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? After all, 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 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.

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.

quite true.

The Carribean lilt also bears a striking resemblance to the Irish brogue.

However, @ topic: the Irish were able to "assimilate' to a better extent than blacks.

They were banned from renting homes, receiving loans, even applying for work. Most lived in abandon buildings and in the subway and sewage tunnels until the early 20th century. The movie Gangs of New York is actually based on facts and real people and their struggle.

NINA's, they use them up until the 1940. that is part of the reason why kenedy was so important. he was the first irsih president and first catholic. some of the reasons he was shot. it got better after kennedy, alot better after reagan, a little worse after clinton. i cant count the number of times i get called a dirty mick. how many times landlords/employers have given me issues about it. even had one lady in HS refuse to give me a job becaue she didnt want my kind around her customers. i thought it would be differnt over here but its not. on of the neighbors is married to a woman from the netherlands. when we first met she and i would handg out when she would visit untill one night our husbands took us out and we ended up at a sports bar in lagos. we went intrested in soccer so we sat (facing eachother) and talked. i fixed my hair and she noticed a tattoo on my wrist and aske me if i was irish. i said yes. she turned in her seat and refused to speak to me afterwards. one year later, everytime she comes to visit she makes some excuse of why she cant come over or join us when we are out but hs no issue with my husband visiting t

Was it really that bad?No wonder some irish have bitter hatred for the english just like a typical black person does.

The english are just monsters and a great number of them still derive joy from their despicable exploits,they see it as some of superiority instead of barbarism that it was.

the irish were not the only slaves. nor the africans. the word slave was derived from the slavs. these people suffered hell under the ancient russian empire for centuries and were only freed after the russian king(csar) stopped it in the I860s. the serbs/slavs etc they saw hell.
the jews were also slaves to ancient egypt for 400yrs
there were lots of slavery in midle east history.

so we cant know it all, but what concerns us most is that african slaves was on a grand scale and slaves were used to build 2 great empires (US/UK) and the after effects of those eras are still with us in a new name . . .racism.

pres-elect:

the word slave was derived from the slavs.

Interestingly, the word slava, from which 'slave' supposedly takes its root means 'Glory' in some of the slavic languages (one of which i speak fluently). What irony! 

Anyways, I am not quite sure, as pre-elect asserts, that 'these people (as in the Slav's) suffered hell under the ancient russian empire for centuries and were only freed after the russian king(csar) stopped it in the I860s' because the Russians themselves happen to belong to the group of Slavic nations. Though the etymology of the word 'slave' is still in doubt, it may be strongly linked to the spate of enslaving that occured in most of Europe during the Viking Era during which a lot of peoples of Slavic origin, including the Russians, were forcefully taken across most of Europe, enroute to the Nordic lands. You can find some interesting stuff about it here. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1513588

I think it's interesting that the word  'Caucasian', which describes somebody from the Caucasus mountains, a place located on the borders of the lands of the Slav's, is sometimes used to describe Europeans as a 'racial' group. One wonders why most of them, 'Caucasians' i mean, prefer to be called 'white' as opposed to 'Caucasian'. Has it to do with a denial of their own history? One wonders!

the russians had slaves in the past. perhaps they didnt call them slaves but they were practically slaves. i'll get back to you when i find their identity (slavs/serbs . . . i'll check)

the english took slaves from africa, ireland, india, nepal, pakistan and china to thier colonies as well as using native north and south american indians as did the french, spanish, dutch and portugese.  unfortunatly the sins of the few have been blamed on the many. my history professor in college used to teach that the africans were to the slave trade what the jews were to the holocost. not the only ones involved by far but the poster children. the ones that are easily recognisable and therefor make ot hard to forget what happened to all of them

Apparently the poles have these type of signs up in their county about us Irish. They came here and absolutely milked the social welfare system!

Leilah:

Apparently the poles have these type of signs up in their county about us Irish. They came here and absolutely milked the social welfare system!

Can you explain the type of 'signs' you mean?

beneli:

Can you explain the type of 'signs' you mean?

i think he is talking about NINA's (No Irish Need Apply)