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.
Jim Beckwourth?
While I was aware that the British used a 'Debtors Prison' System ,
I have been historialy unaware of 'white slavery' of the Irish by the Brits.
After three hundred years of indentured servitude , white slavery , and distant penal colonies, I now have a new appreciation for the AOH and the IRA in Irish History.
My Irish ancestors came as a result of the need for freedom from the subtle economic Irish caste system, and "AN GORTA MOR"('the great hunger')
I identify as an American , with Irish heritage, and the fact that all three of my children are redheads, includes a Viking heritage, or a Norwegian milkman who lingered. .. /s
Regardles ,"Ben Mugged" , thank you for additional heritage of which I was previously unaware.
And in this case, it is something that H’wood actaully got right.
***”..now we are overrun with them.”***
That is because..(Cue the music)...”Every sperm is sacred..”
Slavery is still practiced in the United States today. Except its called income taxes.
White slaves. Black slaves. Slavery is bad no matter who is the owner and who is the slave.
Pointing out white slaves doesn’t justify it anyway. It was the culture at the time. It was wrong then. It is wrong now.
Obviously you haven't worn a kilt !
There are two Irish ways to stay warm :
Irish Whiskey - (a/k/a/ 'The waters of life" )
or hug your woman under two comforters, with a 'bundling board'
There are ways to defeat the 'bundling board', and it doesn't involve 'knot holes'
Stay warm , my Freeper friend, either by drink , or companionship !
But don't wear a kilt to keep warm .. just saying !
Sorry, don't buy it. I don't think children of white indentured women were born chattel. Children generally inherited their mother's legal status.
I believe black slavery began in the 1500s. English Captain John Hawkins would take ships to Africa, buy captured blacks from the local chiefs, (those not bought were eaten by the local blacks).
Hawkins then took his ships to South America where he sold slaves around the Caribbean until his fleet was captured and sunk by the Spanish at Vera Cruz.
Hawkins escaped to later fight against the Armada. His slaves, captured by the Spanish, were sold to profit Spain.
In this country it was the black slave owners who were also slave breeders. Whites were not the breeders.
The amazing thing is that Olivia de Havilland is still alive.
I actually had one of the last good history teachers and we were actually taught about this in high school. I’d hate to see a modern history book. It probably goes no further than Jan 20th 2009.
My Scot ancestor came over after the Jacobite Rebellion in the 1730s. He was given the choice to live indentured in the new world or be hanged. So yes, you are correct.
The Portuguese were the first to traffic in Black Slaves from Africa to the New World. Pope Paul III had issued a Papal Bull in 1537 prohibiting enslavement of the indigenous people of the New World, afterward the slave trade grew quickly.
Here’s another take on the issue.
http://www.academia.edu/9475964/The_Myth_of_Irish_Slaves_in_the_Colonies
Haven’t any of you heard of the BLACK IRISH???
Amen. Slavery is the antithesis of ideals I hold sacred: freedom and self-reliance.
“Mine ended up in Herkimer County on the Mohawk..”
Any relation to Johan Joseph House = Hans Yost Haus?
In my ancestry research I found several. It appears to have been very much the mail order bride or husband of the day.
One of the accused in the Salem witch trials appeared to be matter of nosy and jealous neighbors who didn’t approve of the indentured servant moving into the house of the widowed farm owner.
James II wasn’t king of england until 1685. how could he have enslaved the irish in 1625?
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