Irish Slavery?

[FARAFIELD]

My sister was talking to me last night and said a "little known fact" was that there were more IRISH SLAVES and what not than slaves and had I heard about it? (I had majored in History and once wrote about the American Slave trade while in college). I told her whoever told her that was full of it and that it wasnt true. SHe is married to a right winger who is trying to reconnect with His Irish Roots, and since Right wingers are predisposed to fall for all these emails. I was wondering if something was bubbling up or if there was something going around about that. It had the signs of something like that, or he could have heard something once and blown it all out of proportion. I told her that there were only 75K to 100K or so taken by the BRITS to the Islands, hardly any here. They were called indentured servants here and what not. SO while I discouraged her from pursuing it "youll find nothing credible enough to base a paper on" I told her. It still reaks. So anyone know if this is the knew WHITE PRIDE thing or is my brother in law just full of shit (correction MORE full of shit)

[Taverner]

1. They may be confusing slavery with indentured servitude

Many Irish, in order to pay to come to the New World, signed contracts of indentured servitude where they were similar to slaves for a period of time. It's not slavery - they had a choice. The slaves did not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude

[Slagathor]

3. If you think that indentured servitude isn't slavery

you don't know much about indentured servitude. Indentured servitude *is* slavery. Period.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Sorry, no.

Not that indentured servants didn't suffer, but slavery is a whole order of magnitude different.

[Slagathor]

5. No. The terms are synonymous

sorry.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. no, they are not-

do some research.

How many indentured servants were shackled together in the belly of a ship-? How many were bought and sold at auctions like animals?

peace~

[JuniperLea]

26. Being a slave doesn't require being shackled in a ship...

Not sure where you got that one.

[slampoet]

59. The Blacks were sent in Slave Ships. The Irish were Sent In COFFIN SHIPS.

The difference between a Slave Ship and a Coffin Ship is that Slave ship had all the Black people chained in horrible conditions to be sure but the ship was sent out with some food and expected to make the return journey.



The Coffin Ship contained Starving Irish who were sometimes also chained but the difference is that a coffin ship was also not seaworthy, was expected to sink before reaching America and the ship was sent out without food.



The Slave ship was a horrible for-profit venture, that also turned into a weapon of genocide.


The Coffin Ship was a weapon of genocide from it's inception.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

34. Actually, many (especially those from Britain) were.

The main difference was that owners were more likely to treat indentured servants more harshly than because they only had them for a limited time. The other is that indentured servants (theoretically) only had a certain number of years of slavery.

Sources being Richard Hofstadter's America at 1750: A Social Portrait, and The American Pageant.

[iamthebandfanman]

86. didnt indentured servants work to

be free? wasnt that the deal? you work for a good portion of your life and earn your way outa service?

regardless, they were still different in many other ways.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. You're demonstrating an appalling naivete of history.

[Slagathor]

38. Naw... you just don't know anything

you've been stomped all over this thread. Just give up.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. LOL

And it appears you've got the same grasp on current events.

[iamthebandfanman]

87. who can argue

with such flawless rational thinking.

'you just don't know anything'

lol

[Thothmes]

17. Not really

Indentured servitude was for a fixed period of time. Nomally 5-7 years. Slavery is forever.

[treestar]

33. The indentured servant could work it off

It was for a term of years. Slavery was permanent.

[Slagathor]

60. You mean... in theory

practice and theory were not quite the same, though, were they?

[kwassa]

63. Not in theory, but in fact

trying to make equivalent to slavery is incredibly false.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

66. Learn your FACTS, damn it--You're all wrong

Indentured servitude was LIMITED to seven years.

That's the essential difference.

Many white people, not all of them Irish, came to the colonies as INDENTURED SERVANTS. While they were in bondage, they were treated like slaves and could be bought and sold, but their time in bondage was limited.

Some were petty criminals sentenced to indentured servitude. Some were desperate to get out of poverty and sold themselves.

But in either case, they were free, no questions asked, after seven years.

[Slagathor]

74. Look

1. do you know how the British empire defined "petty criminal" during this time period?

2. if you are dead in 6 years, you are not free in 7

[kwassa]

78. Being a slave is a lifetime sentence, for the children of slaves as well.

Learn what the hell you are talking about.

7 years vs. a lifetime.

[Slagathor]

80. Freedom in 7 years is a moot point if you only live 6 (nt)

[kwassa]

82. what a lame argument.

You might get hit by a truck tomorrow, too.

Make sure you wear clean underwear!

[Slagathor]

83. It's a better one than hysterical indignation (nt)

[iamthebandfanman]

88. unfortunately

there are neither any american slaves or indentured servants still alive to prove either of you right....

ive always heard wikipedia can be your friend tho.

[kwassa]

95. I agree, it is better than one of hysterical indignation.

But who is the hysterically indignant one here?

Not me.

Do you have any proof of any kind that there was an average life span of indentured servants in the U.S. that was less than 7 years?

Please provide it.

tick .... tick ... tick ....

[jadedconformist]

119. lmao.

I'm sure if you had to choose between slavery and indentured servitude, you'd just might as well choose slavery, right? 7 yrs vs. lifetime -- but who cares, you might die in six years so might as well pick slavery! Keep grasping for straws.

[Virginia Dare]

90. Not necessarily..

indentured servitude could be extended for a varying number of reasons, including, but not limited to, attempting escape. IIRC, stealing food was also an offense that could get you another seven years.

[yardwork]

84. No, they are not. I majored in African History and the transatlantic slave trade.

Indentured servitude carries with it the possibility of emancipation at some point. Some indentured servants entered into the agreement voluntarily.

The transatlantic slave trade was unique in that black slaves were perceived as being "less than human," and therefore eligible for permanent enslavement as chattel just like horses or cattle.

The impact of "chattel slavery" is much different from the impact of indentured servitude. Treating human beings as chattel completely dehumanizes them and their descendants in a way that indentured servitude does not.

[iamthebandfanman]

89. yup

some people just wanted to come to the new world n start a new life but had no money or means to do it... so they decided to become indentured.

[Clovis Sangrail]

12. it really depends

Some people went into it with their eyes open ... and were able to get what they wanted in exchange.

A lot of small children went into it as well.
They didn't get to make any decision about it.

[Virginia Dare]

91. Lots of families sold their children into indenture..

England was a pretty desperate place for the poor in the 17th century.

[elehhhhna]

22. acually, indent'd servants were more like rentals, and treated as such...

slaved were assets.

A little research will tell you that indentured servants weren't treated better --in fact, often worse--than slaves.

Both systems suck.

[Iris]

28. Makes sense. If someone is "rented," a master might not really care about working him/her to death

no big loss to the master.

[Matariki]

37. In the Caribbean people were worked to death in about 10 years

In fact, they started with indentured servants there but it quickly proved problematic as the Irish and Scots who made up the bulk of indentured servants had a hard time working in that climate.

[Virginia Dare]

92. Which is eventually one of the things that led to African slavery..

it was thought that Africans could weather the "seasoning" as they called it, which was a summer on the southeastern coast of the U.S. The mortality rate from disease was astounding for most northern europeans during that first year. It actually killed quite a few people every year well into the 18th century.

[Matariki]

103. One of the things that led to African slavery in the Americas anyway

There was African slavery before the Europeans became involved.

[Virginia Dare]

113. There was slavery in America before the Europeans ever arrived...n/t

[Matariki]

27. There is a very big difference. For instance-

Back in the day in the US, slavery was generational - i.e. a child born to a person in slavery was also 'property'. An indentured servant was working off a debt. A person in slavery was sometimes paid a wage they could save toward their freedom, sometimes not.

Obviously indentured servitude was a wretched thing, but it was not slavery in the sense of what Africans went through.

[JuniperLea]

36. You need to look up the Irish slavery as it pertains to

The coal mines in the UK... they were slaves... they were illiterate, kept that way on purpose so they wouldn't understand the documents they were signing... they were fed worse than the pigs... they were beaten... they were shot and the dogs were set out after them if they tried to run away... the only real difference between them and the African slaves is they were already there and didn't have to be shipped.

[yardwork]

85. Yes, but then we're comparing slavery in one part of the world with slavery in another.

I thought that the OP was discussing slavery in America, not Ireland.

Human beings have a long and vicious history of abusing one another. What's the point of comparing one group to another?

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

81. Really?

Were your kids and grandkids born as indentured servants? did they die that way..

Look, the Next to Native Americans and African Americans its arguable that the Irish got the next biggest raw deal in American history (or the Chinese or Japanese Americans). It took them more than one hundred years to come out from under the weight of being catholic.

Still there were many in the enlightened northern states that believed eventually African Americans would be accepted (because of a common faith) but that the Irish and Chinese never would be truly american..

[kwassa]

93. There are African-American Catholics .....

largest concentrations in Maryland and Louisiana.

Many other immmigrant groups were also Catholic, such as the Italians, the Spanish, some of the French, German Catholics, anyone from the Phillipines, Central or South America ... and the Jews weren't treated any better.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

99. Yes there were some catholics

Just as we've always had Muslims in the US but when

a) A group starts coming over in huge numbers (larger, by far, than any catholic group in the nation). Consider there were more Irish Catholics in NYC

or

b) The folks back home do something to scare the populace

the social dynamics seriously start to change...

The Italians came *after the Irish* had gotten the nation past the point where 'Irish (read catholics) need not apply' was common. Gangs of NY is pretty accurate in its portrayal of the life for Irish immigrants and the attitude of native born towards them..

[kwassa]

101. but "Gangs of New York" didn't accurately portray some aspects

like the Draft Riots of 1863 where Irish immigrant gangs murdered blacks on the streets, including attacking and burning an orphanage for black children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Draft_Riots

The New York Draft Riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week<1>), were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the American Civil War.<2> President Abraham Lincoln sent several regiments of militia and volunteer troops to control the city. The rioters numbered in the thousands and were mainly Irish.<3> Smaller scale riots erupted in other cities about the same time.

Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests degraded into "a virtual racial pogrom, with uncounted numbers of blacks murdered on the streets".

jump

African Americans became a scapegoat and the target of the rioters' anger. Many immigrants and poor viewed freed slaves as major competition for scarce jobs and African Americans as the reason why the civil war was being fought. Irish immigrants comprised a large portion of the rioters,<15> though a large contingent of German immigrants, and other groups also participated.<20> African Americans who fell into the mob's hands were often beaten, tortured, and/or killed, including one man that was attacked by a crowd of 400 with clubs and paving stones, then hung from a tree and set alight.<14> The Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, which provided shelter for hundreds of children, was attacked by a mob. The police were able to secure the orphanage for enough time to allow orphans to escape.<9> However, a nine-year-old girl from the orphanage, who was found hiding under a bed, was clubbed to death.<21>

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

104. I did say, when this whole thing started

That African Americans and Native Americans were treated far worse than the Irish..

[kwassa]

106. I agree with you, but ...

it is important to realize that the Irish immigrants were both victims, and victimized others. The Irish had been treated in genocidal conditions by the British, but at the same time used their advantage as whites in America, albeit very poor ones, to compete and disenfranchise free blacks from their jobs in America.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

107. Every group that is a victim

at some point victimized others... Its a cycle..

[LanternWaste]

100. I'm under the impression

I'm under the impression that Indentured Servitude was a contract entered into by two parties with a set time limit (in the colonial era, usually seven years) and that it was part and parcel of the guild structure.

Slavery on the other hand, usually doesn't have a contract-- merely a receipt.

[aquart]

14. No. This is about Irish SLAVES.

This is about people who did NOT consent to their servitude.

Try Google sometime. It's amazing. Really.

<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Irish+slaves&btnG=Google+Search>

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JuniperLea]

44. Oh, so the Irish need to stfu because there weren't enough of them to worry about???

:eyes:

[Taverner]

57. No I'm not saying that at all - I'm saying you cannot compare the two

Just like you can't compare the African Diaspora and Genocide to the Holocaust.

[Slagathor]

75. But those two *are* comparable

slavery is slavery. It knows no race. Genocide likewise.

[kwassa]

98. Provide some proof.

Slavery, in fact, is not all alike. Slaves are treated quite differently in different cultures. In some it is possible to work oneself out of slavery. In some it applies to the slave, but not the slave's children.

Provide some proof that the slave experience the Irish went through, if it existed, in the United States is like the slave experience of African-Americans.

[Name removed]

111. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[aquart]

46. Yes. So it's only a matter of numbers?

Slavery didn't matter to the Irish because there weren't enough of them to count?

But it is nice that you seem to have acknowledged the existence of Irish slavery. I'm sorry it's only insignificant second-rate slavery to you.

People are so jealous of their little perquisites. If you want to capitalize (and misuse the meaning of) genocide, feel free. Six million of my cousins are too dead to care. It's a very unpleasant honor, anyway. And I don't even mind that you steal "diaspora" even though sending people to the Americas is not exactly a "dispersion," either.

Let's get it down: NOBODY EVER HAD IT AS BAD AS THE BLACK PEOPLE. Happy now? It's official.

[JuniperLea]

50. .

:thumbsup:

Sad it had to be "said out loud" but you know that's how people feel... stinks.

[Terran]

105. I think you're the pot calling the kettle black here

The original post was about someone claiming that there were more Irish slaves (wherever that happened) than African slaves in America...as if the numbers matter somehow. So, I know zip about this Irish Slavery, but if it happened, I'm sure it was horrible; but the point is, the whole thing was brought up as an attempt to somehow minimize the disaster that was the African Diaspora, and *that* is f*cked up.

[Dave_Fl_50]

47. I want reperations

[misanthrope]

76. Look at the eighth entry down**nm

**

[mzmolly]

23. They had a choice to die due to poverty in their homeland or roll the bones. Most were lied to.

Many signed away their entire lives.

[aquart]

Yah, except the question was about Irish SLAVERY.

Which was a whole 'nuther thing. GOOGLE IT.

[mzmolly]

54. My answers have addressed Irish SLAVERY.

I don't need to google it, I was aware of the history of slavery among the Irish/English and many others. I.S. was a "form" of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States">slavery.

[JuniperLea]

24. They had no choice at all...

They couldn't read or write, and were told what the documents said by their owners and affixed their "mark". They sold their newborns into slavery under similar situations.

[slackmaster]

2. The O'Bama family is descended from Irish slaves

I read it on the Internet.

[aquart]

15. Not even from African ones, dearie.

[Bluerthanblue]

6. there were many"indentured servants" who came from

Ireland and GB- "bond servants" and "indentured servants" and even children who were 'let out' to debtors to pay off debts- But There was a big difference in the way they were treated, (you wouldn't find much evidence of 'slave-ships full of Irish people'- and the 'indentured' or 'bond' service usually DID have an end point- (even if that day was far off for many.)

I'm not sure if it is "white pride" as much as it is... 'folklore'. ? The feudal systems that existed in the British Isles were pretty brutal and cruel in and of themself. And few people know much about the "clearances" in Scotland- a time of terrible oppression and kind of attempted genocide, but IMO there is no comparison to the African Slave Trade that Europe and America engaged in.


:hi:

peace~

[aquart]

11. But we are talking about Irish slaves.

Maybe you want to look something up before you blather.

[Bluerthanblue]

19. hey

take a powder- :shrug:

I'm Scots/Irish. No need to bite off my head.


peace~

[Bluerthanblue]

35. Here is some info about how my ancestors ended up

here-
I didn't mention the clearances out of hand-

In the last 270 years, more than a quarter million indigenous people were forced off their ancestral lands, burned out of their homes, sold into slavery, and forcibly assimilated into a foreign culture. But these were not Native Americans, or black Africans, or Jews; these were the white residents of the Scottish Highlands. Their crime: Occupying land that others coveted.
Highland and Island Scots lived under a clan structure based on an earlier tribal lifestyle. By pledging loyalty to a familial laird, the Highlanders gained the right to plant crops and raise cattle in the rugged hills and mountains of Scotland. These people remained close to their Keltic roots, and most spoke Gaidhlig instead of English. Culturally, the Highlanders were strongly independent, and they resented English dominion.

In the 17th Century, the Scots stood in the way of England's conquest of Scotland. The Highland Scots opposed the annexation of their homeland by the English. Fighting for their nation, the Highlanders supported Charles Edward Stuart as the true king of Scotland. Calling themselves "Jacobites" after their former kings, the Highlanders rebelled. At Culloden Field, on 16 April 1746, the English Army crushed the Scottish rebellion; even the Highlander wounded were massacred. When the battle was over, the Scottish lairds were dead, and the English set out to destroy the clans once and for all.

In 1747, England passed "The Act of Proscription", which banned (for the Scots) the wearing of tartan, the playing of bagpipes, the right to own weapons, the gathering of clans, and the teaching of the Gaidhlig language. Punishment for breaking this law: Seven years slavery in an overseas English colony. Another law that same year turned all clan lands over to the English crown. In forty years, the clan culture was largely destroyed; the young people did not know their language or culture.

As the 19th Century began, the price for wool and mutton went up. To corner the market for these valuable commodities, the English lords of the Highlands began a campaign now known as "The Clearances". Trees were cut away, and their planting was forbidden, to make room for sheep. And the tenants of the land, of course, were in the way as well. The English began a campaign of terror, using armed enforcers to destroy Highland and Island homes, herding their inhabitants into urban ghettos or packing them onto cargo ships for the "New World" colonies.

http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/articles/cries.htm

peace~

[JuniperLea]

41. That's but a wee bit of the story...

You should read up on the coal mining Irish slaves.

[Bluerthanblue]

48. I don't know much about

them, I'll admit- I only knew about the 'clearances' through stories handed down in my family. The British Isles are pretty full of sad examples of man's inhumanity to humankind. But also pretty rich in examples of how resillient people can be.

I wish I knew more about so many things.

Thanks for encouraging me to find out more.

:hi:

peace~

[DiverDave]

52. O.K. so there were Irish slaves

to equate that to the 100's of thousands of black folks is a bit of a stretch.

[mzmolly]

20. Not sure there was much of a difference in how they were treated?

Servants could be beaten and murdered if they tried to escape. Some were indentured for life.

On the other hand, this ideal was not always a reality for indentured servants. Both male and female laborers could be subject to violence, occasionally even resulting in death. Female indentured servants in particular might be raped and/or sexually abused by their masters. Cases of successful prosecution for these crimes were very uncommon, as indentured servants were unlikely to have access to a magistrate, and social pressure to avoid such brutality could vary by geography and cultural norm. The situation was particularly difficult for indentured women, because in both low social class and sex, they were believed to be particularly prone to vice, making legal redress unusual.

Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of colonists, especially in the British colonies. Voluntary migration and Convict labor only provided so many people, and since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous, other means of encouraging settlement were necessary. Contract-laborers became an important group of people and so numerous that the United States Constitution counted them specifically in appointing representatives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant">WIKI

[JuniperLea]

32. You're looking in the wrong place...

The Irish were coal mining slaves in Wales, England and in Ireland... long before there were slaves in the US.

[Clovis Sangrail]

7. my grandmother was an Irish slave

At 10 years old she was sold and shipped to a family in England to be a housekeeper.
I think it technically was 'indentured servitude' but in reality was slavery.

of course, this was a long time ago.

[WolverineDG]

25. One of my ancestors was a "bond boy"

or something like that. I looked into it & it appeared he had been "sold" to someone who came to the US as some kind of servant. My mom was told she'd never find out who his parents were or where he was from because of this. The only clue we now have is his first name, which is found only in one part of Ireland.

dg

[aquart]

8. Seems so. (Did you even try Google?)

Check it out:

<http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm>
<http://republican-news.org/archive/1997/February20/20stkt.html>

Cromwell and James II are not best loved by the Irish for a reason.

[Bucky]

13. .

n/m

[mzmolly]

16. Slavery has existed for thousands of years and yes the Irish were slaves in some parts of the world.

As were many peoples at one time or another.

As for the Irish in America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant">"indentured servitude" was quite common in colonial times. This practice was not limited to the Irish, but it was common among this group.

[aquart]

18. Go read Captain Blood.

[QC]

21. It's true--here's an excellent book on the subject.

http://www.amazon.com/Bound-over-Indentured-servitude-conscience/dp/0671541188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205193232&sr=8-1

[notadmblnd]

29. just a quick google brings this...

snip:

After the Battle of Kinsale at the beginning of the 17th century, the English were faced with a problem of some 30,000 military prisoners, which they solved by creating an official policy of banishment. Other Irish leaders had voluntarily exiled to the continent, in fact, the Battle of Kinsale marked the beginning of the so-called “Wild Geese”, those Irish banished from their homeland. Banishment, however, did not solve the problem entirely, so James II encouraged selling the Irish as slaves to planters and settlers in the New World colonies. The first Irish slaves were sold to a settlement on the Amazon River In South America in 1612. It would probably be more accurate to say that the first “recorded” sale of Irish slaves was in 1612, because the English, who were noted for their meticulous record keeping, simply did not keep track of things Irish, whether it be goods or people, unless such was being shipped to England. The disappearance of a few hundred or a few thousand Irish was not a cause for alarm, but rather for rejoicing. Who cared what their names were anyway, they were gone.

snip:

The Proclamation of 1625 ordered that Irish political prisoners be transported overseas and sold as laborers to English planters, who were settling the islands of the West Indies, officially establishing a policy that was to continue for two centuries. In 1629 a large group of Irish men and women were sent to Guiana, and by 1632, Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat in the West Indies. By 1637 a census showed that 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves, which records show was a cause of concern to the English planters. But there were not enough political prisoners to supply the demand, so every petty infraction carried a sentence of transporting, and slaver gangs combed the country sides to kidnap enough people to fill out their quotas.

Although African Negroes were better suited to work in the semi-tropical climates of the Caribbean, they had to be purchased, while the Irish were free for the catching, so to speak. It is not surprising that Ireland became the biggest source of livestock for the English slave trade.

more... http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638

[Matariki]

30. I've been studying Caribbean history

and the interaction between the Irish and the Africans there is fascinating study. There were a number of rebellions which both Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans fought together. Also in Haitian Vodou there is at least one 'deity' or spirit that has her origin in Ireland.

[AnnieBW]

42. Maman Brigitte

The lwa (low-ah) that you're thinking of is Maman Brigitte. So named because the African field slaves saw the Irish house slaves praying to Saint Bridget when one of their number died. So, they incorporated her into Vodou as the wife of either Baron Samedi, the lwa that guards the cemeteries, Papa Ghede, or the lwa the ferries the souls of the dead to the afterlife.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_Brigitte

[Matariki]

43. Yes I know it's 'lwa' - I just didn't expect other people to know what that meant

I'm kanzo.

Also Bosou has some celtic roots.

[AnnieBW]

117. Ah,...

I've had the pleasure of taking classes from a mambo and houngan who, while they're white and American, are of the Haitian tradition. I'm a Wiccan, but curious about similar traditions.

[Matariki]

118. Very cool

check your pm :-)

[hedgehog]

62. A lot of Irish were transported to the islands for various crimes

some of which we probably wouldn't consider to be crimes today. Legally, it may or may not have been slavery but for all practical purposes....Working in the cane fields was pretty much a death sentence for anyone, black or white.


If you study the dances from the islands or even listen carefully to Island accents, you'll see traces of Irish dancing and hear traces of an Irish brogue.

[Virginia Dare]

94. Inter-marriage was quite common as well..

in the 17th century in this country. Before miscegenation became a crime, there are accounts of free black and Irish communities in Virginia.

[Iris]

31. There are many cultures that have been subjected to slavery during various times in history.

I think some people do think that only black people have been enslaved, but that's just not true. However, I think the biggest difference is that people who are "white" can more easily assimilate into the dominate culture and hide their origins; whereas when slaves in America were freed, black people were still subjected to horrible exploitation and all around bad treatment because there was no way for them to hide their origins and the dominate culture wanted to make sure they stayed "in their place."

[JuniperLea]

49. Too bad you can't tell that to my Great-Great-Grandfather DUGAN...

Who came to the US only to find "Irish Need Not Apply" hanging proudly next to "Help Wanted". A person may look like everyone else, but as soon as they open their mouths, there's no doubt you're speaking to an Irishman.

For generations my family has been told to never tell anyone we're Irish. That has only changed in the past two generations.

[Iris]

53. but you just illustrated my point.

Maybe your great-great grand couldn't "pass" but his kids did and their kids did and so on and so on. My family lost all knowledge of Slavic because my grandparents didn't want my mom and her brothers speaking with an accent and that's sad, but what they wanted to happen for us happened.

[mzmolly]

56. Exactly. This was one of the reasons that slave traders began enslaving

brown people.

[LibertyLover]

45. I do know that following Monmouth's Rebellion in 1685

he was sentenced to death and at what came to be called the Bloody Assizes, his supporters were either sentenced to be hanged or transported to the colonies and sold as slaves to plantation owners. But yes, there were Irish sold as slaves in the 17th century. I had heard stories from my grandmother, but then for years I thought that Oliver Cromwell had ravaged Ireland roughly 1917 to hear her tell it. However I did some research and it seems that starting around 1612, when the first Irish are recorded as being sold in the Amazon basin following the battle of Kinsale.

[lovuian]

51. Irish Women were sent to Australia too work as slaves

What the English did to the Irish was the same as what Americans did to slaves

And Slavery continues even today

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. Indentured servants

Not the same thing.

[Canuckistanian]

55. Nobody ever denied an Irish person their basic rights in Law

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott

[slampoet]

58. There is even an abbreviation for denying Irish their rights. Have you ever hear of INNA?

Irish Need Not Apply.


Read a book.

[techtrainer]

64. NINA

Never heard of INNA, but have heard of NINA - No Irish Need Apply

[Canuckistanian]

69. Funny, my family mentions "No Scots need apply" as being common

There were PLENTY of places where the Irish were welcomed with open arms.

Some parts of NYC and Boston also come to mind.

[slampoet]

73. Some Parts Of NYC ? That's like saying Blacks are welcome on the wrong side of the Tracks.

Also the Irish Fought horrible political battles to claw control of Boston From the hands of the Blue-bloods and never really did get control before all the Blu-bloods decided to MOVE AWAY FROM BOSTON.


Nearly every governor's election the Blue-bloods take back control from the Irish. This is why Republicans win the Statehouse in MA often.




Or do you not recall Mitt Romney?

[hedgehog]

61. You did not just say that! Irish Catholics were subject to all sorts

of penalties under the law. One law required that land owned by an Irish catholic had to be divided among all his children (sons?) upon his death. The result was a patchwork of tiny farms to small to support a family except if they were planted in potatoes. Do I have to explain how that worked out?

It's a fool's task to compare the pains of your ancestors to the pain of my ancestors. Better to put our efforts to securing a good life for all those living today.

[Iris]

70. amazing how many people are igorant about basic history.

no?

[Canuckistanian]

71. Are we talking American history or British history?

Because I don't doubt for a second that the Irish were treated as second-class citizens on their own land in the 19th century.

I'd even argue that the reaaction to the treatment of the Irish during the Potato Famine was the beginning of modern social activism.

I was referring to American history only.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. Indentured servitude was like slavery EXCEPT that it was "term limited"

Indentured servants went free after seven years, and their children were automatically considered free.

Slavery was for life, and the children of a slave were automatically slaves.

Read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States to find out about this.

[SoCalDem]

68. Irish people were not rounded up , put in chains and brought here unwillingly

Indentured servitude was very bad, but it was usually as debt repayment (sucks), or in exchange for a chance to get to "the free world"..

The added feature was that as the Irish lost their accents, they could ecape and blend in with just about any population in the "colonies"..The African slaves could NEVER do that..

[theHandpuppet]

110. However, many Scots were rounded up, put in chains and exiled

(See post #108)

However, despite the fact that many Scots were brought here in shackles and forced to work on plantations in the Carribean and the American colonies, after a certain time (5-7 years) they were freed. So their forced exile and servitutde, as bad as it was, cannot be compared to the enslavement of those from the African continent.

[slampoet]

112. You are just ignorant. The Irish were starved and rounded up into Coffin Ships as Britain's Genocide

Read a book before you display your ignorance like it is something to be proud of.


AND BTW



Irish people are STILL discriminated against in many ways. You just don't live in the UK so you think it doesn't happen.

[kwassa]

115. We are talking about two different eras in Irish history

The coffin ships you refer to are the Irish famine victims sent to the US in the 1840s.

The Irish indentured servants came to the US in the mid-1600s, almost 200 years earlier.

[slampoet]

116. So you dodge the question? You say they weren't rounded but then you admit they were, But I have ERA

wrong.


Nice way to dodge the truth.



Now you're going to say that poor Russian women were Never kept in sexual slavery.

There are currently women kept in sexual slavery by the Russian Mob all over the world, too bad they they live in the wrong era for people like you to care.


Slavery is slavery whether it is inherited or not. Whether it happened last year or in Biblical times.

[haele]

72. My father's family came from Huguenot escapees/indentured servants -

Back in the mid/late 1600's - The entire surviving family of around 8 people, selling their services as knowledgeable farmers to two richer emigree family settling around Charleston. According to the family stories, the entire family also up and left for the hills of North Carolina after they figured out the lay of the land and learned a sufficient amount of the local dialects (including, apparently, a couple "native" dialects) to "pass". The little matter of the remaining years of their indenture became pretty much moot after the Revolution.

Of course, it also helped that so long as they didn't run into the families that held their contract, no one would guess that they were escaped bond servants - or in the parlance of the day, thieves because they "stole themselves".

Speaking of indentured servitude, why doesn't anyone talk about Convict labor, press gangs or Company settlements? The British were notorious for selling debt prisoners or strong-backed prisoners to various Crown-backed companies for bond mining, clearing, swamp draining, plantation building - in fact, many of the surviving prisoners would stay and settle once they worked out their sentence. Working to death for Crown or Company was not an unusual thing. It didn't help that many a former indentured servant or convict laborer or their children would turn around and buy the bonds of later unfortunate immigrant or pressed laborer and work them near to death to get their money's worth.

As for what was worse, European "indentured servitude" or African slavery during the same time period, I would have to say the slavery was worse. Yes, some indentured servants were badly treated, but like slaves, some where also treated well - it depended on your employer and whether or not he or she was a greedy, heartless bastard. But most bond workers/indentured servants had either some skills or had a business or personal relationship with the bondholder that brought them over.
My father's family were brought over due to the "largess" (I'm being a bit sarcastic here) of neighbors who also had to come over and couldn't bring their Catholic servants over with them. If one considered the "investment" in purchasing labor in the Colonial era, it cost as much purchase the bond of a skilled worker or hand as it did to buy a slave - in fact, many times buying a slave was cheaper, especially when there was a glut of slaves (including the convict slaves who were mainly dispossessed Irish or Scots) as well as the general vagrant or debtor. In Britain where you were hanged for stealing a loaf of bread or poaching a bird to feed your family, life and labor was cheap once you made "a mistake" and didn't have the money to purchase a lawyer to help you buy your way out.

According to the law in all Colonies, English, French, or Spanish, a bond-holder had to legally make the attempt to keep an indentured servant alive for the period of his or her bond. You didn't have to keep a slave alive longer than it took to earn back at least what you paid for him or her - and until the 1820's American plantation owners actually came up with the idea of breeding slaves as investments - once slave transporting and impressment became illegal and there were no longer Crown convict laborers - slaves were generally cheap. They weren't expected to survive more than a year or two's worth of work, unless they were able to work "in the house" or had a trade.

European slavery and indentured servitude was based on economic class. If you were low or low-working class, your worth was based off what what you could produce. Most indentured servants were actually considered semi skilled farm hands or labor - trades or house labor and their bond worth was based on their skill and education. Most of the imported labor that is we tend to now call "indentured" was actually convict labor, sent over to work off a prison sentence. They were usually brought over - more comfortably than slaves - with the prisoners in chains and often with their families in tow due to debt servitude while what normally would be the breadwinner ended up in prison.

We also haven't discussed the Chinese experience in Pacific states from the 1840's to the early 1900's now, haven't we? Hint, it was nothing like "Flower Drum Song". Nor have me discussed the two sides of slavery of the various Native American tribes; Southern tribes that were slaves to the Spanish ranches and monastery settlements and the Eastern tribes who bought and sold slaves of all races up through the early 1800's - before the US government decided to expand past the Cumberlands into Mississippi valley.

The labor experience of the Colonial period was horrific due to the prevailing class structure of the period - the transformation from feudalism to mercantilism with very little of the "Enlightenment" reaching any but the well monied and well educated few. The experience of immigrants in the Americas has always been the experience of the despised newcomer trying to assimilate into an established social structure. Slavery was always one step beyond both immigration and bonded labor - until, of course, it became profitable to breed slaves to replace the huge amount of bonded and convict labor.

Haele

[depakid]

77. I reckon your brother in law may have been focusing on the wong continent

[Lydia Leftcoast]

79. What I'm seeing in a lot of these posts is a game of

"My ancestors suffered more than your ancestors."

Furthermore, some of the people who seem to be insisting that the Irish had it WORSE than the Africans or that slavery and indentured servitude are the same thing are low-count posters.

Today, Irish-Americans are the third largest and one of the most prosperous ethnic groups in the U.S. Things Irish are considered cool.

I wonder if this whole insistence that the Irish were slaves in the same sense that Africans were slaves is a backhanded attack against the reparations movement.

The FACTS are that many poor white people from the British Isles, of whatever nationality (English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh) came here in the colonial period as indentured servants. Some were transported involuntarily, as a way of clearing out overcrowded prisons or as punishment for the kind of petty crime that poor people may turn to when there is no social safety net. Some sold themselves to pay for their passage.

Whatever their circumstances, they enjoyed two IMPORTANT advantages over the African slaves:

1) Their term of bondage was limited. Once their seven years were up, they were free to leave and do whatever they wanted. Some didn't survive--it was the eighteenth century, after all, and many young people who weren't in bondage died from what would be curable medical conditions today--but most did. In the more open society of the colonies, some bought land or started businesses and did quite well, much better than they would have in Europe.

2) Their children were automatically considered free. Even a child born to an indentured servant during her period of bondage was considered free and could not be sold.

In contrast, slavery was for life. Furthermore, any children born to slaves were automatically slaves and were the property of the master, who could sell them away from their parents as soon as they were old enough to work, sometimes as young as six or seven.

So psychologically, these are very different conditions. The indentured servant could always think, "If I can just hold out till the end of my term, I'll be free, and my children will never have to go through this."

The slave could only think, "It will be this way till I die, my children will have it just as bad, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Indentured servanthood faded out after the Revolutionary War, but slavery lasted for nearly ninety years more.

[Raejeanowl]

114. Low-Count Posters?

Isn't that a DU rules violation to point that out?

I'm sure you make your point without casting aspersions, Lydia.

[Brewman_Jax]

96. You are correct to call shenanigans

on your sister's questionable numbers. Estimates of 7-10 million Africans were taken over the approximately 4.5 centuries of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Present-day Ireland's population is roughly 4 million. Thus, the claim of "huge numbers of Irish slaves" is statistically impossible. That "material" is compliments of the various racist revisionist websites, like American Renaissance.

[McCamy Taylor]

97. Irish were never slaves here. They were oppressed in IRELAND by the British.

In their home country they were the victims of brutal colonial rule by their neighbors, the British. Here are some links:

http://www.elroy.net/ehr/grace.html

From 1510 to 1550 the Reformation took place in Europe--England turning to Protestantism and Ireland remaining Catholic. Soon after, England moved thousands of Protestants from Scotland to live in the northern six counties of Ireland. The idea was to gain a Protestant foothold in Ireland that would be loyal to a Protestant British crown. The Irish remained staunchly loyal to their priests and to the pope, so England enacted stiff laws to keep the Irish in line. They outlawed the Gaelic language, forcing the people to speak English instead. They outlawed ownership of land by Catholics, then established a law requiring ownership of land before gaining the right to vote.

With no language, no land and no vote, a number of Catholic Irishmen and women were involved in uprisings against the British. They were never very successful and gained little popular support among the peasants. However, in 1845 a five-year famine started. Even as farmers ran out of food for their families, the British continued to demand their rent in the form of food grown on the land. A million people died; another million fled the country; and still another million were kicked out of their homes for failure to pay their rent. And yet the British continued to export cattle to be eaten in England. This embedded a deep-rooted hatred for the British by the average Irish man and woman. Seventy years of uprisings and political activity finally ended in the signing of a treaty giving all but the northern six, predominantly Protestant, counties back to the Irish. In 1922, the Irish Free State (a self-ruling nation aligned with England) emerged, and in 1945, Ireland was officially declared a Republic, ending all ties with the United Kingdom.

This article about unions reminds us that the "White race" is a construct and that the Irish were not accepted as part of the "White elite" until the latter part of the 19th century or even into the 20th century in some places.

http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/fletcherbill.html

That there is a constant reconstruction of race in the United States and it is absolutely remarkable and if it weren’t so serious, it would actually be funny. Up until the mid-1800s, Irish really weren’t considered white people. They were really pissed with the British for occupying Ireland and they were in fact stirring up trouble in North America and often providing weapons to the Africans and to the Indians. But in the mid-1800s, something in fact does happen in connection with the massive migration of Irish after the Potato Famine, you start to see a transformation of the Irish to becoming part of this block and I think that understanding white as a block really helps.

It’s not a race, it’s a political block and that what effectively happens in the 1800s, is that this political block remolds itself so that white people who were up until that point French, English, and Germans largely, now there is a certain kind of inclusion. An inclusion that is not immediate. There is great resistance as we all know that Irish immigrants came here and they faced immense hell and resistance. But over time, there were provisions created for their introduction into the white block.

Nothing like that ever happened to the African. The white block evolves over the 1800s and 1900s. Jews, for example, were never accepted as white people until after World War II. I mean we have to be very clear about that. It was only in the aftermath of the Holocaust that there was a grudging acceptance of Jews and saying, we’ll give them a little place. Italians, forget it. Not until very late in the 20th century. And other south Europeans. There was this constant remolding and I would suggest to you that there is an additional remolding that is underway right now.

So race is fundamentally political and if we don’t understand that, then a lot of what’s happening in U.S. labor history doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

This is in America. Back in Ireland and England, where the British had an economic interest in keeping the native Irish an oppressed, landless, victimized low paid work force that could be used to work the fields in Ireland or brought to England to work as scab labor to break strikes in British mines or factories (just the same way that Blacks were used in the US to work the fields and break strikes after the Civil War), the Irish were deliberately kept in a social situation much like that of Blacks in Jim Crow. Denied the vote, denied the right to own land, denied the rule of law, subject to arrest and torture at the whim of the British oppressor. However, they were not slaves ina strictly physical sense. If they wanted to go off and die---or to emigrate to the New World--they could. It is just that when you grow up in poverty with the stresses that accompany it, you find it difficult to improve your lot in life.

That is why in the film The Commitments the Irish working class youths declare that "the Irish are the niggers of Europe". This was before the recent economic prosperity in Ireland.

But it is still not the same as slavery. The Irish in Ireland were analogous to African-Americans in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Even though that oppression is over and most Irish-Americans have been here for generations, hatred for the British runs deep within many Irish-American families, because of what the British did to Ireland. I mention this to remind people that African-Americans are not going to "get over" what European-Americans did to them overnight.

[countryjake]

102. What you've described is the same old racist attempt to diminish real Slavery...

and tho I've not any actual proof that it's coming from the White Supremacy movement in this country, I do know from my own genealogy digging that most who promote this ridiculous notion have an insidious desire to excuse the systemic slave-holding our nation had as policy and pretend that Blacks were never discriminated against, as a whole, strictly for their skin color, using indentured-servitude of whites as some sort of proof of that fallacy.

So, to answer your question, yes, it is, essentially, a racist white pride idea.

[theHandpuppet]

108. My mother is a descendant of Scottish covenanters

The progenitor of her line was imprisoned at Edinburgh Tolbooth before he and his family were sentenced to exile as servants on a NJ Plantation. Many who were imprisoned as covenanters died as they were starved and many were tortured horribly. Those who were sentenced to exile as plantation "slaves" were first mutilated; the men would have their left ear chopped off by the common executioner while the women had their faces branded with hot irons. Then they would be shackled aboard ship and delivered to their new masters in the Carribean or the American colonies. Many died on the journey from sickness or starvation, and at least one ship sank and all the Scots prisoners drowned after the captain ordered the hatches to be closed.

Once delivered to their destination the surviving prisoners were forced to work the plantations for 5-7 years but if they survived were freed after that time. Since others in the community often looked down upon these former prisoner-servants, most moved on after they were freed. Still, and despite the despicable way some Scots were treated, once they finished their "sentence" they were free as were their descendants -- so their bondage cannot be compared to that of slaves from the African continent.

[nemo137]

109. Not so much here, that was indentured servitude,

which was it's whole own batch of bad, but the Caribbean, especially Montserrat, had Irish slaves shipped over during the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods.

[noel711]

120. Such a ruckus! The truth..??

And much of these frantic hysterical appeals are due to the
feeble American education process.....

Slavery has been a shameful part of the human race since the beginning.
But as long as there are social systems, hierarchies, and economic
inequality, there will be labor systems that oppress and weaken.

Indentured servitude was a late-comer in human history,
and developed during the enlightenment, but especially grew
after the exploration of the continents.

Indentured servants were people without economic means, and without
social support (according to this definition, this applies to many
immigrants who come to the US today). They are dependant on others
for survival, and often part of a legally binding system whereby they
are bound to an economic superior for a period of time. Sometimes this
time periods extracts an amount of labor.

This was prevalent during the colonial period, during which millions
of peasants were transported to the colonies for the sole purpose of
cheap labor (there was no way the colonies could be developed without
cheap labor...slavery was utmost use of human labor with least expense,
but not everyone could afford to purchase a slave. ) To purchase the labor
of a peasant for a period of time
was simply the cost of ship's passage.

Many of these immigrants left their homeland with the express purpose
of a new life in the colonies, but when their finances were depleted
during the voyage, they had no choice but to 'sell themselves into
servitude' to the ship's captain, who paid their passage, and sold off
their debt to the highest bidder at the wharf in PHiladelphia or New York.
Servants could be purchased for the equivalent
of six dollars.

Yes, the conditions of many of the ships that brought these poor souls to
the colonies rivaled the pitiful conditions of the slave ships. Many ships
crews despised the peasants.

Yes, many of these indentured servants were peasants from the British Isles,
from Germany, HOlland and France.
(The people who purchased these poor souls for servitude? Philadelphia had
many wealthy quakers who needed servants after having been granted land thru William Penn).

Families who could not afford to stay together were broken up, sold to whoever could
pay off their debt. And YES! Children were sold, sold like baggage. Yes, children
as young as toddlers, were sold off as indentured servants. Sadly, children sold off
this way (for a couple bucks) had no social advocates, and their fate was dire.

Pennsylvania law required the terms of the indenture to be no more that seven years.
After fulfilling the indenture, the individual was given a fresh set of clothes,
tools appropriate for a trade whereby they could support themselves.
there was no provision for education them, however.

Families were broken up, husband and wife, and children. It was, like slavery, an
institution born of economic need, but a disgrace.It still occurs in many forms today,

I've known families in Pennsylvania whose ancestors were brought here, indentured.
(Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the german missionary sent to Pennsylvania to
serve his church, married the daughter of an indentured servant- Conrad Weiser.)

But don't get me started on the immorality of the use of humans for labor or abuse.