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.
IRISH SLAVES
THE IRISH SLAVES
