Were the Irish once slaves to the Scottish?

Answer 1

The Irish slave trade began when James II 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. As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts. African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master's free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude. In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new "mulatto" slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was 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." In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company. England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat. There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on it's own to end it's participation in Satan's highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery. But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they've got it completely wrong. 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. None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot. http://afgen.com/forgotten_slaves.html

Answer 2

Yes, the Irish were enslaved. most points I can find are based around the English Proclomation in the 17th Century. Inbetween 80,000 and 120,000 were sent to the Americas as slaves, including women and children. Many died due to disease, heat and hunger.

In fact, the Scots-Irish are the longest enslaved race in the world. Unfortunately most schools and governments do not teach white slavery, and only focus on the African Slave Trade. Since I am Irish-American, I get a giggle being called a 'racist' and told on how my people enslaved blacks, when they don't realize many Irish worked with the blacks, and were called 'Negroes turned inside out' due to our ginger appearance. They also forget that they were enslaved by their own people, and for only around 300 years.

Answer 3

To a certain extent but its arguable and most would agree they didn't. The Irish employed the Brehon laws for much of its history before invasions, which as far as I know didn't have slavery, but there was a monacrhy of sorts so presumably there was a form of serfdom that could be considered slavery but essentially Ireland was a nation of warring tribes each claiming to be rightful ruler of the land. Vikings and Normans invaded Ireland and they did utilize slavery and participated in the slave trade between Europe and Britain. The Irish fought against these invaders but as of course is they way of things there was some inevitable interbreeding so it comes down to what you define as Irish.

Later still, Ireland came under the control of the British Empire so the Irish themselves became slaves.

So essentially: No

Answer 4

No. The Scottish and the Irish are the same people. When the English moved into Scotland they removed the Scots from their lands and moved them into Ireland, so have a long time no one knew who were who. Both do agree on one thing and that is the dislike of the English. The English government has not been good to either group. It outlawed the wearing of the plaid for the Scots, the speaking and use of Gaelic for both groups, and put both in prisons or shipped them to colonies.