Isle of Jura, Scotland, who came to American in the mid-1600’s (don’t recall the exact date off the top of my head). He was on a ship’s manifest with a ‘P’ next to his name. I have been told this stood for Prisoner of the Crown. I am wondering if this is similar to what was going on with the Irish at the time. Any idea? I have assumed that someone paid for his passage to avoid prison and he would have to work off the cost of the passage.


39 posted on 03/23/2015 10:36:14 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA (#JuSuisCharlesMartel)
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To: The_Reader_David
And there were slave owners in the North until after the War Between the States.
40 posted on 03/23/2015 10:36:40 AM PDT by arthurus (it's true!)
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