White Slaves in Colonial America

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.

My brother didn’t answer my questions about our ancestor but did forward this:

History of the Palatine Immigration to Pennsylvania

as written by Daniel Rupp, 1876

Ten sails of vessels were freighted with upwards of four thousand Germans for New York. They departed the 25th December, 1709 and after a six months’ tedious voyage reached New York in June, 1710. On the inward passage, and immediately on landing, seventeen hundred died. The survivors were encamped in tents, the had brought with them from England, on Nutting, now Governor’s Island. Here they remained til late in autumn, when about fourteen hundred were removed, one hundred miles up the Hudson river, to Livingston Manor. The widowed women, sickly men and orphaned children remained in New York. The orphans were apprenticed by Governor Hunter, to citizens of New York and of New Jersey.

Thee settled on Hudson river were under indenture to serve Queen Anne as grateful subjects, to manufacture tar and raise hemp, in order to repay the expenses of their transport and cost of subsistence, to the amount of ten thousand pounds sterling, which had been advanced by parliamentary grant. A supply of naval stores from this arrangement, had been confidently anticipated. The experiment proved a complete failure. There was mismanagement.

The Germans, being unjustly oppressed, became dissatisfied both with their treatment, and with their situation. Governor Hunter resorted to violent measures to secure obedience to his demands. In this, too, he failed. One hundred and fifty families, to escape the certainty of famishing, left, in the autumn of 1712, for Schoharie Valley, some sixty miles, northwest of Livingston Manor. They had no open road, no horses to carry or haul their luggage - this they loaded on roughly constructed sleds, and did tug those themselves, through a three feet deep snow, which greatly obstructed their progress - their way was through an unbroken forest, where and when the wind was howling its hibernal dirge through leaf-stripped trees, amid falling snow. It took them three full weeks. Having reached Schoharie, they made improvements upon the lands Queen Anne had granted them. Here they remained about ten years, when owing to some defect in their titles, they were deprived of both lands and improvements. In the spring of 1723, thirty-three families removed and settled in Pennsylvania, in Tulpehocken, some fifteen miles west of Reading. A few years afterward, others followed them.

The other dissatisfied Germans at Schoharie, who did to choose to follow their friends to Pennsylvania sought for and found a future home on the frontier in Mohawk Valley.

King James II was born in 1633. He was also the last Catholic Monarch. Cromwell was the main pusher of transportation. The history is close, but slightly off. In most cases, it wasn't chattel slavery, which is what separates it from the blacks. It's a significant difference.

There were a large number of Irish who were sentenced to "transportion" to other areas (colonies, Australia). Often, it was 7 years. Those who were transported had to pay their own way so they were in debt. "Indentured servants" basically.

Barbados and Montserrat are the two most well known places outside of Australia were the Irish were sent. Montserrat has a significant mixed Irish-Black today. It was complicated there as with everything else. You had Irish plantation owners there along with Irish indentured and black slaves.

Yes my Palatine family were among the lot that had their homes stolen from them in Schorie County..(Ive been there to the Stone Fort)

The Albany Five later the Albany Seven were a group of crooks who were English speaking and writing and they cheated the hard working Germans out of the lovely Dutch houses and farms they had carved out of the wilderness..

The thieves wrote to Queen Anne and claimed that the Germans were squatters on “their” land and as Anne was busy once again with another war and didn’t want to be bothered by problems in the colonies, she gave the job to one of her ministers to deal with..he sent the conmen paper deeds to the land and the Germans were driven off their own farms..

Many went down into PA but my 7th gggf is suppose to have said he was going to move up the Mohawk River so far that no white man would ever want his land and cheat him again...he took his family so far from civilization that the Monrovian missionaries mentioned him in their journals as being the man to contact for parlays with the Indians..

However it was all good...his daughter met her indentured Irish now Leatherstocking type fur trapper husband at the trading post..

I think the author was very obviously trying to draw a very distinct line between the Irish and the black experience. Which is for the most part appropriate, but back during the 1600s I’m not sure there was all that much difference.

As you say, the Irish in the 1600s were to a considerable extent shipped off as rebels and convicts. I’m not sure there was a great deal of attention given to whether their indentures were in proper order and they were released at the end of them.

It is also well-known that many Irish, Scots and English were kidnapped and sold as indentures in America or the Caribbean. The basis of R.L. Stephenson’s Kidnapped, which I read 50-some years ago and still remember pretty clearly.

The author conflates Irish experience from early 1600s to mid-800s as if it was all one thing.

Also noticed he seemed to ignore the elephant in the room. Who is Irish? The BIG Irish immigration to America in the 18th, absolutely enormous, was among Protestant Irish, what Americans call Scotch-Irish. Many of today’s professional Irishmen don’t consider them to be really Irish at all.

Of the various groups and peoples he discusses, were they Scotch-Irish or Irish-Irish?

One of my great-great-grandmothers was indentured (along with her siblings) by her own father when her mother died, to lift his debts, and that wasn’t in the Caribbean, and didn’t involve the Irish.

http://www.google.com/search?q=irish+slaves+in+the+caribbean&spell=1&ie=UTF-8

The Irish Slave Trade — The Forgotten “White” Slaves
The Slaves That Time Forgot
By John Martin
Global Research, March 17, 2015
Oped News and Global Research 14 April 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076

Irish indentured labour in the Caribbean
Monday 11 March 2013
Michael Mahoney
http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/irish-indentured-labour-in-the-caribbean/

Irish Slaves in the Caribbean
Last updated on February 1, 2015
http://kerbev.hubpages.com/hub/IrishSlaves

The slaves that time forgot
by gjohnsitFollow
Fri Dec 27, 2013 at 08:52 AM PST
[sh***y source]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/27/1265498/-The-slaves-that-time-forgot

Irish Roots Caribbean Island Boasts A Culture That`s Unusual.
By BARBARA WALSH
May 23, 1993
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-05-23/news/9302130335_1_irish-history-irish-group-irish-americans

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