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In memory of the Irish victims of Slavery
President Jacques Chirac
announced, last January, that France will hold a national day of remembrance for
the victims of slavery every 10 May,.
The date for the annual holiday was chosen as it marks the day in 2001 when
France passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity. He said
children should be taught about slavery at primary and secondary school as part
of the national curriculum. "Slavery fed racism," he said. "When
people tried to justify the unjustifiable, that was when the first racist
theories were elaborated."
Given that tens of thousands of Irish people were shipped into slavery, isnt it
strange that Ireland has no day remembering them? I dont know of a single
monument to the victims of slavery in Ireland. Perhaps someone can let me know
if they know of one. As far as I know, even the Republican Movement fails to
commemorate the tens of thousands of innocents sold into slavery from Ireland.
Many of the women and children into sex slavery.
The following extract gives an idea of the colossal scale of the slave trade
from Ireland. No doubt this post will be met by the usual chorus of deniers
wishing we could keep quite about this - but lets just ignore them. I think some
remembrance should be made of these unfortunate people. The event could be
linked with the fight against slavery in the world today. Does anyone have
suggestions?
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.
See: http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm
"In memory of all those who have died and suffered as
a result of Slavery and the loss of liberty, wherever they came from, may they
rest in peace"
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