foreign
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether the Irish were the first
slaves in the Americas predating the first black African slaves by almost a decade.
Slavery is perhaps one of the oldest profit-making endeavors in human history and the Irish were a
special target for a thousand years. Throughout history the Irish were persecuted by one faction
or another, to include enslavement and indentured servitude. When did the Irish first become slaves?
How long did the selling of the Irish continue? Who is responsible? Hello I'm Colin Heaton former
soldier Marine Corps scout sniper history professor historian and book author and
we'll answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History [Music]
Some groups deny the Irish slavery under English and later British rule, claiming that this was
nothing more than voluntary indentured servitude, which did exist. However, there are counter
arguments that will be challenged here.There is a legitimate dispute as to the numbers enslaved
especially during the 17th century before the Act of Union in 1707. The official British legal
terminology used was indentured servants whether the servants in question had willingly signed the
indenture contract to immigrate to the Americas or were forced to go. Many were forced. Therefore those
transported unwillingly and effectively sold were not considered to be indentured.
This included political prisoners, vagrants, convicts political activists, thieves prostitutes,
or people who had been defined as undesirable by the English government. The Irish introduction to
slavery was during the first Viking raid in the year 795 lasting through the mid 9th century. This
period saw the Irish killed and enslaved just like many other societies the Vikings attacked.
Most of these early raids were along the northern and eastern coast using hit and run tactics. The
Vikings would then flee with treasure and slaves and return to either their Holdings in Scotland or
back to Norway. Usually many slaves who were of value were ransomed back to their families but others
remained in captivity. Then from the year 837 onward larger targets such as the greater monastic
towns of Armagh, Glendalough, Kildare, Slane, Clonard, Clonmacnoise and Lismore were hit by larger forces.
These large-scale raids generally spare the smaller local churches and villages far inland, but slaves
were still taken, mostly to Scotland and Iceland. In 875 Irish slaves in Iceland launched Europe's
largest slave rebellion since the end of the Roman Empire, when Hjorleifr Hroomarsson's slaves
killed him and fled to Vestmannaeyjar.. In 841 the port that became known as Dublin was taken and occupied
by both Olaf and Ivar the Boneless, and by 853 this part of Ireland was a Norse trading center
and slaves were a large part of it. The slave trade did not stop with Ivar's death in 873. Finally in
902 driven out of Dublin by the combined forces of Brega and Leinster but the Vikings came back
in 914 and reclaimed all the territory taking more slaves but Irish resistance was not over. In 980
the Irish under mael Sechnaill Mac Domnaill, king of Meath fought and managed to defeat the Vikings
and freed all of their slaves. Some Vikings who remained assimilated and adapted to Christianity
and became part of Irish Society. The final nail in the coffin regarding Vikings holding land and
taking slaves was in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf, when Brian Boru, high king of Ireland
attacked Dublin aided by his allies, the Limerick Vikings. They fought other Irish allied to the local
Vikings in Dublin and Boru's force one and all the slaves were again freed, thus ending
the legacy of constant Norse raids whether from Danes or Norwegians. The period forced enslavement
and severity ended a century after the Norman invasion of England in October 1066. Subsequent
Norman rulers of England eyed Ireland and slavery in its true form was abolished in 1102. In 1155
Pope Adrian IV supposedly gave Henry II of England a Papal Bull granting the king the authority to
invade Ireland. However many historians believe that this authorization was a forgery. Regardless
Henry II of England faced excommunication for the murder of Thomas a Beckett, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, so it is possible. However Adrian's successor Pope Alexander III granted the lands of
Ireland to Henry II although it was not his land to give. The Norman conquest of England and Ireland
were cataclysmic events that would shape Ireland's as well as world history and create tensions with
England for the next 800 years. The Normans were initially invited to Ireland by Dermot MacMurrough the
deposed king of Leinster. He is sometimes referred to as "Dermot of the Foreigners" and his grandmother
was the granddaughter of Brian Boru. In October 1171 King Henry II landed in Ireland and allowed
Dermot to recruit soldiers and mercenaries as Ireland was made up of several kingdoms
at war with each other. The city of Dublin and the surrounding area were under Norman occupation and
would be called "The Pale" or the "Safe Zone." Going beyond that was considered foolish, hence the
term we used today "Going Beyond The Pale" But the Normans ended the practice of slavery in Ireland
but not serfdom for at least a few hundred years. Despite the Norman abolishment of slavery serfdom
was still alive and well. Serfs were unlike slaves, bound to the land and the land meant
everything. So selling people into slavery would have left no one to farm and conduct agriculture.
Following the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 when the Irish and Spanish alliance was defeated the
Irish aristocracy fled to Europe, but the commoners remained and they left the power vacuum filled by
English nobles. Reports vary and the numbers are in dispute, but the high number is that English
forces had 30,000 captured Irish and Spanish soldiers; other sources say half that
number, around 15,000 were engaged with seven thousand to eight thousand being captured.
The Spanish allies were allowed to leave but not the Irish. In 1603 or 1604 King James I of
England crowned on March 23 1603 reportedly issued the Order of Banishment. This allowed those Irish
capture to be sold, a permanent banishment. After nearly a decade the king gave permission for the
English governor general to collect and sell the captured Irish soldiers as slaves and send them
to the New World in the Americas. In 1612 the first recorded Irish slaves were sold, possibly
to the Portuguese and taken to the Amazon River Basin in their colony in modern-day Brazil. This
brought them to the New World. There has been some dispute as to whether these people were indentured
servants or slaves but it is clear that they were forced out of Ireland to the New World so
it seems illogical and ridiculous to assume that they went voluntarily hence the status of slaves.
It has been chronicled that in 1625 James I's son Charles I issued the decree and
it may be possible before his death in March 1625. But given the timeline on James's death it would
appear that his son Charles probably did Issue the royal decree authorizing the Irish slaves. This
included prisoners captured, those deemed to be common criminals and rabble rousers who were sold.
They were to become the property of the English plantation owners in the North American colonies.
As a result, tens of thousands of Irish men and women were sent to the Eastern American colonies
as well as Guyana, Antigua and Montserrat, As well between 1629 and 1632 as other Caribbean locations
over the next few decades were infiltrated but the exact number may never be known. By
1637 approximately 69 percent of the population of Montserrat were Irish. Many were indentured
servants yet some were slaves. The rationale was simple: black slaves had to be purchased at a
cost of around 20 to 50 pounds sterling, a huge sum of money in those days. However Irish slaves
were sold for 900 pounds of cotton per person but also traded for tobacco and indigo in a straight
barter system. It would appear that the Irish then became the largest source of slaves for English
slave traders and plantation owners at that time far surpassing the African slave trade until the
early to mid 1700s. Between 1641 during the Irish Rebellion to 1652 it has been stated that over 550,000
Irish were killed by English forces and 300,000 more were sold as slaves, mostly
military-aged men. Their children, especially women and girls were sold and considered quite valuable
in the domestic service roles. The greatest perpetrator of this was Oliver Cromwell who
defeated Charles I in 1649 during the English Civil War and had him executed.
Cromwell as Lord protector waged a ruthless war against the Irish starting in 1649. By 1650 it
is claimed that nearly 29,000 Irish were sold to planters in St. Kitt. During the decade of the
1650s it is also claimed as well as disputed that around 100,000 Irish children generally from 10 to
14 years of age were taken from their parents and were also sold, and sold themselves also as slaves
or indentured servants in the West Indies, Virginia, the Carolinas and New England. It is also claimed
that between 1651 and 1660 the Irish slaves far outnumbered the colonists in all areas. In 1652
Cromwell ordered that 12,000 Irish were to be sold to Barbados and those numbers are not
in dispute, only their status. On 1 May 1654 his "To Hell or to Connacht Proclamation" was
issued during the active settlement of 1662. This was when the English began confiscating
all irish-held lands and the native Irish were relocated west of the Shannon River. Those who
resisted were sent to the West Indies as slaves or executed. His own words proclaimed quote; "Those
who failed to transplant themselves into Canuck or County Clare within six months shall be attained
of high treason or to be sent to America or other parts beyond the seas. Those banished who return
ought to suffer the pains of death as felons by virtue of this act without benefit of clergy," end
quote. The English could kill the Irish without penalty but selling them offered great profit. It
is claimed that over 80,000 more Irish were sold with 52,000 going to the colonies of Barbados and
Virginia, but again we cannot verify the exact numbers. Many argued that these were indentured
servants, not slaves, yet there are no records of contracts between those forcibly removed and their
benefactors. One may assume that given the barter system of using tobacco and cotton as a trade
item for workers that these deported Irish were in fact slaves. In 1656 the Council of State ordered
the Roundup of 1,000 Irish girls and 1,000 Irish boys in their early teens, even some children to
be rounded up and sold to Jamaican planters. These numbers are in dispute but do seem reasonable as
these would be children whose parents were already deported. Part of this order was an edict passed on
October 2nd 1665 which stated quote; "Upon report of Committee for America concerning proposals
for transporting persons from Long Island to Jamaica to confer with the Committee for Jamaica,"
end quote. The persons were Irish and no indentured servant would be released to go to Jamaica. These
had to be forcibly exported Irish who were already present in New York. In fact some
of the English receiving these Irish slaves seemed rather concerned, hence this following
report quote; "Commission appointing Cornelius Holland, Colonel Owen Rowe, Sir Thomas Roth
and 14 others accompany by the name of the governor and company of the city of London
for the plantation of the Somers Islands to take into consideration the present condition of those
plantations. Many well-affected persons there having been much oppressed and unjustly dealt
with in relation to matters of conscience," end quote. (Whitehall 1653 June 28th) This situation
with the forcibly removed Irish not being a people to take subjugation lightly appear to have created
the fear of an uprising and this seems to be explained in the White Hall document from November
18 1656 quote; "The Council of State to Captain Wilkinson importance of the Somers Islands to
the interest of the Commonwealth; supposition that the Spaniards will endeavor to get a footing there.
Doubtful that a principle of disaffection may yet be retained by some of the inhabitants. He is
encouraged to attend to his duties as commander of the fort to keep a vigilant eye upon the malignant
and discontented party that they may have the less opportunity to prejudice the Island's safety and
to use his best endeavors to secure the interest of the Commonwealth," end quote. "This referred to the
Irish population that must have been slaves and they feared an uprising. No reason to worry about
indentured servants so whether one accepts the reality of Irish slavery or not the fact remains
that there were Irish people forced into slavery. However the exact numbers may never be known.
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