The Irish Slave Trade

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 its own to end its 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.

An inconvenient truth. Interesting.

If you’re going to copy/paste an article, at least annotate it.

This is a long-circulating piece of propaganda which is debunked every couple of years in national publications.

[quote]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.

This is a myth which seeks to downgrade the experience of African slaves and pretend that black people really didn't have it too bad. Let's not promote absolutist thinking.

That said, trying to diminish the Irish experience by terming it "only" indentured servitude neatly covers up the fact that it was an aspect of a calculated process of extermination and repopulation of Ireland by the English state.

What r4 said. FF this garbage.

Irish Americans spread this shit all the time. "Yeah, black people suffered but my ancestors suffered just as much, if not more. And they were too busy trying to make a life for themselves in America to discriminate others". Nevermind all the history out there that proves otherwise.

Thomas Sowell @ThomasSowell "More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States."

The Irish weren't just brought to America as slaves/indentured servants, however you wanna look at it. For an accurate history of slavery I suggest seeking the works of Thomas Sowell. Brilliant, and his work is irrefutable. I've read several of his books. He will make an article in USAToday seem like People's horoscope page.

Thomas Sowell needs to stay away from anything that isn't strictly related to Economics. When it comes to things unrelated to Econ, he is a hack. His work is in now way irrefutable. His book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" being a prime example.

Yeah, that's utter BULLSHITE, OP, and it has been discredited by Irish Historians. Racist white people desperately want to shovel that lie but it simply isn't true.

This is a white nationalist talking point. Ban hammer the op, Muriel.

Some people can't sstand to share the victimhood. If anything is true these days it's that there's no need to co-op the concept--there's plenty for everyone.

I've never heard of this, though. it doesn't really sound like an insignificant moment in history. are there reputable sources on this

Does this mean that Irish-Americans can also claim reparations?

Thomas Sowell is the greatest living philosopher of modern America.

Since reputable news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post to fact-checkers like Snopes have debunked this story, I’d wager not.

[quote] Does this mean that Irish-Americans can also claim reparations?

Irish need not apply.

NYT is not a reputable source on history. Can they maintain basic standards of journalism? sure, I guess. do they omit and select facts that suit their narrative? you bet your ass. I recall a heartrending article about a young transgender woman who just wanted to be in the prison that affirmed her gender identity. the NYT conveniently left out of the article the fact that she had assaulted staff and fellow inmates when "she" was in a women's prison

no historian would cite the NYT for this, I'm talking about primary sources from the relevant era and location

White people want to be oppressed so badly.

black people are so desperate to suppress information that doesn't make them look like the VICTIMS. don't you get tired of playing the victim? I sure would

R19 is our resident Klansman. Ignore is not his friend.

“Christopher Columbus Statue Beheaded in Boston”

are people seriously calling someone racist who lived FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO what is wrong with you, ya jackasses. There was no concept of racism then. They didn't even have the concept of the planet being shaped like a sphere for god's sake. This is just about looking for someone else to accuse before you get accused yourself--more of this witch hunting crap.

congratulations all you dumb woke fuckers, you're less racist than Columbus! setting the bar pretty low but I guess you needed another trophy for participating.

R20, that was R19 who posted that? I replied back to that guy and said something like "the Ancient Greeks disagree with you" and he kept giving jackass responses.

[quote] They didn't even have the concept of the planet being shaped like a sphere for god's sake.

Γαμώτο!

and yet... however much you stalk me, you're still the one jacking off to playing the victim. you can't cum unless someone's got his knee on your neck I guess. or some pig's nightstick shoved up your ass--you just love that shit. run off to your protests, honey, tonight's your night

Charming.

Racist and ahistorical garbage. The system of chattel slavery in the US exclusively applied to Africans and African descendants after the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1808. And it evolved from colonial slave codes that explicitly distinguished enslavement of Black or nonChristian people from other forms of indentured servitude.

Look up the Virginia colony's General Assembly Declaration of 1705 for one such example. They declared anyone who or whose ancestors were not Christian in their country of origin to be slaves and thus "real estate." From there, enslavement of Native Americans gradually ended and was over even before the US was formed, leaving only Africans as slaves, with a few short-lived small pockets of enslavement of Asians.

Oh, and to the extent the Irish were sold into indentured servitude (along with lots of other Europeans), those numbers in OP are complete bullshit:

The Vikings traded slaves, too. The Arabs liked their blonde/ginger pussy (they still do).

There are some people who want to avoid paying reparations to the Irish-Americans whose ancestors were in bondage in America.