Irish Slaves.

Slavery in one form or another has existed in Ireland since the earliest times. Early Celtic society had five classes of people from King to slave.Niall of the Nine Hostages an early High King of Ireland (379-405) regularly went on slave raiding trips during and after the Roman withdrawal from England, on one of these riads he is believed to have captured St Patrick from Wales or Cornwall.

It is said that the first recorded sale of Irish slaves was to a settlement along the Amazon in South America in 1612.

The main period of Irish slavery occurred during the late 16th and early 17th century when England was desperately trying to control Ireland, fearing that Spain would use it as staging post for the invasion of England.

1625 saw a procrastination being issued by King James I, declaring that all Irish political prisoners were to be sold as slaves to the plantations in the West Indies and North America. This is borne out by a census carried out on Monaural in the West Indies which found that 69% of the inhabitants were Irish slaves. Cromwell

Cromwell's son, Henry, was made Major General in command of the forces in Ireland. It was under his reign that thousands of Irish men and women were shipped to the West Indies. From 1648 to 1655 over 12,000 Irish political prisoners were shipped to Barbados. Although indentured servants (Irish included) had been coming to Barbados since 1627, this new wave of arrivals was the first to come involuntarily.

In 1641, one of the periodic wars in which the Irish tried to overthrow the English misrule in their land took place ireland. As always, this rebellion eventually failed. As a result, in the 12 years following the revolt, known as the Confederation War, the Irish population fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. Over 550,000 Irishmen were killed, and numbers vary as how many Irish people were transported as slaves, but reliable estimates put the number of Irish shipped out at between 30,000 and 80,000 persons. The women and children who were left homeless and destitute had to be dealt with , so they were rounded up and sold, too.

At this time The Dutch and Portuguese dominated the slave trade in the early 17th century and most white English landowners in Barbados and the neighboring islands were unable to purchase slaves of African origin, this caused a labour shortage which the newly arrived Irish prisoners filled. However the Irish slaves in The West Indies found the climate too hot and had a tendency to die in the heat, and were not as well suited to the work as African slaves, but African slaves had to be bought. Irish slaves could be kidnapped if there weren't enough prisoners, and of course, it was easy enough to make Irish prisoners by manufacturing some petty crime or other. This made the Irish the preferred "livestock" for English slave traders for 200 years. .

A law, published in 1657, read:

"Those who fail to transplant themselves into Connaught (Ireland's Western Province) or (County) Clare within six month s... Shall be attained of high treason.. Are to be sent into America or some other parts beyond the seas..."

Any who attempted to return would,"suffer the pains of death as felons by virtue of this act, without benefit of Clergy."(2)
In 1742, a document entitled Thurloe's State Papers, published in London, opined that:

"..It was a measure beneficial to Ireland, which was thus relieved of a population that might trouble the planters; it was a benefit to the people removed, which might thus be made English and Christians ... a great benefit to the West India sugar planters, who desired men and boys for their bondsmen, and the women and Irish girls... To solace them."

So the English plantation owners of the 17th century can be justifiably be called sex traffickers.

This episode of Irish history has been edited out of the school history curriculum in both the North and South of Ireland and is greeted by disbelief by most people who view the historic slave trade as only applying to Black Africans, not white people.

LoughCuan.com

History of Irish Slavery