TG4 Irish Slaves in Barados Monday 8.15

McArmalite

Should be quite an interesting programme on the desendants fo Irish people shipped to the West Indies by Cromwell and co.

20.15 Redlegs: Sclábhaithe Siúcra na hÉireann

Barbados has a special place in the Irish imagination as the fantasy holiday destination. But fifteen miles away from the main resorts there lives a community known as the 'Redlegs', directly descended from the Irish, sent by Cromwell in the 1650s as indentured servants to provide free labour for the new money-making machine of the sugar plantations.

ejmaztec

I wonder if they're all going to get a mention.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article418993.ece[/COLOR][/SIZE]
Poor Scots who became white trash

Rebels, Covenanters — all sorts of ‘redlegs’ were shipped to Barbados over the centuries, writes Chris Dolan


My day off and wouldn’t you know it, the rain’s bucketing down. I’m the only passenger on the number 22 bus trundling through the sodden hills of Scotland, on my way to visit some National Trust gardens. I’m sitting up chatting with the driver, Sylvan, who’s going to let me off at the right stop, but I can hardly understand a word he’s saying — his northern accent’s a killer. I’m about to step out into the pelting rain, when he says it’s hardly a day for wandering round gardens. Instead he reaches down beside his seat and pulls out two bottles of Carib lager, cracks them open and I sit back to enjoy a two-dollar trip through a miniature, but today magnificently rainy, rainforest.
That bus ride was 10 years ago, but it’s been on my mind ever since — a book I’m writing came directly out of that first trip around the northern parishes of Scotland district, Barbados. And now, together with BBC producer and historian Louise Yeoman, I’ve been making a radio programme about Caribbean poor whites. In Barbados, they’re called “redlegs” because — according to legend — their ancestors in the cane fields got their legs sunburned below the hem of their kilts.
About 170 Jacobite rebels were “Barbado’ed” after the rising of 1715 — and there are other sources of Scots ancestry in Barbados, too. A few years after my bus ride with Sylvan I was back seeing friends and doing some research on the island. I met a man called Mac who looked as frazzled as a tourist halfway through a package tour out of Glasgow. The minute Mac spoke, however, the illusion was shattered: the man talked like Shaggy on drugs.
He lived in St Martin Bay, on the wild east coast of the island, up by the Scotland district, which rises into stark hills and craggy cliffs in the north of the island. It’s here that the redlegs have traditionally lived.
“Backras” Sylvan called them. “’Cause no respectable family wanted to sit next to poor white trash in church. They were made to sit in the back pews only.”
I’ve since heard other theories about poor white genealogy and lifestyles — and other translations of “backra”. According to Karl Watson of the University of the West Indies “nyam” buckras translates from an African language as “useless white men”.
These people are not the descendents of rich planters. Nor is their heritage confined to Jacobite rebels. They come from a rich stew of indentured workers from Scotland, Wales and northern England who were either exiled or sold themselves into slavery in the hope of making good eventually. There’ll be Barbado’ed Irish thieves and prostitutes in there somewhere, too. And Covenanters.
Louise, when I first told her the end of the story I knew — the West Indian side — immediately made the connection with the Covenanting wars. She contacted fellow historian Mark Jardine, who in the programme, takes us deep into religious Lanarkshire.
In a glen west of Douglas a man called James Gavin had been hiding out, but was caught by soldiers. In the wake of the rebellion by the Duke of Monmouth’s Covenanters the English army were nervy about any kind of Protestant agitator.
Gavin was a Cameronian — the most fundamentalist of Covenanting Protestants. He was marched, barefoot, to Edinburgh, where John Graham of Claverhouse, relentless pursuer of Covenanters, had the prisoner’s ears chopped off. He was then shipped out to Carolina, where he must have been bought by a Bajan planter.
Other Scots who followed had different roles. They were often factors and factotums — the men who held the whip. Gilbert Milroy, another Scottish Covenanter who became an overseer, was so violent that his slaves attempted to kill him.
The next wave of immigrants to make the appalling sail to the Caribbean was the starving poor. Scotland was in the grip of famine in the 1690s. Seven ships sailed out bearing 850 souls for Barbados. Then, 15 years or so later, the legendary Barbado’ed Jacobites followed them.
There were instances of white servants joining forces with black slaves in revolt against their masters. But they were rare, and died out once abolition and emancipation came onto the scene. Poor whites and freed blacks were now competing for the same jobs, the same slivers of land, the same crumbs of social status brushed from the planters’ tables. Poor whites, inevitably perhaps, played the race card.
For years the poor whites clung on to a sense of superiority: a romanticism of being lost Scots, waiting to return home in glory. That’s all changing now. Few people accept the tags “redleg” or “backra” any more.
There are still white and mixed race communities in parts of Bridgetown and around the Scotland area, but they feel, as Watson puts it, “black in a white skin”.
There are lost white tribes like the redlegs peppered around the Americas — supposed Poles in Haiti, semi-German communities in Jamaica. What is it that happens to a people who have been severed from their own history? None of the high principle of the Covenanting tradition seems to have stayed with Barbados’s poor whites; certainly no Jacobite nationalism. After clinging desperately to a forlorn take on white supremacy, they lost their music, their culture, and whatever little power they once had. The redlegs of Barbados and St Vincent are fast disappearing — like snow melting under the tropical sun. Poor whites.

Bog Butter

http://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/SLAVES.TXT

http://www.politics.ie/history/35779-englands-irish-slaves.html

Tableman

There is a fictional book: "The testimonial of an Irish slave girl". A really excellent read that deals with this time of history

Skid

McArmalite wrote: »

Should be quite an interesting programme on the desendants fo Irish people shipped to the West Indies by Cromwell and co.

20.15 Redlegs: Sclábhaithe Siúcra na hÉireann

Barbados has a special place in the Irish imagination as the fantasy holiday destination. But fifteen miles away from the main resorts there lives a community known as the 'Redlegs', directly descended from the Irish, sent by Cromwell in the 1650s as indentured servants to provide free labour for the new money-making machine of the sugar plantations.

It was very interesting, thanks for the tip.

I'd guess a lot of people missed this, due to it being broadcast over Christmas.

McArmalite

SkidMark wrote: »

It was very interesting, thanks for the tip.

I'd guess a lot of people missed this, due to it being broadcast over Christmas.

I actually missed it myself AAAAGHHHH . I had a ticket to the Madness gig at the Point/O2 arena and forgot to set the DVD :rolleyes: I'm sure it will be repeated. Is it true that some the red legs have a trace of an Irish accent ?

Skid

McArmalite wrote: »

I actually missed it myself AAAAGHHHH . I had a ticket to the Madness gig at the Point/O2 arena and forgot to set the DVD :rolleyes: I'm sure it will be repeated. Is it true that some the red legs have a trace of an Irish accent ?

Definitely, I thought some of them had really distinctive Irish twangs. Their faces are even more startling, some of them have Red Hair, and their faces looked like an Irish person you would meet after their first day getting a tan on Holiday, no more than that.

I can't see a link on the TG4 website to stream this again. Hopefully they repeat it soon.

mal1

The accents were unbelievable- half Pat Short, half Bob Marley. I'm glad I caught this, I've been reading about 'Cromwell in Ireland' last week and it was the first time that I heard of the 'Redlegs'. Just came across this documentary by chance since the name caught my eye. I do believe it was a little long. Could have easily been covered in 30 minutes. I have also read that most of the Redlegs left Barbados to move to other English colonies in the US and that there isn't that many ancestors left on the island.

Kojak

mal1 wrote: »

The accents were unbelievable- half Pat Short, half Bob Marley.

Yeah, those accents were very strange alright. I couldn't make out what most of them were saying, especially the old woman who had married a black man and was talking about what her family's reaction was etc.

Zebra3

Very interesting programme.

Didn't know Barbados was so small. Half the size of Louth apparently!!! :eek:

Fratton Fred

McArmalite wrote: »

I actually missed it myself AAAAGHHHH . I had a ticket to the Madness gig at the Point/O2 arena and forgot to set the DVD :rolleyes: I'm sure it will be repeated. Is it true that some the red legs have a trace of an Irish accent ?

you'll be supporting Man United and watching corrie next ya ****ing west brit

grenache

If you're looking for a Caribbean island with an even greater Irish link, you should seek out Monserrat. Where 60% of its inhabitants claim Irish ancestry. The only country, outside of Ireland, where March 17 is a public holiday. The island is also in danger of being destroyed by its resident volcano. You Tube it, its a fascinating story.

Fratton Fred

grenache wrote: »

If you're looking for a Caribbean island with an even greater Irish link, you should seek out Monserrat. Where 60% of its inhabitants claim Irish ancestry. The only country, outside of Ireland, where March 17 is a public holiday. The island is also in danger of being destroyed by its resident volcano. You Tube it, its a fascinating story.

The Slaves in Montserray knew that their Irish overlords would be drunk as skunks that day, so they chose that date for their rebellion.

Maybe we should do the same this year, when FF all go on their junkets!!

justagirl

Go to:

http://www.tg4.tv/

On the left hand side click on "Fáisnéis Cartlann" [= documentary archive]

Then scroll down to "Redlegs: Sclábhaithe Siúcra na hÉireann"

I found it fascinating and incredibly moving.

Redbird

Hey

Heard that the Redlegs doc that was on TG4 was great, I missed it, was away Christmas. When I googled Redlegs Documentary the production company that made it Moondance www.moondance.tv it has on the homepage that it is repeated on the 10th February 9.30pm TG4, wont miss it this time. Did anybody hear about the new zoo programme they are doing?

Duffy7

Theres a good book called 'To Hell or Barbados' by Sean O'Callaghan which covers the Irish sent over as Slaves to Barbados in the 17th Century.
Its a few years since I've read it, but its an interesting read to compliment the TG4 show.
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-Barbados-Ethnic-Cleansing-Ireland/dp/0863222870

Muckie

Brilliant lads i love this sort of stuff, remember hearing years ago
how the Moors are meant to have kidnapped Irish people
off the west coast of Ireland, and took them to Africa.

JOSEPHD95

Does anyone know if any charity is working with the Red Legs in Barbados?

brianthebard

Not the thread for such questions. Look in the volunteerism section.

CDfm

Muckie wrote: »

Brilliant lads i love this sort of stuff, remember hearing years ago
how the Moors are meant to have kidnapped Irish people
off the west coast of Ireland, and took them to Africa.

that happened in Baltimore in West Cork in the 1500s and there are some links on the raid here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055755192&highlight=slavery

As it happened and I say this in an unbiased way as a Corkman but it was a low down scurvy dog from Waterford that sold them out.

JOSEPHD95

brianthebard wrote: »

Not the thread for such questions. Look in the volunteerism section.

Thanks for the insight ! I have actually come across a lot of dead ends in trying to answer this question and I was hoping that people with an interest in the history of the Red Legs might know of/have heard of an organisation or group that is working with them in Barbados. I heard that a priest was working in a red leg community but other than that information is very hard to come by. Any ideas?

Fratton Fred

Working with them to do what?

CDfm

joseph i hope you got my pm - I saw something on this before and a family the cavanaghs.

you would wonder how they developed as it seems like they are a lost tribe and the only comparrison seems to be pitcairn island and flether christian and the Mutiny on the Bounty.

http://sigmundcarlandalfred.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/dark-secrets-on-pitcairn-island-fletcher-christians-sad-legacy/

what has been their history since the slave days to get to where they are at now

JOSEPHD95

This community is impoverished, uneducated and malnourished and when I say "working with them" I mean charitable or religious groups who might be working to help with any or all of the above problems.
Have you heard of any such groups?

R.Dub.Fusilier

JOSEPHD95 wrote: »

This community is impoverished, uneducated and malnourished and when I say "working with them" I mean charitable or religious groups who might be working to help with any or all of the above problems.
Have you heard of any such groups?

fred usually questions why posters dare question the past deeds of the british empire so thats why he was a bit smart . if thats what you want to do , good for you and good luck with your plans.

CDfm

Here is an article on it by the Chief Herald of Clan Kavanagh

http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm

Irish slaves in the Caribbean

James F. Cavanaugh - Clann Chief Herald

There are a great many K/Cavanaughs in North America who trace their ancestry back to a Charles Cavanaugh, who arrived in Virginia, with a brother or cousin named Philemon Cavanagh (Felim or Phelim), on or about 1700. Their descendants most often spell their name with a C, although a variety of both C and K spellings are found, even within the same immediate family. They were originally concentrated in the Southeastern United States, particularly Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, but now spread to everywhere. Although long standing family traditions trace Charles and Philemon of 1700 arrival back to Colonel Charles Cavanaugh of Carrickduff and Clonmullen, (the son of Sir Morgan Cavanagh, the son of Donnal Spanaigh Cavanagh), a recorded link still evades researchers.
Punishment was severe. If a plantation
owner beat an Irish slave to death, the
only penalty was the value of the slaves
financial loss.A possible link, however, was found in Barbados, where the birth of a Charles Cavanaugh, son of Charles Cavanaugh, was registered there in January 1679. At the same time, another Cavanagh was registered as inbound on a ship to Barbados from Liverpool. And further complicating the entry is the same registry records the death of a Charles Cavanaugh, son of Charles at the same time. So the questions: was the dead Charles the new born baby; or perhaps the father of the baby; or maybe the inbound Cavanagh who may have died on the trip to Barbados, with his death recorded upon arrival; or another Charles; or….?
These questions are still unanswered, but a more intriguing question is what were the Cavanaughs doing in Barbados in the first place? The answer takes us down a revolting path wandering through one of the most insensitive and savage episodes in history, where the greed and avarice of the English monarchy systematically planned the genocide of the Irish, for commercial profit, and executed a continuing campaign to destroy all traces of Irish social, cultural and religious being. As the topic was politically sensitive, little has been written about this attempted genocide of the Irish, and what has been written has been camouflaged because it is an ugly and painfully brutal story. But the story should be told.
Transportation and Banishment
If Queen Elizabeth I had lived in the 20th Century. she would have been viewed with the same horror as Hitler and Stalin. Her policy of Irish genocide was pursued with such evil zest it boggles the mind of modern men. But Elizabeth was only setting the stage for the even more savage program that was to follow her, directed specifically to exterminate the Irish. James II and Charles I continued Elizabeth’s campaign, but Cromwell almost perfected it. Few people in modern so-called “civilized history” can match the horrors of Cromwell in Ireland. It is amazing what one man can do to his fellow man under the banner that God sanctions his actions!
The reign of Elizabeth I, English privateers captured 300 African Negroes, sold them as slaves, and initiated the English slave trade. Slavery was, of course, an old established commerce dating back into earliest history. Julius Caesar brought over a million slaves from defeated armies back to Rome. By the 16th century, the Arabs were the most active, generally capturing native peoples, not just Africans, marching them to a seaport and selling them to ship owners. Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish ships were originally the most active, supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies in America. It was not a big business in the beginning, but a very profitable one, and ship owners were primarily interested only in profits. The morality of selling human beings was never a factor to them.
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.
Almost as soon as settlers landed in America, English privateers showed up with a good load of slaves to sell. The first load of African slaves brought to Virginia arrived at Jamestown in 1619. English shippers, with royal encouragement, partnered with the Dutch to try and corner the slave market to the exclusion of the Spanish and Portuguese. The demand was greatest in the Spanish occupied areas of Central and South America, but the settlement of North America moved steadily ahead, and the demand for slave labour grew.
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.
The Confederation War broke out in Kilkenny in 1641, as the Irish attempted to throw out the English yet again, something that seem to happen at least once every generation. Sir Morgan Cavanaugh of Clonmullen, one of the leaders, was killed during a battle in 1646, and his two sons, Daniel and Charles (later Colonel Charles) continued with the struggle until the uprising was crushed by Cromwell in 1649. It is recorded that Daniel and other Carlow Kavanaghs exiled themselves to Spain, where their descendants are still found today, concentrated in the northwestern corner of that country. Young Charles, who married Mary Kavanagh, daughter of Brian Kavanagh of Borris, was either exiled to Nantes, France, or transported to Barbados… or both. Although we haven’t found a record of him in a military life in France, it is known that the crown of Leinster and other regal paraphernalia associated with the Kingship of Leinster was brought to France, where it was on display in Bordeaux, just south of Nantes, until the French Revolution in 1794. As Daniel and Charles were the heirs to the Leinster kingship, one of them undoubtedly brought these royal artifacts to Bordeaux.
In the 12 year period during and following the Confederation revolt, from 1641 to 1652, over 550,000 Irish were killed by the English and 300,000 were sold as slaves, as the Irish population of Ireland fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. Banished soldiers were not allowed to take their wives and children with them, and naturally, the same for those sold as slaves. The result was a growing population of homeless women and children, who being a public nuisance, were likewise rounded up and sold. But the worse was yet to come.
In 1649, Cromwell landed in Ireland and attacked Drogheda, slaughtering some 30,000 Irish living in the city. Cromwell reported: “I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados.” A few months later, in 1650, 25,000 Irish were sold to planters in St. Kitt. During the 1650s decade of Cromwell’s Reign of Terror, over 100,000 Irish children, generally from 10 to 14 years old, were taken from Catholic parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In fact, more Irish were sold as slaves to the American colonies and plantations from 1651 to 1660 than the total existing “free” population of the Americas!
But all did not go smoothly with Cromwell’s extermination plan, as Irish slaves revolted in Barbados in 1649. They were hanged, drawn and quartered and their heads were put on pikes, prominently displayed around Bridgetown as a warning to others. Cromwell then fought two quick wars against the Dutch in 1651, and thereafter monopolized the slave trade. Four years later he seized Jamaica from Spain, which then became the center of the English slave trade in the Caribbean.
On 14 August 1652, Cromwell began his Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland, ordering that the Irish were to be transported overseas, starting with 12,000 Irish prisoners sold to Barbados. The infamous “Connaught or Hell” proclamation was issued on 1 May 1654, where all Irish were ordered to be removed from their lands and relocated west of the Shannon or be transported to the West Indies. Those who have been to County Clare, a land of barren rock will understand what an impossible position such an order placed the Irish. A local sheep owner claimed that Clare had the tallest sheep in the world, standing some 7 feet at the withers, because in order to live, there was so little food, they had to graze at 40 miles per hour. With no place to go and stay alive, the Irish were slow to respond. This was an embarrassing problem as Cromwell had financed his Irish expeditions through business investors, who were promised Irish estates as dividends, and his soldiers were promised freehold land in exchange for their services. To speed up the relocation process, a reinforcing law was passed on 26 June 1657 stating: “Those who fail to transplant themselves into Connaught or Co. Clare within six months… Shall be attained of high treason… are to be sent into America or some other parts beyond the seas… those banished who return are to suffer the pains of death as felons by virtue of this act, without benefit of Clergy.”
Although it was not a crime to kill any Irish, and soldiers were encouraged to do so, the slave trade proved too profitable to kill off the source of the product. Privateers and chartered shippers sent gangs out with quotas to fill, and in their zest as they scoured the countryside, they inadvertently kidnapped a number of English too. On March 25, 1659, a petition of 72 Englishmen was received in London, claiming they were illegally “now in slavery in the Barbados”' . The petition also claimed that "7,000-8,000 Scots taken prisoner at the battle of Worcester in 1651 were sold to the British plantations in the New World,” and that “200 Frenchmen had been kidnapped, concealed and sold in Barbados for 900 pounds of cotton each."
Subsequently some 52,000 Irish, mostly women and sturdy boys and girls, were sold to Barbados and Virginia alone. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were taken prisoners and ordered transported and sold as slaves. In 1656, Cromwell’s Council of State ordered that 1000 Irish girls and 1000 Irish boys be rounded up and taken to Jamaica to be sold as slaves to English planters. As horrendous as these numbers sound, it only reflects a small part of the evil program, as most of the slaving activity was not recorded. There were no tears shed amongst the Irish when Cromwell died in 1660.
The Irish welcomed the restoration of the monarchy, with Charles II duly crowned, but it was a hollow expectation. After reviewing the profitability of the slave trade, Charles II chartered the Company of Royal Adventurers in 1662, which later became the Royal African Company. The Royal Family, including Charles II, the Queen Dowager and the Duke of York, then contracted to supply at least 3000 slaves annually to their chartered company. They far exceeded their quotas.
There are records of Irish sold as slaves in 1664 to the French on St. Bartholomew, and English ships which made a stop in Ireland en route to the Americas, typically had a cargo of Irish to sell on into the 18th century. Few people today realize that from 1600 to 1699, far more Irish were sold as slaves than Africans.
Slaves or Indentured Servants

There has been a lot of whitewashing of the Irish slave trade, partly by not mentioning it, and partly by labelling slaves as indentured servants. There were indeed indentureds, including English, French, Spanish and even a few Irish. But there is a great difference between the two. Indentures bind two or more parties in mutual obligations. Servant indentures were agreements between an individual and a shipper in which the individual agreed to sell his services for a period of time in exchange for passage, and during his service, he would receive proper housing, food, clothing, and usually a piece of land at the end of the term of service. It is believed that some of the Irish that went to the Amazon settlement after the Battle of Kinsale and up to 1612 were exiled military who went voluntarily, probably as indentureds to Spanish or Portuguese shippers.
However, from 1625 onward the Irish were sold, pure and simple as slaves. There were no indenture agreements, no protection, no choice. They were captured and originally turned over to shippers to be sold for their profit. Because the profits were so great, generally 900 pounds of cotton for a slave, the Irish slave trade became an industry in which everyone involved (except the Irish) had a share of the profits.
Treatment
Although the Africans and Irish were housed together and were the property of the planter owners, the Africans received much better treatment, food and housing. In the British West Indies the planters routinely tortured white slaves for any infraction. Owners would hang Irish slaves by their hands and set their hands or feet afire as a means of punishment. To end this barbarity, Colonel William Brayne wrote to English authorities in 1656 urging the importation of Negro slaves on the grounds that, "as the planters would have to pay much more for them, they would have an interest in preserving their lives, which was wanting in the case of (Irish)...." many of whom, he charged, were killed by overwork and cruel treatment. African Negroes cost generally about 20 to 50 pounds Sterling, compared to 900 pounds of cotton (about 5 pounds Sterling) for an Irish. They were also more durable in the hot climate, and caused fewer problems. The biggest bonus with the Africans though, was they were NOT Catholic, and any heathen pagan was better than an Irish Papist. Irish prisoners were commonly sentenced to a term of service, so theoretically they would eventually be free. In practice, many of the slavers sold the Irish on the same terms as prisoners for servitude of 7 to 10 years.
There was no racial consideration or discrimination, you were either a freeman or a slave, but there was aggressive religious discrimination, with the Pope considered by all English Protestants to be the enemy of God and civilization, and all Catholics heathens and hated. Irish Catholics were not considered to be Christians. On the other hand, the Irish were literate, usually more so than the plantation owners, and thus were used as house servants, account keepers, scribes and teachers. But any infraction was dealt with the same severity, whether African or Irish, field worker or domestic servant. Floggings were common, and if a planter beat an Irish slave to death, it was not a crime, only a financial loss, and a lesser loss than killing a more expensive African. Parliament passed the Act to Regulate Slaves on British Plantations in 1667, designating authorized punishments to include whippings and brandings for slave offenses against a Christian. Irish Catholics were not considered Christians, even if they were freemen.
The planters quickly began breeding the comely Irish women, not just because they were attractive, but because it was profitable,,, as well as pleasurable. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, and although an Irish woman may become free, her children were not. Naturally, most Irish mothers remained with their children after earning their freedom. Planters then began to breed Irish women with African men to produce more slaves who had lighter skin and brought a higher price. The practice became 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.” This legislation was not the result of any moral or racial consideration, but rather because the practice was interfering with the profits of the Royal African Company! It is interesting to note that from 1680 to 1688, the Royal African Company sent 249 shiploads of slaves to the Indies and American Colonies, with a cargo of 60,000 Irish and Africans. More than 14,000 died during passage.
Curiously, of all the Irish shipped
out as slaves, not one is known
to have returned.Following the Battle of the Boyne and the defeat of King James in 1691, the Irish slave trade had an overloaded inventory, and the slavers were making great profits. The Spanish slavers were a competition nuisance, so in 1713, the Treaty of Assiento was signed in which Spain granted England exclusive rights to the slave trade, and England agreed to supply Spanish colonies 4800 slaves a year for 30 years. England shipped tens of thousands of Irish prisoners after the 1798 Irish Rebellion to be sold as slaves in the Colonies and Australia.
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. Although 21,700 Irish slaves were purchased by Barbados planters from 1641 to 1649, there never seemed to have been more than about 8 to 10 thousand surviving at any one time. What happened to them? Well, the pages of the telephone directories on the West Indies islands are filled with Irish names, but virtually none of these “black Irish” know anything about their ancestors or their history. On the other hand, many West Indies natives spoke Gaelic right up until recent years. They know they are strong survivors who descended from black white slaves, but only in the last few years have any of them taken an interest in their heritage.
There were horrendous abuses by the slavers, both to Africans and Irish. The records show that the British ship Zong was delayed by storms, and as their food was running low, they decided to dump 132 slaves overboard to drownso the crew would have plenty to eat. If the slaves died due to “accident”, the loss was covered by insurance, but not if they starved to death. Another British ship, the Hercules averaged a 37% death rate on passages. The Atlas II landed with 65 of the 181 slaves found dead in their chains. But that is another story.
The economics of slavery permeated all levels of English life. When the Bishop of Exeter learned that there was a movement afoot to ban the slave trade, he reluctantly agreed to sell his 655 slaves, provided he was properly compensated for the loss. Finally, in 1839, a bill was passed in England forbidding the slave trade, bringing an end to Irish misery.
An end to Irish misery? Well, perhaps just a pause. During the following decade thousands of tons of butter, grain and beef were shipped from Ireland as over 2 million Irish starved to death in the great famine, and a great many others went to America and Australia. The population of Ireland fell from over 9 million to bottom out at less than 3 million. Another chapter, another time, another method…. same people, same results.
Caomhánach's in Barbados
Did the Caomhánach's in Barbados arrive there as slaves? Yes, definitely. Which Caomhánach's is hard to pinpoint. The registry at St. Michaels Parish contains the birth and death of a Charles Cavanagh, son of Charles, which suggests that they were freemen, as records were not kept for slaves. There is a record of another Cavanagh living on a small allotment acreage in Barbados, ironically with a given name of Oliver. (Someone had a sadistic sense of humour.) Oliver Cavanagh had to be a freed slave or descended from one, and because his parents are not noted, they had to be slaves. There are records in Ireland of a number of petitions filed over a number of years after Cromwell by Mary Cavanagh, wife of Col. Charles, seeking his pardon and return of lands, indicating Charles was transported. Recently, Jimmy Kavanagh of Dublin has found a registry containing over a dozen Kavanaghs in Haiti. Perhaps someday, we will be able to sort this out, but it is doubtful.

Erinfan

CDfm wrote: »

Here is an article on it by the Chief Herald of Clan Kavanagh

In my thread untitled « THE LAND OF THE FREE AND EMERALD ISLE” I made assumption that one Cromwell’s legacy was the lost of America.
In pre Independence America population was largely dominated by English and the Irish immigrants were Scott-Irish whereas 1/3 to ½ of U.S Revolutionary war army was Irish.
There’s no satisfactory explanation of huge majority composition of Washington’ army by persons from Irish ancestry than the large enlistment of Irish slaves from West Indies.
When the U.S bid for Independence reached the Caribbean’s Islands, former Irish soldiers volunteered in large numbers and filled the ranks of Washington’s Army as mercenaries or for the sake to confront their hereditary British enemy.
You can read my theory in


boards.ie > Soc > Politics > US Politics

THE LAND OF THE FREE AND EMERALD ISLE.



http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055958456&page=2

Fratton Fred

JOSEPHD95 wrote: »

This community is impoverished, uneducated and malnourished and when I say "working with them" I mean charitable or religious groups who might be working to help with any or all of the above problems.
Have you heard of any such groups?

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

fred usually questions why posters dare question the past deeds of the british empire so thats why he was a bit smart . if thats what you want to do , good for you and good luck with your plans.

Not at all. I am questioning why, in a region that has a significant number of poor, impoverished, uneducated people, the "Red Legs" should be singled out for special treatment.

The Red Legs are not exclusively Irish by the way, a large number will also be of English and Scottish desent. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article418993.ece

You may find this interesting as well http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2005/03/18/day.shtml

CDfm

Hiya Fred - I couldnt get the times link but why should it matter if the Redlegs are Irish or Scots in origan - it does not matter to the Priest (a black man) who is trying to help them.

In 1493, Columbus landed on Montserrat and claimed the island for Spain. No permanent settlements were formed by the Spanish, however, and the island lay mostly dormant for the next century or so. In the mid-17th century a number of Irish Catholics emigrated from Saint Kitts and Nevis in the face of persecution, and arrived at Montserrat. These Irish formed a colony on Montserrat with the support of the British crown. A few decades later, Irish prisoners captured when the British conquered Ireland were also sent to the island, increasing the Irish population substantially.

Montserrat eventually developed an economy built around sugar, cotton, and rum, like most of the islands in the Lesser Antilles. African slaves were brought in during the late 17th and early 18th centuries to work these crops, eventually becoming freed when Britain abolished slavery in 1834.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-should-i-know-about-montserrat.htm

You have to admit that the Irish Catholics that colonised Montserrat were doing so with British support within a British administration -so were behaving like any other people with a bit of ambition would at that time. In other words they assimilated.

I just wonder did you have Irish Catholocs with Irish slaves in the same way free black slave owners in the southern states in the USA owned black slaves for commercial purposes

A small group of scholars has questioned the benevolent premises of Woodson's thesis. In 1942, Luther P. Jackson reiterated the Woodson thesis that free black masters were primarily benevolent. Yet he also asserted that after 1850, the institution became more commercial, with free blacks beginning to purchase more and more slaves as capital investments. According to Jackson, black entrepreneurs purchased slaves to work in their businesses as barbers, carpenters, and as farm laborers. Recognizing that slaves could be used to produce more wealth, these entrepreneurs used slaves as commercial assets and purchased them and sold them to make a profit.3
More current scholarship has begun to examine the Woodson thesis, and generally support it. In 1994, Sherrill D. Wilson's study on the Afro-American slaveowners of New York demonstrated that the majority of black slaveowners primarily held family members as slaves and few were commercial slave masters. In 2001, the M.A. thesis of Darin Waters examined the premises of Woodson in North Carolina and compared the 1830 Census with primary sources and reached the same conclusion as Dr. Wilson that most free blacks purchased family members. Similar findings were found in the dissertation of Guocun Yang, which explored the Afro-American community in Connecticut.4
Yet, the benevolent thesis was not the dominant pattern in South Carolina. From the colonial period, the commercial aspect of the free black slaveowners was quite apparent. Many of these black entrepreneurs were the sons and daughters of white slaveowners who provided them with the slaves or the means to acquire slaves. In 1735, Joseph Pendarvis, a white planter of Colleton County, South Carolina, wrote a will, which provided his children by a Negro woman named Parthena with the means to become one of the largest free black slaveowners in South Carolina. They had seven mulatto children (James, Brand, William, John, Thomas, Mary, and Elizabeth Pendarvis). James Pendarvis, born around 1718, was the oldest child and appeared to inherit most of his father's estate. Between 1785 and 1787, he owned taxable property, which consisted of 3,500 acres of land and 113 slaves in St Paul's Parish, Colleton County in Charleston District. By 1792, Pendarvis owned 4,710 acres of land and 123 slaves. When he died about 1797, his estate comprised 4,709 acres of land and 151 slaves. With such wealth and status, the Pendarvis family married into the white planter class and merged into the white community.5

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4074/is_200601/ai_n17180356/

It is easy for us to cherrypick but you did have Irish Catholic landlords emerge too in Ireland at one stage in the 19th century.

Fratton Fred

CDfm wrote: »

Hiya Fred - I couldnt get the times link but why should it matter if the Redlegs are Irish or Scots in origan - it does not matter to the Priest (a black man) who is trying to help them.

It doesn't, but why should it matter what colour they are as well?

Incidentally, you will also find reports of indentured servant/slave ships calling into British ports from Rotterdam, already full with poor people who had sold themselves into servitude, so it is easy to presume that all of europe was doing this and it was not something that (as somewhat heavily implied in the Kavanagh family site) the British reserved solely for the Irish.

The fact that it happened is just that, a fact, but there seems to be a belief that White Irish slaves were singled out and should be treated as a special case, which in reality they aren't, they are a part of an unfortunate legacy of a shameful past that is european history.

CDfm wrote: »

You have to admit that the Irish Catholics that colonised Montserrat were doing so with British support within a British administration -so were behaving like any other people with a bit of ambition would at that time. In other words they assimilated.

Absolutely. The Irish were an integral part of the empire, just like the English and Scots were. You could further argue they were just doing what every other european based empire was doing at the time as well.

CDfm wrote: »

I just wonder did you have Irish Catholocs with Irish slaves in the same way free black slave owners in the southern states in the USA owned black slaves for commercial purposes

It is easy for us to cherrypick but you did have Irish Catholic landlords emerge too in Ireland at one stage in the 19th century.

it would be easy to imagine there were, but most likely a lot less shouted about. Irish people aren't too interested in their own grubby past, only that of Perfidious Albion:D

The following article is from the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3664862/The-forgotten-history-of-Britains-white-slaves.html

Dominic Sandbrook reviews White Cargo: the Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh

In April 1775, two days after the American War of Independence began, a notice appeared in the Virginia Gazette offering rewards for the return of 10 runaways. Two were "Negro slaves", but the other eight were white servants, including Thomas Pearce, a 20-year-old Bristol joiner, and William Webster, a middle-aged Scottish brick-maker. Whether they were ever found remains a mystery; almost nothing is known about them but their names. But their irate master was to become very famous indeed, for the man pursuing his absconding servants was called George Washington.

Pearce and Webster were indentured servants, the kind of people often ignored in patriotic accounts of colonial America. In the 17th and 18th centuries, tens of thousands of men, women and children lived as ill-paid, ill-treated chattels, bound in servitude to their colonial masters. It is a sobering illustration of human gullibility that, in return for vague promises of a better life, men would sign away their lives for 10 years or more. Once in the New World, they were effectively items of property to be treated as their masters saw fit. Brutal corporal punishment was ubiquitous: every Virginia settlement had its own whipping post. One man was publicly scourged for four days with his ears nailed to the post. He had been flirting with a servant girl.

Briskly written by Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, a pair of television documentary producers, White Cargo is harrowing reading. For while thousands of servants signed up for the colonies of their own will, thousands more were shipped across by force. We associate transportation with Australia but, by the time of independence, perhaps one in 100 Americans was a convict. English officials were open in their determination to send the "scum" of their booming cities to the colonies. During the Georgian era they exiled 1,000 prisoners across the Atlantic every year.

Some of these people were hardened criminals, but not all. Hundreds of girls sent over in the 1620s were probably child prostitutes dragged off the London streets. James I ordered that 100 "rowdy youths" from Newmarket be shipped across to Virginia; in fact, they were just exuberant local lads whose horseplay had annoyed the king.

Most shocking of all, thousands of poor London children were rounded up by the constables and thrown on to the nearest ship. Urchins as young as five were shipped to America, where they spent most of their lives in backbreaking service. Few lived long enough to reach adulthood. And yet this horrifying enterprise had some impressive advocates. "It shall sweep your streets, and wash your doors, from idle persons, and the children of idle persons," declared the poet John Donne.

Yet although Jordan and Walsh present their material in a breezy fashion, this is an unsatisfying book. For one thing, the narrative feels very disjointed, not least because chapters of six pages or fewer are too short for a work of this kind. There are some splendid anecdotes, but they never knit into a coherent story or argument. It is telling that the book ends with a perfunctory two-paragraph conclusion that vaguely wonders whether the "present-day American psyche" owes something to "the harsh conditions of those early settlements", but doesn't really provide an answer.

A more serious problem is the whole business of slavery. The book is subtitled and marketed as the "forgotten history of Britain's white slaves in America". Yet as the authors admit, indentured servants were not slaves. It is true that they were dreadfully treated; indeed, Barbados planters often treated their slaves better than their servants, because the former were so vital to their economic success. The authors are right to remind us that African slavery was one form of bondage among many, rather than a unique and unprecedented condition.

All the same, it was almost always much better to be a European servant than an African slave. Not only were servants transported in better conditions, they could also hope to be free men, if they survived their term of service. Above all, they were white, which meant that they were automatically different from the West African slaves. As the servants would have pointed out, the racial codes of the American colonies were a lot more than window-dressing. Calling them slaves might be a marketing ploy, but it stretches the meaning of slavery beyond breaking point.

I read the above article and see it as yet another example of how tough life was for poor people 2-300 years ago. If those kids were rounded up on the streets of Dublin rather than London, it would be seen as another example of British oppression blah blah blah.

mikemac

Even today if you contact these islands like Bahamas or British Virgin Islands you'll get a huge amount of people with the same surname.
If you work in Financial Services, quite likely you will be calling these countries daily.

E.Banks is a very, very common one.
Families took their owners name and still have it to this day.