robertemmett
02-27-2008, 07:51 PM
an article on the Irish slave trade. i have drawn alot on other sources but i have not cited them. but there is an increasing volume of material on this topic.
2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the Act that ended the Slave trade in the British Empire. To mark this occasion the Northern Ireland office has published a booklet that gives information on Irish involvement in the disgusting trade and those Irish figures involved in the campaign to end the slave trade.
The booklet has been posted to each school for use in citizenship or History classes to raise awareness of the trade and how the trade in humans continues today. This has been a worthwhile venture by the NIO, however there are some fundamental flaws in the publication in that it is rather selective in the information that it uses.
The booklet highlights the role some Irish people played in the continuation of the trade. In particular some Irish families who benefited directly from the trade as well as the role played by Irish sailors and captains who operated British owed ships out of English ports. In doing so the agenda of the booklet is one in which the Irish nation are expected to share in the collective guilt felt by the British in 2007. The booklet exaggerates the involvement of Ireland in the Slave trade and as Daniel O Connell claimed at the time, “no slave ship ever left an Irish port”.
What this publication simply ignores is the fact that slaves were taken from Ireland and sold in the West Indies and the Caribbean. This human trafficking preceded the slave trade from Africa. Indeed it is a chapter in Irish History that is often overlooked.
Whilst European states were involved in the slave trade, it was British merchants that came dominate the industry. The trade involved ships leaving ports such as Liverpool or Bristol arriving on the east coast of Africa, to pick up slaves. These slaves were traded for pots, kettles or simple manufactured goods. The slave ships would then sail to the Caribbean where the captured slaves were sold for huge profit to the plantations owners. The traders would then buy goods such as coffee, sugar, rum and sail back to England to sell these luxury items. This triangular pattern was repeated year after year and brought pure profit for traders. Many English towns grew extremely wealthy on the proceeds of human misery. Some of today’s banks, such as Barclays, were founded to house this money.
But before the capitalists of England arrived on the shores of Africa, they already had experience of sending Irish people into slavery. After the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, up to 30,000 Irish were banished to the continent, including the leaders of the revolt, a period often referred to as the “Flight of the Wild Geese”. However the official policy of banishment did not solve the English’s problems in Ireland. King James II encouraged the rebellious Irish to be sold to plantations in the New World. The first recorded sale of Irish prisoners is in 1612 on the river Amazon. The first recorded sale of African prisoners is in 1619.
A proclamation in 1625 allowed Irish political prisoners to be transported and sold as labourers in the West Indies. This was to be a tool of English law and order in Ireland for the next two hundred years. By 1632 the Irish were the main group of slaves on the islands of Antigua and Montserrat. By 1637, 69% of the population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
The Irish rebellion of 1641 saw a huge rise in the numbers of people taken abroad. The population of Ireland before the rebellion stood at 1.46 million, by 1652 this had been reduced to 616,000. It is estimated that half a million were killed and 300,000 taken as slaves.
There can be no doubt that the arrival of Oliver Cromwell in Ireland in 1649 helped boost these figures. The town of Drogheda had a population of 30,000 before his arrival. Cromwell himself summed up his achievement ““I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados.” The ten years of Cromwell’s Reign of Terror seen the implementation of the now famous “to hell or Connaught” policy. In practice this meant that those Irish that failed to remove themselves to County Clare were guilty of high treason and were open to transporting to the Americas. One shocking figure during this period is the 100,000 Irish children (aged 10-14) that were sent.
So eager were the authorities in Ireland to avail of this business opportunity that they mistakenly captured and transported 72 Englishmen from Ireland in March 1659. The Irish slave trade continued after the death of Cromwell, and King Charles II proved no better than Cromwell. In the years 1600-1699 more slaves were taken from Ireland than from Africa.
Life for the Slave.
Some revisionist historians have tried to lessen the impact of this English policy by referring to the Irish slaves as “indentured servants”. This was a contract between a person and a shipper or plantation owner and usually involved a person working for a period of years as servant in return for ships passage, food and board or perhaps a small piece of land at the end of the agreed period. However indenturing was a free contract. This was not the experience of the vast majority of Irish that were sent. It is generally accepted those taken after the Battle of Kinsale were indentured servants. It is clear that after 1625 that the Irish were pure and simple slaves.
The African slaves fetched a better price in the New World than the Irish. An African slave could fetch between £20 -£50, whereas the Irish would fetch 900lbs of cotton or £5. The reason for the distinction between the two is clear. The Irish where not suited to working in the tropical climates of the Caribbean and caused far more problems for the plantation owners. The Africans also had the added advantage of not being Catholics, the plantations preferring the “godless pagan” African over the “papist” Irish.
The plantation owners also engaged in the breeding of Irish women with African men, the offspring having light brown skin and so fetching a higher price. The practice had become so widespread that in 1681, the British government introduce legislation “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale”. This was not introduced for any moral or humanitarian reason, rather that the practice was having a negative impact on the profits of the Royal African Company, whose business was the transport of slaves from Africa.
Curiously, of all the Irish shipped out as slaves, not one is known to have returned to Ireland to tell their tales. Many, if not most, died on the ships transporting them or from overwork and abusive treatment on the plantations. The Irish that did obtain their freedom, frequently emigrated on to the American mainland, while others moved to adjoining islands. On Montserrat, seven of every 10 whites were Irish. Comparable 1678 census figures for the other Leeward Islands were: 26 per cent Irish on Antigua; 22 per cent on Nevis; and 10 per cent on St Christopher. Even today, a trawl through the pages of the telephone books in the West Indies one can the see the sheer number of Irish surnames.
Indeed, until 1900 Gaelic was widely spoken on these islands. Indeed in one incident in 1768, a ship crewed with men from Cork landed in Montserrat and were surprised to find themselves chatting in Irish to Black Montserratans who referred to Cork as “Corcaigh na gCuan" (Cork of the Harbors), a name not used since the destruction of the Irish social system in the 17th century.
It is also said that the Black Montserratans joked with the Cork men “Tá sé sin ait, ní fheictear mar Gaeil sibh" “That's funny, you guys don't look Irish."
Rebellions.
The spirit of the Irish remained alive even after their enslavement in the New World. There is some evidence that in 1649, the Irish rose in rebellion in Montserrat and accounts relate how they were executed and their heads placed on spikes at fence of the local town. In 1741 there was widespread panic in New York after a series of house fires were linked to a “Negro” conspiracy. 31 black and 5 white slaves were executed. It is believed that the white slaves were Irish. The official account included the line; "The 5 whites were Irish indentured servants of the Teague sort”. A name for the Irish Catholic that remains till today.
Looking at official reports on slave risings it can be see that from Newfoundland to Barbados British felt they could always trust a “Teague” to be at the bottom of any political trouble.
2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the Act that ended the Slave trade in the British Empire. To mark this occasion the Northern Ireland office has published a booklet that gives information on Irish involvement in the disgusting trade and those Irish figures involved in the campaign to end the slave trade.
The booklet has been posted to each school for use in citizenship or History classes to raise awareness of the trade and how the trade in humans continues today. This has been a worthwhile venture by the NIO, however there are some fundamental flaws in the publication in that it is rather selective in the information that it uses.
The booklet highlights the role some Irish people played in the continuation of the trade. In particular some Irish families who benefited directly from the trade as well as the role played by Irish sailors and captains who operated British owed ships out of English ports. In doing so the agenda of the booklet is one in which the Irish nation are expected to share in the collective guilt felt by the British in 2007. The booklet exaggerates the involvement of Ireland in the Slave trade and as Daniel O Connell claimed at the time, “no slave ship ever left an Irish port”.
What this publication simply ignores is the fact that slaves were taken from Ireland and sold in the West Indies and the Caribbean. This human trafficking preceded the slave trade from Africa. Indeed it is a chapter in Irish History that is often overlooked.
Whilst European states were involved in the slave trade, it was British merchants that came dominate the industry. The trade involved ships leaving ports such as Liverpool or Bristol arriving on the east coast of Africa, to pick up slaves. These slaves were traded for pots, kettles or simple manufactured goods. The slave ships would then sail to the Caribbean where the captured slaves were sold for huge profit to the plantations owners. The traders would then buy goods such as coffee, sugar, rum and sail back to England to sell these luxury items. This triangular pattern was repeated year after year and brought pure profit for traders. Many English towns grew extremely wealthy on the proceeds of human misery. Some of today’s banks, such as Barclays, were founded to house this money.
But before the capitalists of England arrived on the shores of Africa, they already had experience of sending Irish people into slavery. After the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, up to 30,000 Irish were banished to the continent, including the leaders of the revolt, a period often referred to as the “Flight of the Wild Geese”. However the official policy of banishment did not solve the English’s problems in Ireland. King James II encouraged the rebellious Irish to be sold to plantations in the New World. The first recorded sale of Irish prisoners is in 1612 on the river Amazon. The first recorded sale of African prisoners is in 1619.
A proclamation in 1625 allowed Irish political prisoners to be transported and sold as labourers in the West Indies. This was to be a tool of English law and order in Ireland for the next two hundred years. By 1632 the Irish were the main group of slaves on the islands of Antigua and Montserrat. By 1637, 69% of the population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
The Irish rebellion of 1641 saw a huge rise in the numbers of people taken abroad. The population of Ireland before the rebellion stood at 1.46 million, by 1652 this had been reduced to 616,000. It is estimated that half a million were killed and 300,000 taken as slaves.
There can be no doubt that the arrival of Oliver Cromwell in Ireland in 1649 helped boost these figures. The town of Drogheda had a population of 30,000 before his arrival. Cromwell himself summed up his achievement ““I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados.” The ten years of Cromwell’s Reign of Terror seen the implementation of the now famous “to hell or Connaught” policy. In practice this meant that those Irish that failed to remove themselves to County Clare were guilty of high treason and were open to transporting to the Americas. One shocking figure during this period is the 100,000 Irish children (aged 10-14) that were sent.
So eager were the authorities in Ireland to avail of this business opportunity that they mistakenly captured and transported 72 Englishmen from Ireland in March 1659. The Irish slave trade continued after the death of Cromwell, and King Charles II proved no better than Cromwell. In the years 1600-1699 more slaves were taken from Ireland than from Africa.
Life for the Slave.
Some revisionist historians have tried to lessen the impact of this English policy by referring to the Irish slaves as “indentured servants”. This was a contract between a person and a shipper or plantation owner and usually involved a person working for a period of years as servant in return for ships passage, food and board or perhaps a small piece of land at the end of the agreed period. However indenturing was a free contract. This was not the experience of the vast majority of Irish that were sent. It is generally accepted those taken after the Battle of Kinsale were indentured servants. It is clear that after 1625 that the Irish were pure and simple slaves.
The African slaves fetched a better price in the New World than the Irish. An African slave could fetch between £20 -£50, whereas the Irish would fetch 900lbs of cotton or £5. The reason for the distinction between the two is clear. The Irish where not suited to working in the tropical climates of the Caribbean and caused far more problems for the plantation owners. The Africans also had the added advantage of not being Catholics, the plantations preferring the “godless pagan” African over the “papist” Irish.
The plantation owners also engaged in the breeding of Irish women with African men, the offspring having light brown skin and so fetching a higher price. The practice had become so widespread that in 1681, the British government introduce legislation “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale”. This was not introduced for any moral or humanitarian reason, rather that the practice was having a negative impact on the profits of the Royal African Company, whose business was the transport of slaves from Africa.
Curiously, of all the Irish shipped out as slaves, not one is known to have returned to Ireland to tell their tales. Many, if not most, died on the ships transporting them or from overwork and abusive treatment on the plantations. The Irish that did obtain their freedom, frequently emigrated on to the American mainland, while others moved to adjoining islands. On Montserrat, seven of every 10 whites were Irish. Comparable 1678 census figures for the other Leeward Islands were: 26 per cent Irish on Antigua; 22 per cent on Nevis; and 10 per cent on St Christopher. Even today, a trawl through the pages of the telephone books in the West Indies one can the see the sheer number of Irish surnames.
Indeed, until 1900 Gaelic was widely spoken on these islands. Indeed in one incident in 1768, a ship crewed with men from Cork landed in Montserrat and were surprised to find themselves chatting in Irish to Black Montserratans who referred to Cork as “Corcaigh na gCuan" (Cork of the Harbors), a name not used since the destruction of the Irish social system in the 17th century.
It is also said that the Black Montserratans joked with the Cork men “Tá sé sin ait, ní fheictear mar Gaeil sibh" “That's funny, you guys don't look Irish."
Rebellions.
The spirit of the Irish remained alive even after their enslavement in the New World. There is some evidence that in 1649, the Irish rose in rebellion in Montserrat and accounts relate how they were executed and their heads placed on spikes at fence of the local town. In 1741 there was widespread panic in New York after a series of house fires were linked to a “Negro” conspiracy. 31 black and 5 white slaves were executed. It is believed that the white slaves were Irish. The official account included the line; "The 5 whites were Irish indentured servants of the Teague sort”. A name for the Irish Catholic that remains till today.
Looking at official reports on slave risings it can be see that from Newfoundland to Barbados British felt they could always trust a “Teague” to be at the bottom of any political trouble.