Listening to the Political Progressive Blacks you would think that only their races was ever enslaved. Part of this thinking is due to political correctness. Another facts is that in American historical textbooks, an episode of White slavery is not taught nor mention. In the 17th Century, the English precursor to Hitler; Oliver Cromwell exterminated close to 40% of the Irish population. What is not well known was his sending of many Irish to slave colonies in the Caribbean.
A new book called White Cargo discusses this hidden history of Irish slavery. The book details the genocidal persecution of Cromwell and how Irish were treated just like the African Slaves. They were treated no better than human cargo.
The Irish slave trade began when James I sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.
Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.
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Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.
But, where are our public (and PRIVATE) schools???? Where are the history books? Why is it so seldom discussed?
Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims merit more than a mention from an unknown writer?
Or is their story to be one that their English pirates intended: To (unlike the African book) have the Irish story utterly and completely disappear as if it never happened.
Although Cromwell is a despised figured in today’s Ireland, he is viewed as a heroic figure in British history. The atrocities he committed are downplay and the Irish slave trade is never mentioned. The admiration of Cromwell in Britain along with political correctness is why this tragic episode of human history is not discussed in the English speaking world.
Tags: Ireland, Irish Slavery, Oliver Cromwell, White Cargo
