Need something to read with your morning coffee?Nearly fell off my chair,had no
idea.
They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for
the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men,
women, and even the youngest of children.
Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the
harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set
their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and
had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too
well the atrocities of the African slave trade.
But, are we talking about African slavery? King James II and Charles I also led a
continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this
practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.
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.
Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves.
They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to
the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were
nothing more than human cattle.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It
is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic
theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their
Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves
came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an
Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far
cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began
breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit.
Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s
free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids
would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found
emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls
as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish
women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion.
These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise,
enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This
practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades
and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice
of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves
for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large
slave transport company.
England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century.
Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold
to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish
captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that
the crew would have plenty of food to eat.
There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if
not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question
that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very
likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on
it’s own to end it’s participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting
slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the
new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery.
But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience,
then they’ve got it completely wrong.
Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.
But, where are our public (and PRIVATE) schools???? Where are the history books? Why
is it so seldom discussed?
Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims merit more than a
mention from an unknown writer?
Or is their story to be one that their English pirates intended: To (unlike the African
book) have the Irish story utterly and completely disappear as if it never happened.
None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their
ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books
conveniently forgot.
idea.
They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for
the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men,
women, and even the youngest of children.
Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the
harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set
their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and
had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too
well the atrocities of the African slave trade.
But, are we talking about African slavery? King James II and Charles I also led a
continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this
practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.
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.
Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves.
They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to
the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were
nothing more than human cattle.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It
is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic
theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their
Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves
came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an
Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far
cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began
breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit.
Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s
free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids
would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found
emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls
as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish
women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion.
These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise,
enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This
practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades
and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice
of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves
for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large
slave transport company.
England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century.
Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold
to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish
captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that
the crew would have plenty of food to eat.
There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if
not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question
that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very
likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on
it’s own to end it’s participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting
slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the
new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery.
But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience,
then they’ve got it completely wrong.
Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.
But, where are our public (and PRIVATE) schools???? Where are the history books? Why
is it so seldom discussed?
Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims merit more than a
mention from an unknown writer?
Or is their story to be one that their English pirates intended: To (unlike the African
book) have the Irish story utterly and completely disappear as if it never happened.
None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their
ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books
conveniently forgot.