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Irish slaves in the New World

  • 03-11-2013 7:36pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 9


    Hi,
    I'm researching this topic for my History LC project. Originally my heading was "The practice and Consequences of Irish Slaves being sent to Jamaica under Cromwell". However, every source I read online had different facts and figures and very little added up. I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction for my research and provide some solid information.
    Maybe I shouldn't pick this topic at all? It was either this or "The impact of the Famine on the Irish language" Which, while being easier I don't find as interesting.
    Thanks!


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    I'm going to get myself a large beverage, and a HUGE pail of popcorn, and watch this one with a great deal of interest.

    tac


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,477 ✭✭✭Hootanany


    Look at Lienster House literally!


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    Hootanany wrote: »
    Look at Lienster House literally!


    Explain!

    This is due for tomorrow so I'm a little desperate


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,113 ✭✭✭ilovesmybrick


    Well it would be no harm to look at Nini Rodgers book, Ireland, Slavery and anti-slavery. If you're not set on focusing on Jamaica Montserrat would be a far richer source for material relating to Irish being sent out as slaves. Are you looking for the consequences regarding Ireland, the slaves themselves, or on Jamaica?


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    Well it would be no harm to look at Nini Rodgers book, Ireland, Slavery and anti-slavery. If you're not set on focusing on Jamaica Montserrat would be a far richer source for material relating to Irish being sent out as slaves. Are you looking for the consequences regarding Ireland, the slaves themselves, or on Jamaica?

    I saw a video about the Montserrat Irish connection on youtube- very interesting. I am in no way tied down to Jamaica. The consequences and impact they had on the culture of the communities they were sent to was what I had in mind. Would I get 4 A4 pages out of Montserrat would you think?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,477 ✭✭✭Hootanany


    Charmander wrote: »
    Explain!

    This is due for tomorrow so I'm a little desperate

    One of Ireland's biggest Slaver's built it as his home.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,113 ✭✭✭ilovesmybrick


    You should be able to get 4 pages on the impact of the Irish being sent out. There's the obvious connections, such as place and town names, and the fact that they celebrate St. Patricks day, as well as the wider implications in the region such as the apocriphal stories of indentured Irish servants being forbidden to breed with African slaves, and the theories that the revolts in Montserrat were, in part, attributable to the experiences brought over by the Cromwellian exiles.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,113 ✭✭✭ilovesmybrick


    Hootanany wrote: »
    One of Ireland's biggest Slaver's built it as his home.

    You could also take the front entrance of TCD and the old Irish parliament, (BoI) which were built with the proceeds of taxation on slave produced goods.


  • Registered Users Posts: 22,198 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Charmander wrote: »
    This is due for tomorrow so I'm a little desperate
    There's your problem right there!

    :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    You should be able to get 4 pages on the impact of the Irish being sent out. There's the obvious connections, such as place and town names, and the fact that they celebrate St. Patricks day, as well as the wider implications in the region such as the apocriphal stories of indentured Irish servants being forbidden to breed with African slaves, and the theories that the revolts in Montserrat were, in part, attributable to the experiences brought over by the Cromwellian exiles.

    You're a lovely human being :) If you think of anything else don't be afraid to slap it down! life saver.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    endacl wrote: »
    There's your problem right there!

    :P

    I do my best work when I'm starring a deadline in the face :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 22,198 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Charmander wrote: »
    I do my best work when I'm starring a deadline in the face :P
    Same here. I love the 'whooshing' sound they make as they fly past!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Montserrat is an interesting example.

    The black slaves on Montserrat planned an uprising on St Patrick's day, because they knew their Irish masters would be too inebriated to fight back. It went wrong though and the leaders were executed.

    Good article here. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dgarvey/Garvey_us_census/Montserrat.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    Hootanany wrote: »
    One of Ireland's biggest Slaver's built it as his home.

    Anglo Welsh and later Protestant ascendancy.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    Montserrat is an interesting example.

    The black slaves on Montserrat planned an uprising on St Patrick's day, because they knew their Irish masters would be too inebriated to fight back. It went wrong though and the leaders were executed.

    Good article here. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dgarvey/Garvey_us_census/Montserrat.html


    Better article here.

    http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638

    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.



    Ex slaves can become slaveowners, some blacks did. The vast majority of slave owners in the carribean and the vast vast majority in the American South were Anglo Saxon.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Better article here.

    http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638

    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.



    Ex slaves can become slaveowners, some blacks did. The vast majority of slave owners in the carribean and the vast vast majority in the American South were Anglo Saxon.

    OK. I think we get where you're coming from.

    It was nice of the English to give all those places Irish names though, to make their newly imported slaves feel at home.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,297 ✭✭✭✭Jawgap


    What resources (online or otherwise) do you have access to research this?

    Slaves is a pejorative and inexact description of the poor unfortunates shipped west.

    They were better described as indentured servants - if you search based on indentured servitude in the Caribbean, you'll get a better quality of paper returned.

    such as..... http://www.irlandeses.org/0711_171to181.pdf

    http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2937974?uid=3738232&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102873475021

    http://www.irishargentine.org/0711.pdf#page=9


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    So far, Jawgap, my sources are nil.
    I'll see if the library is able to get me a copy of Nini Rodger's book on Thursday.
    Those links you have there are quality and much appreciated, I'll have to improve my goggling skills :)
    The slaves or indentured servants thing confuses me slightly- my whole project hinges on the fact that they were unwilling to leave their homeland, but Indentured servitude implies willingness, doesn't it?

    The concept of the project passed the preliminary round of scrutiny today; Much thanks for the help :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,157 ✭✭✭srsly78


    Massive debts in those days could be paid off by indentured servitude. So it's economic slavery, the same as we have today - just minus those silly human rights.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    srsly78 wrote: »
    Massive debts in those days could be paid off by indentured servitude. So it's economic slavery, the same as we have today - just minus those silly human rights.

    Human rights are the worst, aren't they? :P
    So they were forced? They didn't just say " Christ I've a feck load of debt, Its off to Jamaica for me" ?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,157 ✭✭✭srsly78


    More like: "you smelly Irish are late with your rent, so now you get to go on the boat". Would need to dig through those links looking for a proper references of course tho :p


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    srsly78 wrote: »
    More like: "you smelly Irish are late with your rent, so now you get to go on the boat". Would need to dig through those links looking for a proper references of course tho :p

    hahah well that's good, I want this to be a tragic tale of mighty proportions :)
    Oh I can't wait, I'm just dying to go reference hunting


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Many orphan children (victims of the Cromwellian wars) were 'collected' in its aftermath and shipped out as indentured servants. Their period of servitude was nominally 7 years. Call it slavery if you will. Under today's debt regime of personal insolvency (debt slavery) it is three to ten years. Despite our 'freedom' we have not progressed much!


  • Registered Users Posts: 983 ✭✭✭gutenberg


    Try Donald Akenson's book If the Irish ran the world : Montserrat, 1630-1730, it's good on Montserrat in particular of course but has a good general introduction. Also see if you can get hold of anything written by Hilary Beccles, he's the great expert on the Irish in the New World.

    And the reason you're finding conflicting figures is that there is no one known number, record-keeping and so on was a bit patchy so we don't know exactly how many were sent (I'm a mid-seventeenth century historian of Ireland, so I feel your pain!).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1 _Library_


    Charmander wrote: »
    I'll see if the library is able to get me a copy of Nini Rodger's book on Thursday.

    Why wait ?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Cedrus


    To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland by Sean O'Callaghan is a good read and easy enough to get hold of. They were basically loaded onto ships in Ireland and the ships captains had to recoup their costs in the West Indies or America by selling indentures (7 year contracts) but many of them never saw the end of their indentures.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9 Charmander


    gutenberg wrote: »
    Try Donald Akenson's book If the Irish ran the world : Montserrat, 1630-1730, it's good on Montserrat in particular of course but has a good general introduction. Also see if you can get hold of anything written by Hilary Beccles, he's the great expert on the Irish in the New World.

    And the reason you're finding conflicting figures is that there is no one known number, record-keeping and so on was a bit patchy so we don't know exactly how many were sent (I'm a mid-seventeenth century historian of Ireland, so I feel your pain!).

    Thanks for the source and explaining about the oddities that crop up!
    Cedrus wrote: »
    To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland by Sean O'Callaghan is a good read and easy enough to get hold of. They were basically loaded onto ships in Ireland and the ships captains had to recoup their costs in the West Indies or America by selling indentures (7 year contracts) but many of them never saw the end of their indentures.

    Again, sound for the book title :) Here was I thinking It'd be hard to find reputable sources!


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