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White Slavery The Slaves That Time Forgot
- They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British
ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands
and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.
- King James II and Charles I led a continued effort to enslave the
Irish.
- The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners
as slaves to the New World.
- At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat
were Irish slave
- 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.
- African slaves were very expensive
during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than
5 Sterling).
- 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
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