Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. On a
Speaker 1: very regular basis, when we post about slavery on our
Speaker 1: Facebook page, especially when that post has some kind of
Speaker 1: connection to the more recent past or the present, somebody
Speaker 1: always comes along and leaves a comment that what we
Speaker 1: should really be talking about is the Irish slaves and
Speaker 1: these were, according to the comment or, people who were
Speaker 1: enslaved earlier and treated worse than people from Africa. Where
Speaker 1: it's really like clockwork, And the more widely a post
Speaker 1: gets shared, the more likely it is to get these
Speaker 1: kinds of comments. This idea that Irish people were enslaved
Speaker 1: and that that is what we really should be talking
Speaker 1: about tends to be circulated a whole lot more aggressively.
Speaker 1: Anytime there's a lot of mainstream news coverage or other
Speaker 1: really prominent discussion about equal rights or social issues related
Speaker 1: to black Americans like this is not a unique to
Speaker 1: the United States, but that's where our experience is. So
Speaker 1: for example, right now, when there's ongoing and very widespread
Speaker 1: protest against police brutality, and racism going on in the
Speaker 1: United States and around the world. This whole idea of
Speaker 1: the Irish slaves really distort some things that really did happen.
Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about that history and
Speaker 1: how it's being really twisted and misused today. And yes,
Speaker 1: I recognize the irony in doing this episode at all,
Speaker 1: but this has come up so many times that I
Speaker 1: would really like to dispel it. And before we get started,
Speaker 1: I also wanted to note that one particular researcher, which
Speaker 1: is Irish librarian and independent scholar Liam Hogan, has done
Speaker 1: enormous amounts of work documenting not just the history of
Speaker 1: this idea, but also how it's become a racist meme.
Speaker 1: His work is and of several resources that were used
Speaker 1: in this episode, and he has been so diligent and
Speaker 1: so prolific on this subject for so many years um
Speaker 1: that even though it's not sourced only from his work,
Speaker 1: we would be remiss not to mention it upfront. In general,
Speaker 1: memes and viral posts about the idea of Irish slaves
Speaker 1: misrepresent the English subjugation of Ireland, which is something that
Speaker 1: really did happen. They also misrepresent the nuances in how
Speaker 1: European powers, specifically Britain, used unfree labor while colonizing the America's.
Speaker 1: That is another thing that really did happen. All of
Speaker 1: this history gets meshed together, and we're going to start
Speaker 1: with the general background of unfree labor. When European nations
Speaker 1: started colonizing the America's, they wanted a plentiful source of
Speaker 1: inexpensive labor, and there just were not enough free people
Speaker 1: who wanted to emigrate and could pay their way by themselves.
Speaker 1: And of course, unfree labor can be a lot cheaper
Speaker 1: than paying free people fair wages. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the colonial labor force was not free. It was made
Speaker 1: up of people who were indentured or enslaved. The colonists
Speaker 1: first enslaved workforce in the America's was primarily indigenous people
Speaker 1: from the places that were being colonized. Colonists either enslaved
Speaker 1: indigenous people and forced them to work in the colony,
Speaker 1: or they captured indigenous people and transported them back to
Speaker 1: Europe to self for profit. And as we talked about
Speaker 1: in our episode on King Philip's War, colonial officials also
Speaker 1: enslaved indigenous people and transported them to other colonies. This
Speaker 1: practice started to wane in the late seventeen hundreds as
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade became more established and African people
Speaker 1: and their descendants made up more and more of the
Speaker 1: enslaved workforce. We talked about indentured servitude and our episode
Speaker 1: on Bacon's Rebellion back in April of twenty nineteen. So
Speaker 1: as a recap and an indenture, a person signed a
Speaker 1: contract to work for a specific period of time. During
Speaker 1: that time, they were not free. Although they were still
Speaker 1: considered to be people, they still had a lot of
Speaker 1: the same legal rights and protections as non indentured people
Speaker 1: of the same nationality. Indentures typically lasted for between five
Speaker 1: and eight years, although in some cases that might be
Speaker 1: as long as ten years. In exchange for this commitment,
Speaker 1: indentured workers were given passage to the America's at least
Speaker 1: in theory. They were also supposed to be given food, shelter, clothing,
Speaker 1: the tools they needed to do their work, and some
Speaker 1: kind of compensation when their indenture ended. However, there were
Speaker 1: definitely cases in which indentured people were not given any
Speaker 1: of that, and cases in which people did not live
Speaker 1: to see the end of their contract. Whether that was
Speaker 1: due to disease, overwork, poor living and working conditions, abuse,
Speaker 1: or some other cause. The degree of choice and freedom
Speaker 1: that a person had in signing one of these contracts
Speaker 1: was really all over the map. There were people who
Speaker 1: wanted to immigrate and to start new life for all
Speaker 1: kinds of reasons, but couldn't afford to do it unless
Speaker 1: they signed an indenture. Other people were indentured and deported
Speaker 1: after being convicted of a crime. Some indentured workers were
Speaker 1: prisoners of war or political prisoners, And of course there
Speaker 1: were a lot of people who technically signed an indenture
Speaker 1: of their own free will, but whose social and economic
Speaker 1: circumstances really left them no other option. Irish slave memes
Speaker 1: typically referenced Irish indentured workers who were transported to the
Speaker 1: island of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean. Of course, colonists
Speaker 1: and their labor force were not the island's first inhabitants.
Speaker 1: The first people to settle on Barbados probably arrived from
Speaker 1: the South American continent sometime in the seventeenth century b c.
Speaker 1: By about five hundred CE, the island was home to
Speaker 1: both carib and Arawak peoples. The first Europeans to arrive
Speaker 1: on the island where the Spanish in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: and the name Barbados was coined by the Portuguese not
Speaker 1: long after, means bearded ones, and it's probably a reference
Speaker 1: to the islands bearded fig trees. Spanish forces used the
Speaker 1: indigenous population of Barbados as a source of enslaved labor
Speaker 1: extensively through the sixteenth century, enslaving people from the island
Speaker 1: and moving them to colonies elsewhere. After nearly stripping the
Speaker 1: island of its population, they essentially abandoned it in the
Speaker 1: late fifteen hundreds. Then an English expedition arrived on Barbados
Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty five, carrying about eighty English people and
Speaker 1: about ten enslaved Africans. Within two years, England was actively
Speaker 1: building a colony on the island and looking for a
Speaker 1: profitable export crop to grow there. The first exports were
Speaker 1: primarily cotton and tobacco, along with products like indigo and aloe,
Speaker 1: and smaller amounts. At first, most of the labor force
Speaker 1: on Barbados was indentured people from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales,
Speaker 1: most of whom had come voluntarily. But as early as
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty six the Barbados Council was outlining the distinction
Speaker 1: between indentured people from Europe, often described as Christian in
Speaker 1: laws and other documents, and enslaved people from Africa or
Speaker 1: the America's That year, the Council resolved that quote Negroes
Speaker 1: and Indians that came here to be sold should serve
Speaker 1: for life unless a contract was before made to the contrary.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Europeans who arrived without a contract
Speaker 1: were put into an indenture according to the quote custom
Speaker 1: of the country. That's basically saying five to eight years.
Speaker 1: In the sixteen forties, the island started shifting its production
Speaker 1: over to sugar. That change happened pretty rapidly. By sixteen fifty,
Speaker 1: sugar was essentially the only export crop that was being
Speaker 1: grown on the island, although food crops were also being
Speaker 1: grown to support the island's population. Before this shift, there
Speaker 1: had been lots of smaller farms, each with its own
Speaker 1: relatively small workforce of free, indentured, and enslaved workers, and
Speaker 1: most of the indentured workers had signed their indentures voluntarily.
Speaker 1: As the island turned to sugar production, many of these
Speaker 1: smaller farms were consolidated. There were still free, indentured and
Speaker 1: enslaved people working, but the farms got bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: and they were owned by fewer people As they shifted
Speaker 1: to sugar. These plantations also needed a lot more labor.
Speaker 1: Sugar production was difficult and dangerous. Many of the planters
Speaker 1: and overseers developed a reputation in Barbados for being particularly
Speaker 1: cruel to the workers, including the indentured servants. Laws specifically
Speaker 1: targeted indentured workers behavior, with punishments for most infractions involving
Speaker 1: time being added on to their indenture, but some punishments
Speaker 1: included being whipped or pilloried. All this meant that fewer
Speaker 1: people in Europe were choosing to come to Barbados voluntarily,
Speaker 1: and whether they came voluntarily or involuntarily, a lot of
Speaker 1: them were leaving the island when their indenture ended. This
Speaker 1: just led to a lot of turnover and a general
Speaker 1: shortage of labor. English law at this point didn't really
Speaker 1: differentiate between voluntary and involuntary indentures, and it didn't really
Speaker 1: differentiate among English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish indentured workers. It did, however,
Speaker 1: increasingly differentiate between indentured and enslaved workers. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more about that in just a bit. At
Speaker 1: the beginning of the sixteen forties, so at the same
Speaker 1: time as this sugar transition was happening, events in Europe
Speaker 1: dramatically affected the indentured labor force in Barbados as well
Speaker 1: as in other parts of the Caribbean, and we will
Speaker 1: get to that after a quick sponsor break. The use
Speaker 1: of Irish indentured labor in Barbados, as well as in
Speaker 1: other English colonies, was directly tied to English subjugation of
Speaker 1: Ireland during the seventeenth century, which of course had roots
Speaker 1: going back much further. Briefly, England took control of a
Speaker 1: portion of Ireland in the twelfth century. As part of
Speaker 1: the island under direct English control became known as the Pale,
Speaker 1: and over the next few centuries, England repeatedly tried to
Speaker 1: expand its influence and its territory beyond that region. This
Speaker 1: included a series of plantations or resettlements of English people
Speaker 1: into Ireland, and it was also complicated by religious divisions
Speaker 1: following the Protestant Reformation. Between sixteen thirty nine and sixteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, there was an interconnected series of violent conflicts
Speaker 1: in England, Scotland and Ireland, which are sometimes grouped together
Speaker 1: as the War of the Three Kingdoms. One piece of
Speaker 1: this was the Irish uprising in sixteen forty one, also
Speaker 1: called the Ulster Rebellion, and that followed on the heels
Speaker 1: of the Ulster Plantation of sixteen o nine. This rebellion
Speaker 1: led to massive sectarian violence and the deaths of at
Speaker 1: least twelve thousand people. Another of the conflicts was the
Speaker 1: English Civil War, but when the royalists who supported the
Speaker 1: monarch Charles the First and the parliamentarians, who the name
Speaker 1: suggests supported Parliament. There were a lot of factors involved
Speaker 1: with this war, and one of them was that the
Speaker 1: king raised an army against the wishes of Parliament in
Speaker 1: order to deal with this rebellion in Ireland. Prior to
Speaker 1: all of this, most indentured workers sent to the America's
Speaker 1: had either gone voluntarily or had been convicted of a
Speaker 1: specific crime. But during and after the war, political prisoners
Speaker 1: were increasingly indentured and deported as well. For example, the
Speaker 1: parliamentarians deported people for serving in the Royalist army, although
Speaker 1: there was an exception for people who were compelled to
Speaker 1: fight rather than having joined the Royalists voluntarily. After the
Speaker 1: Battle of Worcester, which was the last major battle of
Speaker 1: the war, in sixteen fifty one, at least ten thousand
Speaker 1: people were deported, including people from Britain and Ireland, as
Speaker 1: well as people from Germany. Although these indentures were supposed
Speaker 1: to be temporary, the deportation was permanent, with those deported
Speaker 1: quote not returning at any time to the prejudice of
Speaker 1: this kingdom. Although this wave of mass deportations in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century has become most associated with Ireland, the first
Speaker 1: wave of people to be deported were Scottish Royalists. Parliament
Speaker 1: ordered this first wave of mass deportations in sixteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: and it's not clear exactly how many people were deported.
Speaker 1: Estimates ranged from the hundreds to the thousands. English Royalists
Speaker 1: Sir Edmund Verney described it as saying, quote, I think
Speaker 1: they mean to transplant the whole nation of Scots. The
Speaker 1: deportation of Scottish Royalists and other people from Scotland continued
Speaker 1: after the sixteen forty order, although they were more often
Speaker 1: sent to New England instead of to the Caribbean. The
Speaker 1: next year, mass deportation began in Ireland. On September three,
Speaker 1: sixteen forty nine, Oliver Cromwell's forces lay siege to Drada,
Speaker 1: finally breaching the city's walls on September ten. What followed
Speaker 1: was a massacre, with Cromwell's forces killing Catholic priests and
Speaker 1: monks on site and burning Catholic churches. At least two
Speaker 1: thousand people were massacred, with accounts of English soldiers killing
Speaker 1: one in every ten of the surviving Irish force and
Speaker 1: sending the rest to Barbados. Soon, so many people were
Speaker 1: being sent to Barbados and other Caribbean islands that the
Speaker 1: name became a verb meaning to send a prisoner to Barbados.
Speaker 1: Parliament's deportations to Barbados paused briefly in sixteen fifty because
Speaker 1: the colony's government had Royalist sympathies, but they resumed in
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty two. That same year, Parliament passed the Act
Speaker 1: for the Settlement of Ireland, which confiscated Irish land from
Speaker 1: people who had participated in the Rebellion of sixteen forty one,
Speaker 1: redistributed that land to Cromwell's supporters, and it also penalized
Speaker 1: people who had participated in the uprising in any way,
Speaker 1: this involved still more people being deported to Barbados. As
Speaker 1: we said earlier, Eish people had also been subject to
Speaker 1: involuntary indentures. One reason was that England had a very
Speaker 1: broad law that authorized the transport of quote rogues, vagrants
Speaker 1: and sturdy beggars in England to the colonies in the
Speaker 1: America's As all of this was going on, this law
Speaker 1: was also applied to Ireland, with authorities given incredibly broad
Speaker 1: authority to deport any Irish person who was believed to
Speaker 1: be quote dangerous to the Commonwealth. By the time this
Speaker 1: law was applied to Ireland, King Charles the First had
Speaker 1: been beheaded, the parliamentarians had won the Civil War, so
Speaker 1: people who were dangerous to the Commonwealth included Catholics, Royalists,
Speaker 1: poor people, and Oliver Cromwell's personal enemies. In general, the
Speaker 1: English thought that the Irish were uncivilized barbarians. They disapproved
Speaker 1: of Irish people's religion and dress and sexual morays and culture.
Speaker 1: This is especially true of Irish people who had retained
Speaker 1: strong connections to Celtic customs. So it's very likely that
Speaker 1: some of the people who were deported were deported simply
Speaker 1: for being Irish. It is not clear exactly how many
Speaker 1: people were deported during these years. Estimates range from as
Speaker 1: low as ten thousand to as high as fifty thousand
Speaker 1: Irish people between sixteen forty and sixteen sixty, when King
Speaker 1: Charles the Second was restored as monarch and rolled back
Speaker 1: some of Cromwell's policies. These forced deportees were arriving as
Speaker 1: Barbados was shifting its system of agriculture from a variety
Speaker 1: of exports to just sugar, meaning that Barbados saw a
Speaker 1: huge influx of Irish indentured labor, and unlike in earlier
Speaker 1: years of English colonization of the island, a lot of
Speaker 1: these people had been indentured against their will. Although the
Speaker 1: law recognized clear differences between indentured and enslaved workers, they
Speaker 1: generally ate similar food, lived in similar housing, and did
Speaker 1: similar work. A critical difference between the indentured and enslaved
Speaker 1: workers was at the indentured people's bondage was temporary. As
Speaker 1: we've noted, there were certainly cases where people were not
Speaker 1: freed when they were supposed to be, or otherwise did
Speaker 1: not live to the end of their indenture. But it
Speaker 1: is also clear that there were more and more formally
Speaker 1: indentured Irish people living in Barbados as time went on,
Speaker 1: some of whom didn't want to work on sugar plantations anymore,
Speaker 1: but also didn't have a means to leave. By late
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty seven, there were reports of large numbers of landless,
Speaker 1: unemployed Irish people in Barbados who were roaming the countryside,
Speaker 1: causing mischief and supporting themselves through theft. In September of
Speaker 1: that year, Governor Daniel Searle issued a public proclamation requiring
Speaker 1: Irish indentured workers to have permission slips to leave their plantations.
Speaker 1: He also ordered that Irish people who had no fixed
Speaker 1: address and couldn't really explain what their purpose was when
Speaker 1: questioned could be forced to work on a plantation for
Speaker 1: a year. He also made it illegal to sell weapons
Speaker 1: and amy into Irish people, and any Irish person found
Speaker 1: in possession of weapons could be whipped and jailed. If
Speaker 1: you have studied u s history at all, this probably
Speaker 1: sounds a little like the freedom papers that free black
Speaker 1: people were required to carry to prove that they were
Speaker 1: not really enslaved, and like the laws that restricted free
Speaker 1: people's behavior and movement, and while there is some similarity there,
Speaker 1: there are also some key differences between the indenture of
Speaker 1: Irish people and the enslavement of Africans in Barbados. And
Speaker 1: we're going to get into all of that after we
Speaker 1: first paused for a sponsor break. Although indentured service SUDE
Speaker 1: was common in British territory in the seventeenth century, there
Speaker 1: were some discussions happening about whether this was something English
Speaker 1: people should be subjected to. In sixteen fifty nine, two
Speaker 1: english Men named Marcellus Rivers and oxen Bridge Foil published
Speaker 1: England Slavery or Barbados Merchandise, and that compiled various correspondents,
Speaker 1: along with a petition that they presented to Parliament quote
Speaker 1: on behalf of themselves and three score and ten more
Speaker 1: free born Englishmen sold uncondemned into slavery. In their account,
Speaker 1: those three score and ten men had been arrested following
Speaker 1: an uprising in Salisbury in sixteen fifty four, but they
Speaker 1: claimed that some of them had never been to Salisbury
Speaker 1: or borne any kind of arms. Rivers and Foil also
Speaker 1: claimed they had been sent to Barbados without any sort
Speaker 1: of fair trial, where they were sold quote as the
Speaker 1: goods and chattels of Martinel. They described, quote grinding at
Speaker 1: the mills and attending at the furnaces, or digging in
Speaker 1: this scorching island, having not to feed on, notwithstanding their
Speaker 1: hard labor, but potato roots, nor to drink but water
Speaker 1: with such roots washed in it, besides the bread and
Speaker 1: tears of their own afflictions, being bought and sold still
Speaker 1: from one planter to another, or attached as horses and
Speaker 1: beasts for the debts of their masters, being whipped at
Speaker 1: the whipping posts as rogues for their master's pleasure, and
Speaker 1: sleeping in sties worse than hogs in England, and many
Speaker 1: other ways made miserable beyond expression or Christian imagination. Sir
Speaker 1: Martin Noel gave his own testimony that merchants on Barbados
Speaker 1: had asked him to bring back artificers, and that these
Speaker 1: artificers were indentured for five years and then given a
Speaker 1: year's salary. He said that the work was hard, but
Speaker 1: that the workers were treated civilly, and that the most
Speaker 1: odious work was quote mostly carried on by the negroes.
Speaker 1: This testimony about conditions in Barbados was not particularly honest
Speaker 1: or forthcoming. This was somebody whose livelihood involved transporting large
Speaker 1: numbers of indentured workers across the Atlantic, So Noel was
Speaker 1: definitely protecting his own interests by minimizing conditions for indentured
Speaker 1: workers on Barbados. And the debate in Parliament that followed
Speaker 1: this petition had not touch on the larger question of
Speaker 1: whether slavery was wrong, just whether it was wrong to
Speaker 1: subject Englishmen to it, even temporarily. They didn't reach a
Speaker 1: satisfactory answer to this question, in part because chattel slavery
Speaker 1: had become deeply established in Barbados by the time Rivers
Speaker 1: and Foil filed their petition, and it was replacing indentured
Speaker 1: servitude as the primary form of labor. Barbados was shifting
Speaker 1: from a society that had slaves to a true slave society,
Speaker 1: one in which slavery was the primary source of labor,
Speaker 1: with the society itself focused on maintaining and defending slavery.
Speaker 1: You should also know this petition is one of the
Speaker 1: sources for like how bad conditions were for Irish indentured labors,
Speaker 1: but like to be clear, they were English and they
Speaker 1: were filing it on the behalf of English people. Not Irish.
Speaker 1: So although slavery as a practice was well established in
Speaker 1: Barbados by the time that Parliament heard this petition, it
Speaker 1: wasn't really encoded in law. That changed in sixteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: when Governor Humphrey Walhon signed an Act for Better Ordering
Speaker 1: and Governing of Negroes. It outlined a series of increasingly
Speaker 1: severe and horrifying corporal punishments if an enslaved person quote,
Speaker 1: offered any violence to any Christian, while also stating quote,
Speaker 1: and it is further enacted and ordained that if any
Speaker 1: Negro or other slave, under punishment by his master, unfortunately
Speaker 1: shall suffer in life or member, which seldom happens, no
Speaker 1: person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine. There For,
Speaker 1: in other words, it was legal to kill an enslaved
Speaker 1: person as punishment. This sixteen sixty one law was the
Speaker 1: first comprehensive slave code in English territory, and it became
Speaker 1: the template for other slave codes in the English colonies.
Speaker 1: It used the words negro and slave interchangeably, use the
Speaker 1: word Christian more often than it referred to like a
Speaker 1: specific nationality, because at this point, like the idea of
Speaker 1: Negro meaning all Africans, like that was used in the
Speaker 1: language a lot, but like the idea of white at
Speaker 1: least like whiteness existed in terms of how it was
Speaker 1: influencing society, but it had not made its way into
Speaker 1: language in the way that people use it today. Really.
Speaker 1: On the same day that he signed this sixteen sixty
Speaker 1: one Law about the Ordering and Governing of Negroes, uh,
Speaker 1: the Governor also signed the Act for Good Governing of
Speaker 1: Servants and Ordering the Rights between Masters and Servants. Unlike
Speaker 1: the Act for Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes, this
Speaker 1: act granted specific rights to indentured workers, including that justices
Speaker 1: of the Peace had to hear disputes over how much
Speaker 1: time and an indentured person had served, and a ban
Speaker 1: on indenturing English children under the age of fourteen. It's
Speaker 1: not totally clear if English is meant to include Irish
Speaker 1: and Scottish children in this law. The law also required
Speaker 1: masters to care for servants who became ill, and it
Speaker 1: required married indentured workers to be sold together. Enslaved Africans
Speaker 1: had none of these protections together. These two laws established
Speaker 1: a legal difference between being an indentured servant and being
Speaker 1: a slave. Servants being under English law were entitled to
Speaker 1: being tried before a jury of their peers if charged
Speaker 1: with a crime, but enslaved people explicitly were not. Servants
Speaker 1: and enslaved people both needed tickets, which were essentially permission
Speaker 1: slips to leave their plantations, but servants were required to
Speaker 1: get them from their masters, while masters were required to
Speaker 1: issue them to enslaved people. Slave owners were required to
Speaker 1: capture and whip escaping slaves, but there was no similar
Speaker 1: provision requiring the capture and punishment of indentured servants who
Speaker 1: left before their indenture was up. For most but not
Speaker 1: all crimes, Punishments for indentured people involved adding time onto
Speaker 1: their contract, although in some cases the law allowed for
Speaker 1: indenture people to be lashed or pilloried. Punishments for enslaved people,
Speaker 1: as we referenced earlier, involved this series of increasingly severe
Speaker 1: disfiguring and just horrifying corporal punishments ending in execution. By
Speaker 1: the time these two laws were passed, enslaved Africans had
Speaker 1: become the majority of the population of Barbados. By the
Speaker 1: mid sixteen seventies, the island had about thirty three thousand
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans and their descendants and twenty one thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred total Europeans, both free and indentured, and about one
Speaker 1: thousand enslaved indigenous men from Northeast North America. Most of
Speaker 1: the planters on the island were English, although some were Irish,
Speaker 1: Scottish or Welsh, some of whom had arrived in Barbados
Speaker 1: as indentured workers. Definitely was not possible for every indentured
Speaker 1: person to move into the planter class, but there were
Speaker 1: definitely people who did. The shift and population both created
Speaker 1: and solved some problems from the answers point of view.
Speaker 1: As we said earlier, the system of indenture had involved
Speaker 1: a lot of turnover and labor shortages as people stopped
Speaker 1: coming to the island voluntarily and as they left at
Speaker 1: the end of their contracts. This of course did not
Speaker 1: happen with enslaved workers, who were enslaved for life and
Speaker 1: whose enslavement was passed down to their children through their mother.
Speaker 1: But since so many former indentured workers were leaving Barbados
Speaker 1: at the end of their contract, there also just were
Speaker 1: not enough white people on the island to maintain the militia. Consequently,
Speaker 1: the Barbados Assembly passed a series of laws to encourage
Speaker 1: planters to hire more white labor, and to encourage white
Speaker 1: laborers to stay on the island after their indentures were over.
Speaker 1: This included the Act for the Encouragement of White Servants,
Speaker 1: which gave white servants the right to bring complaints of
Speaker 1: severe or harsh usage before the court. It's likely that
Speaker 1: there were people who didn't bring such complaints because of
Speaker 1: a fear of retaliation, but there were also indentured workers
Speaker 1: who were freed by court order because of mistreatment under
Speaker 1: this law. The law had no such provision for enslaved Africans.
Speaker 1: These legal differences between enslaved and indentured people continued to
Speaker 1: grow through subsequent laws. For example, an indentured worker could
Speaker 1: testify against the person who held their indenture and court,
Speaker 1: but enslaved people in Barbados could not testify against any
Speaker 1: white person Until eighteen thirty one. It was illegal to
Speaker 1: murder an indentured servant, but the murder of an enslaved
Speaker 1: person was legal until eighteen eighteen. While it was true
Speaker 1: that indentured people could be bought and sold as property
Speaker 1: during the term of their indenture, once that indenture was
Speaker 1: over they were free, while not only were enslaved people
Speaker 1: property for life, but as we noted, their children were
Speaker 1: also property from the time they were born, based on
Speaker 1: the enslaved status of their mother. Although indentured servitude declined
Speaker 1: steadily through the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Barbados,
Speaker 1: slavery wasn't abolished in Barbados until eighteen thirty four. We
Speaker 1: should note that at various points in the seventeenth and
Speaker 1: eighteenth centuries, Irish indentured workers were involved in uprisings against
Speaker 1: Barbados planter class, both on their own and as part
Speaker 1: of uprisings that were planned and carried out primarily by
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans. But the differences between the two groups were
Speaker 1: present even in the way colonial authorities responded to these uprisings. Overwhelmingly,
Speaker 1: Africans were executed for their role or even just alleged
Speaker 1: role in uprisings, Irish workers often received no punishment. For example,
Speaker 1: one Set two plan involved indentured Irish workers getting English
Speaker 1: officials drunk ahead of the uprising. After the plan was uncovered,
Speaker 1: ninety two enslaved people were executed. More than twenty others died,
Speaker 1: either from injuries they had sustained or from other causes.
Speaker 1: The Irish were ers who were arrested were ultimately released
Speaker 1: with no punishment. After this, landowners started petitioning not to
Speaker 1: be sent any more Irish laborers. So, to be very clear,
Speaker 1: England oppressed Ireland systematically and violently for centuries, and Irish
Speaker 1: people were involuntarily deported to Barbados and other colonies in
Speaker 1: massive numbers as indentured servants. And in the first years
Speaker 1: of English presence on Barbados, most of the workers were
Speaker 1: indentured Europeans and not enslaved Africans. But there are real
Speaker 1: and meaningful differences between indentured servitude and slavery and in
Speaker 1: how these two populations fared in Barbados and elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the decades and centuries that followed. The sources that people
Speaker 1: generally cite to back up the idea of Irish people
Speaker 1: being the first slaves generally conflate and dentured servitude and
Speaker 1: slavery as the same thing. One book called to Hell
Speaker 1: or Barbados uses the word slavery very broadly and applies
Speaker 1: descriptions like actual historical descriptions of the mistreatment of enslaved
Speaker 1: Africans to Irish indentured workers even when there's no evidence
Speaker 1: to back that up. The book White Cargo, The Forgotten
Speaker 1: History of Britain's White Slaves in America, similarly conflates chattel
Speaker 1: slavery and indentured servitude, and the words of the authors
Speaker 1: quote slavery is not defined by time, but by the
Speaker 1: experience of the subject. The biggest online source for the
Speaker 1: idea that Irish people were the first slaves is a
Speaker 1: two thousand eight article called the Irish Slave Trade the
Speaker 1: Forgotten White Slaves that was published by the Center for
Speaker 1: Research on Globalization, which PolitiFact describes as quote, a Canadian
Speaker 1: website that bills itself as an alternative news source but
Speaker 1: has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like nine eleven,
Speaker 1: vaccines and global warming. A lot of the claims put
Speaker 1: forth in that article are demonstrably untrue, including that there
Speaker 1: was a forced breeding program between indentured Irish people and
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans. There is just no evidence for any of this.
Speaker 1: There are also lots of viral images and memes purporting
Speaker 1: to be about the realities of Irish slavery in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: and these posts frequently use pictures that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with seventeenth century Barbados. Many of them are photos
Speaker 1: that are at least two hundred years more recent, showing
Speaker 1: people in a completely different place and time. And some
Speaker 1: of them really do depict actual historical injustices and atrocities,
Speaker 1: like prisoners of war who were liberated from a Japanese
Speaker 1: camp in World War Two, or child laborers working in
Speaker 1: a coal mine in nineteen eleven. This does a disservice
Speaker 1: to those people and that history, and to the people
Speaker 1: in history of the Caribbean. If you want to see
Speaker 1: a lot of examples of this, of just pictures that
Speaker 1: are being used to supposedly be about Irish slaves that
Speaker 1: are really about something completely different. Liam Hogan, who we
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, has collected a
Speaker 1: ton of them with references to what is really shown
Speaker 1: in the picture. Lastly, in addition to conflating indentured servitude
Speaker 1: and slavery and using imagery dishonestly and distorting the history
Speaker 1: of both Ireland and Barbados, memes about Irish slavery are
Speaker 1: often shared in a way that tries to shut down
Speaker 1: conversations about the real systemic oppression that black people in
Speaker 1: the United States and elsewhere, including Ireland, but the US
Speaker 1: is where we have experienced with this, where that's happening
Speaker 1: every day. The tone is often along the lines of
Speaker 1: Irish people were the first slaves and they slash We
Speaker 1: aren't asking for some kind of reparations. This deflection is
Speaker 1: another disservice to everyone involved, but especially to black people.
Speaker 1: It glosses over the centuries of sustained and systemic racism
Speaker 1: that black people really have faced, including hundreds of years
Speaker 1: of hereditary race based chattel slavery, discriminatory black codes that
Speaker 1: were passed after the US Civil War, gem Crow segregation, lynching,
Speaker 1: massive waves of racist anti black mob violence, and housing
Speaker 1: and lending discrimination, all of which we have talked about
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. That also glosses over some things
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about but are on the list to
Speaker 1: be talked about at some point in the future, like
Speaker 1: the way Black Americans were excluded from a lot of
Speaker 1: the programs involved with the New Deal during the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: and excluded from many elements of the g I Bill.
Speaker 1: It really goes on and on. It also glosses over
Speaker 1: the real discrimination that Irish people have faced, both in
Speaker 1: Britain and Ireland and in the US, especially as Irish
Speaker 1: immigration to the US peaked after the Great Famine in
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, Irish people did face prejudice, housing discrimination
Speaker 1: and job discrimination both were being Irish and in the
Speaker 1: case of Irish Catholics because of their religion. And the
Speaker 1: use of these memes and the way they are implemented
Speaker 1: in these conversations derails an honest discussion of how Irish
Speaker 1: American communities in the nineteenth century took an active part
Speaker 1: in perpetuating slavery and racism. That's been touched on a
Speaker 1: bit in the archive and our episode on the New
Speaker 1: York Draft Riots, in which a predominantly Irish mob attacked
Speaker 1: black communities for four days, burning down the homes of
Speaker 1: black people and abolitionists, as well as the Colored Orphan Asylum,
Speaker 1: but that was not an isolated incident. There were definitely exceptions,
Speaker 1: but as a group, Irish Americans in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: were vocally against the abolition of slavery, in part because
Speaker 1: free black and Irish workers would then be competing for
Speaker 1: the same jobs, but also because of perceptions that abolitionist
Speaker 1: organizations were focused on the needs of Africans and their
Speaker 1: descendants instead of on the suffering of Irish people affected
Speaker 1: by the famine. In reality, a lot of abolitionist organizations
Speaker 1: also raised money for famine relief that in the years
Speaker 1: leading up to the Civil War, there was a movement
Speaker 1: in Ireland to repeal the Act of Union that had
Speaker 1: made Ireland and England to line Kingdom. And one of
Speaker 1: the most vocal proponents of this repeal movement was also
Speaker 1: an ardent abolitionist, and the thread of anti abolitionism in
Speaker 1: Irish American communities was so strong that abolitionists like William
Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison suspected that their strong support of the repeal
Speaker 1: movement was basically like, if we can get this repealed,
Speaker 1: that guy will have no more platform and maybe he
Speaker 1: will shut up about this whole slavery thing. Also, all
Speaker 1: of this feeds into the path that Irish Americans took
Speaker 1: to move out of being second class citizens in the US,
Speaker 1: both through local, state, and federal politics and through moving
Speaker 1: into civil service jobs, including becoming firefighters and police, which honestly,
Speaker 1: that feels like a subject for a whole different episode.
Speaker 1: That's why nobody talks about the Irish slaves. I resisted
Speaker 1: the temptation to just say, because that wasn't a thing
Speaker 1: for half an hour. Um, I'm laughing only at your
Speaker 1: temptation resistance, not at the subject. Uh. Do you have
Speaker 1: listener mail for U? S? Tracy? I do have listener mail.
Speaker 1: This listener mail is from Thomas, and Thomas says, I'm
Speaker 1: conscious that what I am writing about is possibly a
Speaker 1: misspoke moment rather than an error in the script. But
Speaker 1: the figure you used early in the episode, that episode
Speaker 1: being about what Tyler's rebellion early in the episode of
Speaker 1: sixty thousand in England pre plague is a very low estimate,
Speaker 1: and so much lower than any I've ever heard. I
Speaker 1: had a double take attached to the paper calculating it,
Speaker 1: page twenty two. The figure is given from what estimate
Speaker 1: is four point eight one million, just before the plague. Obviously,
Speaker 1: calculating the exact number of people in historical eras is
Speaker 1: a really contentious topic, a is there are so many variables,
Speaker 1: but I've never known a source to put England's population
Speaker 1: so low and recorded history, which for England is traditionally
Speaker 1: from Julius Caesar's invasion. I wonder if you found a
Speaker 1: figure for a county and assumed it meant England. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pause here and say, I don't know how I
Speaker 1: made that error. Usually, when we get an email about
Speaker 1: an error, like I try to figure out where that
Speaker 1: error got introduced into the show, because maybe there's something
Speaker 1: I could do in my own process that would prevent
Speaker 1: a similar error from happening in the future. In this case,
Speaker 1: I have no idea. It's likely that paper was talking
Speaker 1: about a specific county or a specific town and like,
Speaker 1: and I misread it and thought that it was talking
Speaker 1: about all of England. But at this point I tried
Speaker 1: to go back through my sources and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Um, so that number was way
Speaker 1: too low. U to return to the email. It was
Speaker 1: a great episode as ever, and the line about bad
Speaker 1: takes about the plague made me cackle like an old witch.
Speaker 1: In my schooling, we were taught at the plague ended
Speaker 1: serfdom in England, introducing a wage economy, but not that
Speaker 1: it caused the rent of signs. As an aside, it's
Speaker 1: often said that my home county of Norfolk didn't regain
Speaker 1: its pre plague population. We have a number of churches
Speaker 1: without villages to this day. Though the overall population has
Speaker 1: recovered greatly in the last century and exceeded pre plague
Speaker 1: at last. There are still many churches that stand alone
Speaker 1: in the fields or with a single farm for their
Speaker 1: whole parish. Some of the latter still hold a church
Speaker 1: service at harvest, but the otherwise are kept as historical
Speaker 1: relics by the church's conservation trust or have become ruins.
Speaker 1: In Devon, Yorkshire and other places, you can often see
Speaker 1: ridge and furrow on the uplands, now mostly sheep grazing.
Speaker 1: This is often where marginal land pre plague was farmed,
Speaker 1: and after the plague was abandoned to livestock since there
Speaker 1: weren't enough folk to farm marginal land. This is most
Speaker 1: obvious from the air. Spend some time on Google Earth
Speaker 1: over Dartmoor or x More and you could probably spot them.
Speaker 1: This goes on with some additional details UM about medieval
Speaker 1: villages in the area UH and a local legend about
Speaker 1: where plague victims were buried at dead Man's Hill in Norfolk. UM.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of ways that you can still see
Speaker 1: evidence of the plague in the area today. So UH.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a longer email. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna skip to the end, which is keep up the
Speaker 1: good work. Podcasts are currently a great tonic and break
Speaker 1: from the present. Yours, sincerely, Thomas. Thank you Thomas for
Speaker 1: this note. Again, I have no idea now I made
Speaker 1: that error. Um. I kind of wish I did, because
Speaker 1: that's a very significant number between what I put into
Speaker 1: script and what existed in reality. My theory is that
Speaker 1: it is probably something as simple as Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: sort of visualize in my head a PDF with the
Speaker 1: number sixty in it. Um. Uh. But like I, my
Speaker 1: attempts to go through uh the sources like to, they
Speaker 1: did not yield the answer. Um, but also a typo
Speaker 1: as a possibility if you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about this or another podcast or history podcast at
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Speaker 1: at missed in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook
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