Kidnapped, Bought, and Sold
- The Persecution and Enslavement of the Irish (Part 2)
By Claudia Henneberry
December 2023
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
---
THE HISTORY
The unfortunate story of Irish slavery begins in England with the centuries-long hatred between the two nations. Anti-Irish sentiment began as early as 1155 when King Henry II wanted to invade the island. The king had to shape the thoughts of his subjects in order to justify this invasion so he employed propagandists to write about the Irish people describing them as “a filthy and lazy people wallowing in vice,” which was perhaps the tamest of the insults.
Even the Enlightenment’s French philosopher Voltaire got into the act by characterizing Irish Catholic people as vagabonds, savage, and backward. [Echoes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and their foul-mouthed ilk can be heard in the near distance declaring those who do not vote Democrat ‘deplorables’ and ‘MAGA extremist Republicans’.]
The disparagement of the Irish continued into the 19th century along with punitive edicts and legislation:
King James I of England, Scotland, and Ireland saw his Proclamation as the solution to the problem of an “unwanted surplus people” and the shortage of labor in the colonies. “This was not indentured servitude. It was raw, brutal, rape-of-women, cut-off-a-limb slavery.” It was ‘I own you’ slavery with all the mistreatment that goes with being a slave including being beaten to death. (Proclamation 1625 . . ., p.19 of the Preface; p. 1)
King James I’s proclamation would enslave the Irish in America and the West Indies for 179 years.
“By the end of the 1620s, three out of four people who landed in the Chesapeake were indentured servants and that would continue to be the ratio.” Just for reference, there was “no market for Africans in Virginia. Six years later, in 1625, there were still only 23 Africans in the colony.” Destitute Irish and English remained the predominant source of chattel slavery in the colony.” (Proclamation 1625: America’s Enslavement of the Irish by Herbert Byrd Jr., (2016) p. 47)
Another reason there were fewer African servants/slaves in the colonies was that they were much more expensive and valuable.
Irish misery continued under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector and ruler of the English Commonwealth (1653-1658). He was not a fan of the Irish for political and religious reasons. Cromwell targeted Irish Catholics. [Kind of like Joe Biden’s and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice targeting American Catholics in 2023.]
During the Irish Rebellion in 1641, the Irish murdered Protestants and Cromwell wasn’t about to forget that. So, he set out to accomplish his objective to cleanse the island of the Irish in 1649.
Cromwell’s Council of State authorized English governors of precincts to then “transport and sell as slaves 8,000 Irish” and “transport and sell as slaves 400 children to the New England and Virginia colonies” from 1652-1653. (Proclamation 1625. . ., p. 76).
English human trafficking would continue but would considerably diminish during the American Revolution and come to a screeching halt in 1833 when the monarchy ended the ‘peculiar institution’.
THE NUMBERS
“Ireland became the biggest source of livestock for the English slave trade. For the entire 17th century, more Irish were sold than Africans and there were records of Irish slaves well into the 18th century.” (Ireland Under English Rule by A. Louis Albert Perroud)
One important reason that there were more Irish servants/slaves is that they were much cheaper than Africans. The voyage itself was a shorter one to the colonies from Europe and Irishmen usually sold for 5 pounds of sterling versus 20-40 pounds for Africans.
Lost in the wreckage of Irish kidnapping, imprisonment, and slavery were their names, their Irish origins, and their religion. As ships landed in America, the “cargo”, or servants, were recorded as being ‘English’ since the majority of the ships carrying freewillers, those who voluntarily emigrated, or the indentured sailed from England. Irish American lawyer, politician, and abolitionist, Thomas Addis Emmet, (1764-1827), asserted that during this time, “more than 100,000 young children who were orphans or had been taken from their Catholic parents, were sent abroad into slavery in the West Indies, Virginia and New England, that they might lose their faith and all knowledge of their nationality, for in most instances even their names were changed.”
Exact numbers of Irish slaves in the colonies are not known, due to sloppy or nonexistent records.
So, we must rely on estimates found by historians. Cromwell alone is said to have transported 130,000 Irish slaves to the American colonies and the West Indies between 1651-1660. Other estimates vary: Historians John P. Prendergast, Anthony Broudine, Thomas Addis Emmet, and Dr. John Lingard estimate the numbers of Irish slaves in those 9 years to have been 80,000, 100,000, 120,000-130,000, 60,000 respectively. (From Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776 by Abbot Emerson Smith, pp. 307-310)
Author Robert E. West’s research showed, "The number of Irish transported (whether voluntary or not) to the British colonies in America from 1651 - 1660 exceeded the total number of their inhabitants at that period, a fact which ought not to be lost sight of by those who undertake to estimate the strength of the Celtic element in this nation . . . ."
In subsequent years after 1660, steady shipments of Irish still arrived, but not in the extreme numbers as were seen before 1660. Between 1655 and 1678, the average annual emigration of servants from Bristol “was almost exactly 400.” (Colonists in Bondage … by Abbot Emerson Smith, p. 308)
An excerpt from Colonists in Bondage , p. 308. Keep in mind, Irish servants/slaves were most likely shipped from England:
- The Persecution and Enslavement of the Irish (Part 2)
By Claudia Henneberry
December 2023
---
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
---
THE HISTORY
The unfortunate story of Irish slavery begins in England with the centuries-long hatred between the two nations. Anti-Irish sentiment began as early as 1155 when King Henry II wanted to invade the island. The king had to shape the thoughts of his subjects in order to justify this invasion so he employed propagandists to write about the Irish people describing them as “a filthy and lazy people wallowing in vice,” which was perhaps the tamest of the insults.
Even the Enlightenment’s French philosopher Voltaire got into the act by characterizing Irish Catholic people as vagabonds, savage, and backward. [Echoes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and their foul-mouthed ilk can be heard in the near distance declaring those who do not vote Democrat ‘deplorables’ and ‘MAGA extremist Republicans’.]
The disparagement of the Irish continued into the 19th century along with punitive edicts and legislation:
- In 1367 Britain enacted the Statue of Kilkenny which prohibited intermarriage between the British and Gaelic Irish under penalty of death.
- In the 1530’s, England’s King Henry VIII completely severed his country’s ties with the Catholic church and proclaimed himself the head of the Church of England. Catholicism was now the enemy of the King of England which set the stage for anti-Catholic laws and attitudes. This prompted yet another target on the backs of the Irish – to hate them because they were Catholic. {Could Biden be channeling King Henry VIII?]
- Queen Elizabeth I, Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1558-1603, persecuted hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholic peasants. They were starved or “put to the sword” and their land was seized. It was said that Queen Elizabeth I wanted to “cleanse Ireland of the Irish.” (From Proclamation 1625: America’s Enslavement of the Irish by Herbert Byrd Jr. (2016), p. 22)
- The decisive Battle of Kinsale in 1601 marked the end of the Nine Years War and the conquest of England over Ireland. The Irish were forced from their land and their religion.
- The British army rounded-up destitute Irish “like cattle” and shipped them to the British West Indies and the American Colonies. England likewise emptied their prisons and kidnapped wayward orphans off the streets of London, as early as 1618, to supply their newly established colonial lands with cheap labor.
- The British would charge Irish with made-up petty crimes simply to make them prisoners. They also kidnapped Frenchmen, English, and Scots in the process. (Proclamation 1625: . . ., p. 62) [Could this be where Biden got the idea to weaponize his Department of Justice against his political opponents?]
- King James I’s Proclamation of 1625: All Irish political prisoners must be transported and sold as slaves to English planters.
- Oliver Cromwell’s ethnic cleansing of Ireland (1649)
King James I of England, Scotland, and Ireland saw his Proclamation as the solution to the problem of an “unwanted surplus people” and the shortage of labor in the colonies. “This was not indentured servitude. It was raw, brutal, rape-of-women, cut-off-a-limb slavery.” It was ‘I own you’ slavery with all the mistreatment that goes with being a slave including being beaten to death. (Proclamation 1625 . . ., p.19 of the Preface; p. 1)
King James I’s proclamation would enslave the Irish in America and the West Indies for 179 years.
“By the end of the 1620s, three out of four people who landed in the Chesapeake were indentured servants and that would continue to be the ratio.” Just for reference, there was “no market for Africans in Virginia. Six years later, in 1625, there were still only 23 Africans in the colony.” Destitute Irish and English remained the predominant source of chattel slavery in the colony.” (Proclamation 1625: America’s Enslavement of the Irish by Herbert Byrd Jr., (2016) p. 47)
Another reason there were fewer African servants/slaves in the colonies was that they were much more expensive and valuable.
Irish misery continued under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector and ruler of the English Commonwealth (1653-1658). He was not a fan of the Irish for political and religious reasons. Cromwell targeted Irish Catholics. [Kind of like Joe Biden’s and Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice targeting American Catholics in 2023.]
During the Irish Rebellion in 1641, the Irish murdered Protestants and Cromwell wasn’t about to forget that. So, he set out to accomplish his objective to cleanse the island of the Irish in 1649.
Cromwell’s Council of State authorized English governors of precincts to then “transport and sell as slaves 8,000 Irish” and “transport and sell as slaves 400 children to the New England and Virginia colonies” from 1652-1653. (Proclamation 1625. . ., p. 76).
English human trafficking would continue but would considerably diminish during the American Revolution and come to a screeching halt in 1833 when the monarchy ended the ‘peculiar institution’.
THE NUMBERS
“Ireland became the biggest source of livestock for the English slave trade. For the entire 17th century, more Irish were sold than Africans and there were records of Irish slaves well into the 18th century.” (Ireland Under English Rule by A. Louis Albert Perroud)
One important reason that there were more Irish servants/slaves is that they were much cheaper than Africans. The voyage itself was a shorter one to the colonies from Europe and Irishmen usually sold for 5 pounds of sterling versus 20-40 pounds for Africans.
Lost in the wreckage of Irish kidnapping, imprisonment, and slavery were their names, their Irish origins, and their religion. As ships landed in America, the “cargo”, or servants, were recorded as being ‘English’ since the majority of the ships carrying freewillers, those who voluntarily emigrated, or the indentured sailed from England. Irish American lawyer, politician, and abolitionist, Thomas Addis Emmet, (1764-1827), asserted that during this time, “more than 100,000 young children who were orphans or had been taken from their Catholic parents, were sent abroad into slavery in the West Indies, Virginia and New England, that they might lose their faith and all knowledge of their nationality, for in most instances even their names were changed.”
Exact numbers of Irish slaves in the colonies are not known, due to sloppy or nonexistent records.
So, we must rely on estimates found by historians. Cromwell alone is said to have transported 130,000 Irish slaves to the American colonies and the West Indies between 1651-1660. Other estimates vary: Historians John P. Prendergast, Anthony Broudine, Thomas Addis Emmet, and Dr. John Lingard estimate the numbers of Irish slaves in those 9 years to have been 80,000, 100,000, 120,000-130,000, 60,000 respectively. (From Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776 by Abbot Emerson Smith, pp. 307-310)
Author Robert E. West’s research showed, "The number of Irish transported (whether voluntary or not) to the British colonies in America from 1651 - 1660 exceeded the total number of their inhabitants at that period, a fact which ought not to be lost sight of by those who undertake to estimate the strength of the Celtic element in this nation . . . ."
In subsequent years after 1660, steady shipments of Irish still arrived, but not in the extreme numbers as were seen before 1660. Between 1655 and 1678, the average annual emigration of servants from Bristol “was almost exactly 400.” (Colonists in Bondage … by Abbot Emerson Smith, p. 308)
An excerpt from Colonists in Bondage , p. 308. Keep in mind, Irish servants/slaves were most likely shipped from England:
Here are examples of Irish emigration numbers between the years 1725-1800 from Colonists in Bondage . . ., pp. 313-314:
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Total population of 4 colonies in 1755:
British mercantilists continued to defiantly ship convict indentured servant laborers to America following the Revolutionary War. Janet Levy of The American Thinker: “During that time, seven ships filled with prisoners made the journey, and two successfully landed. In 1789, convict importation was legally banned across the U.S. America would no longer be the dumping ground for British criminals. It took another 30 years before the indentured servant trade ended completely.”
The Irish did not escape the horrors of captivity and enslavement . . . . (TO BE CONTINUED)
The Irish did not escape the horrors of captivity and enslavement . . . . (TO BE CONTINUED)