[Poor Uncle Tom]

Originally Posted by Vologda69

That Queen Victoria gave only £5 in Famine Relief in the 1840s.

Excusable, they rarely carry purses.

[Peregrinus]

Originally Posted by Manach

Scopes is not exactly a history site but one that has its own political leaning, so that source I'd take with a pinch of salt. Historically there is no gold-standard definiton of slavery across multiple societies and ages, beyond the compulsion for one party to forceibly work for another. There are, taking the Classicial era as an example, work ranging from teaching, policing, to mining, galley-slaves. Each of these had a variety of legal rights associated with the owner/slave depending on the jurisprudence of the time.

So, Irish being described as de facto slaves during the colonial era in the Carribean is not a stretch.

To be honest, I think it is. While it might be true that there's a continuum of unfree labour, and exactly where we start to employ the term "slave" on that continuum can be a grey area, it's also true that in that colonial society, and at that time, indentured servants had a signficantly different, and markedly higher, social and legal status than the actual slaves who worked alongside and under them. They couldn't be bought and sold. Their children were not born into slavery or servitude. They could marry who they chose. They served for a limited time, and were entitled to payment. They had at least theorerical access to the courts to vindicate their rights. Etc. etc.

Not to deny that their treatment was horrifying, but equating them with the chattel slaves that were found in that same society at the same time is simply wrong.

[riffmongous]

One that pops up a lot, that Ireland didn't get anything from the Marshall Plan due to our neutrality

[TenLeftFingers]

I often hear the narrative that the Irish that emigrated to the USA were a charitable bunch with the odd outlaw and some understandibly troubled/traumatized people.

It was a surprise to me to hear Floyd Westerman say that "nobody killed more Native Americans than the Irish", because we signed up with the Union forces.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iI6RLXQyGIw (starts at 4:06)

[Yellow_Fern]

Originally Posted by Peregrinus

To be honest, I think it is. While it might be true that there's a continuum of unfree labour, and exactly where we start to employ the term "slave" on that continuum can be a grey area, it's also true that in that colonial society, and at that time, indentured servants had a signficantly different, and markedly higher, social and legal status than the actual slaves who worked alongside and under them. They couldn't be bought and sold. Their children were not born into slavery or servitude. They could marry who they chose. They served for a limited time, and were entitled to payment. They had at least theorerical access to the courts to vindicate their rights. Etc. etc.

Not to deny that their treatment was horrifying, but equating them with the chattel slaves that were found in that same society at the same time is simply wrong.

There seems to be several propositions:

i) Irish were transported to the Caribbean as slaves, and were treated as bad or even worse treated than African slaves
ii) Irish were transported to the Caribbean as slaves, and may at times been as badly as or worse treated than African slaves

and this has prompted two main responses:

i) There is a difference between indentured servants and chattel slaves.
ii) Irish in the Caribbean were not slaves because they were indentured servants, rather chattel slaves.
iii) calling Irish slaves is equating their treatment with the experiences of African slaves

My thoughts on propositions
I am not sure anyone is really advocating proposition i) but it could be said to be implied in some online graphics of slaves. Such graphics or memes are pretty obscure but Liam Hogan has drawn attention to them. However proposition ii) seems to be common and I get the sense it is is what Sean O'Callaghan was arguing in 'To Hell or to Barbados'.

My thoughts on response
Response i) is valid and useful. Although response ii) seems to be largely true, it is a bit misleading because if we wholeheartedly going to accept this argument than we must be against groups like Trocaire and Concern holding campaigns against 'modern-day slavery'. Understanding the distinction between bonded labour and chattel slavery is useful but I would argue that the word slavery has always been a synonym of bonded labour. Response iii) is not valid. There are many examples of chattel slavery and some chattel slavery was pretty comfortable. Chattel slavery was commonplace in Classical Rome but we know in some situations in Rome slaves received excellent treatment and even became very wealthy but no one makes that argument here. Likewise in the post Columbian Americas, indigenous Americans received poor treatment by invading colonialists and we often call it slavery but legally they were more akin to European peasants than chattel slaves. However it is not too often you hear of the 'Indian slave myth' like you the idea of an 'Irish slave myth'. I feel that the fact that the idea that there is an 'Irish slave myth' has gone viral is really contemporary US anxieties than disparate socioeconomic outcomes.

[Mick Tator]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Fern

There seems to be several propositions:.......My thoughts on propositions..............

Whatever about your thoughts, you seem to have ignored the definition of slavery and the difference between it and indentured service. Consider for example the difference between ‘indentured service’ in the Colonies and the ‘rules of apprenticeship’ that lasted in Ireland up to the late 1800’s. Or look at the rules of employment for domestic and farmhand staff in Ireland during the same era. Indentured servants had more rights than many peasants in France (up to the Revolution) and Serfs in Russia (up to the mid-1800’s)
In the early 1700’s Fr. Cornelius Nary (notoriously contoversial) put the number of Irish people transported to the Caribbean as 10-15,000 and used the term ‘slavery’. Later the United Irishmen, to drum up Nationalistic fervor, repeated the term ‘slavery’ and increased the number to ‘tens of thousands’. By 1900 Thomas Addis Emmett, in ‘having a go’ at the Brits, had the number up to 100,000. James Connolly in c1915 then increased the number to more than 100,000 ‘men women and children were sold into slavery’.
There is no doubt that Irish people were shipped out after the Cromwellian wars but it was as indentured servants, in low numbers and mainly orphaned children, particularly from the West Coast. Most of the claims circulating today are unhistorical.

[Yellow_Fern]

Originally Posted by Mick Tator

Whatever about your thoughts, you seem to have ignored the definition of slavery and the difference between it and indentured service. Consider for example the difference between ‘indentured service’ in the Colonies and the ‘rules of apprenticeship’ that lasted in Ireland up to the late 1800’s. Or look at the rules of employment for domestic and farmhand staff in Ireland during the same era. Indentured servants had more rights than many peasants in France (up to the Revolution) and Serfs in Russia (up to the mid-1800’s)
In the early 1700’s Fr. Cornelius Nary (notoriously contoversial) put the number of Irish people transported to the Caribbean as 10-15,000 and used the term ‘slavery’. Later the United Irishmen, to drum up Nationalistic fervor, repeated the term ‘slavery’ and increased the number to ‘tens of thousands’. By 1900 Thomas Addis Emmett, in ‘having a go’ at the Brits, had the number up to 100,000. James Connolly in c1915 then increased the number to more than 100,000 ‘men women and children were sold into slavery’.
There is no doubt that Irish people were shipped out after the Cromwellian wars but it was as indentured servants, in low numbers and mainly orphaned children, particularly from the West Coast. Most of the claims circulating today are unhistorical.

The point I was making no one makes this point when talking about Native Americans unfree labour or modern day bonded labour which both are not chattel slavery.