Were there white slaves from Ireland?

DennisTate · Apr 16, 2021

I like the way that this blog takes this topic back several centuries before the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries that are of course more relevant to all of us.

This topic is surprisingly politically incorrect for some reason.

http://www.theburkean.ie/articles/2020/06/14/the-irish-were-slaves-deal-with-it

Slavery in Ireland only really hit its height with the arrival of the Vikings. This warlike foreign force was fond of their thralls, slaves they took from the people they raided and conquered. Dublin served as a significant hub for the sale of Gaelic slaves both domestically and internationally. Such slaves were so prolific throughout the Norse world that a significant proportion of Scandinavian DNA can be traced back to Irish slaves. This goes especially for Iceland, where the DNA of the average resident is around 30% Gaelic.

To say the life of a thrall was brutal would be a massive understatement. Both physical and psychological abuse was common for these slaves. In fact, it appears that, upon their master’s death, thralls were often ritually sacrificed in order to follow their master into the afterlife.

Arab explorer and theologian Ibn Fadlan describes one such sacrifice in gruesome detail, writing that a female slave was raped by multiple men, stabbed, and finally throttled, before burning with her master and the rest of his grave goods. While such 3rd party accounts of indigenous traditions should always be looked upon with a certain degree of skepticism, the archeological record strongly supports Ibn Fadlan’s account. It is rather common to find beheaded bodies alongside sans any grave goods alongside the remains of an important Viking.

However, perhaps the plight of the thrall occurred too long ago for the ‘intellectuals’ in our society to actually count it as relevant to our discussion. If such is the case, then I will turn our attention towards the Barbary slave trade.

From the early 16th to late 18th century, Barbary corsairs were a near constant threat on European shorelines. These pirates primarily traded in slaves, capturing unsuspecting people in coastal villages and selling them in their base cities of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. White slaves were of particular value to these pirates, with caucasian females often fetching far higher prices within the Ottoman trade compared to women of other backgrounds. Historians estimate that up to 1.25 million people of European descent were abducted and sold into slavery by these pirates.

The Sack of Baltimore in West Cork is perhaps the most famous of these Barbary raids. Led by famous Dutch Muslim convert and pirate, Murat Reis the Younger, Barbary pirates abducted the entire population of mostly Protestant settlers in a single night. As a result, Baltimore was abandoned until the 18th century.
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The Rhetoric of Life · May 10, 2021

Didn't a lot of Scottish people get banished to Ireland for being Catholic back in the day and that's why there's Scots-Irish?

IDK. I didn't think Scots-Irish people in America were Catholic, so, IDK; but, didn't Mary Queen of Scots get locked up and, people got banished to Ireland; or something - Something like that happened, unless I'm mistaken.

Back then, you steal a loaf of bread and get caught, you were banished to be a slave somewhere for 7 years or something, in the British Isles.

Chrizton · May 10, 2021

I suppose in some way, the Irish back in the day were largely viewed the way the Mexicans are by nationalists in the US are today. The old phrase, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" was originally coined about the Irish who had a history of flooding into other places for work when things in Ireland were too harsh. Of course then there is the kindly fact that England could have dealt with the great potato famine more humanly but decided to engage in policies near akin to genocide to break the backs of the peasants on behalf of the land-owning aristocracy.

The Rhetoric of Life · May 10, 2021

I think a lot of European slaves back then were slaves because they owed people money and were given a fixed sentence of servitude rather than life.

They also got to keep their names and their heritages too, but a slave's a slave nonetheless.

DennisTate · Aug 17, 2022

The Rhetoric of Life said: ↑

I think a lot of European slaves back then were slaves because they owed people money and were given a fixed sentence of servitude rather than life.

They also got to keep their names and their heritages too, but a slave's a slave nonetheless.
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Exactly!!!!

I think that tribe vs tribe and clan vs clan slavery in every nation on earth over the past two millennia was on a scale that would boggle our minds once we can view the footage..... (which I believe is possible during a genuine near death experience and I presume when we pass on from this four dimensional space - time continuum)!

www.CarboBias.blogspot.ca/

IRISH: The forgotten white slaves

The Irish slave trade began when James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. 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.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia.

Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.

African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (£50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than £5 Sterling). If a planter whipped, branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African.

The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce.
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submarinepainter · Aug 19, 2022

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves | Rasta Livewire (africaresource.com)

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

DennisTate · Oct 4, 2024

submarinepainter said: ↑

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves | Rasta Livewire (africaresource.com)

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
Click to expand...

Thank you for this exceptionally insightful comment submarine painter.

An interesting aspect to all of this are the Jewish traditions that part of the Tribe of Dan migrated to Ireland.... so the term "Black Irish" can play a role in increasing cooperation between us Irish all across the racial and ethnic spectrum.

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Were there white slaves from Ireland?

Were a significant percentage of the Irish taken as slaves?

Zero to ten percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were probably "slaves"

Eleven to twenty percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were likely "slaves"

Twenty one thirty percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were likely "slaves."

Perhaps even more than thirty percent of the Irish of the past millennia were treated like slaves.

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

The Rhetoric of Life Banned

Chrizton Well-Known Member

The Rhetoric of Life Banned

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

submarinepainter Well-Known Member Past Donor

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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Were there white slaves from Ireland?

Were a significant percentage of the Irish taken as slaves?

Zero to ten percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were probably "slaves"

Eleven to twenty percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were likely "slaves"

Twenty one thirty percent of the Irish of the past thousand years were likely "slaves."

Perhaps even more than thirty percent of the Irish of the past millennia were treated like slaves.

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

The Rhetoric of Life Banned

Chrizton Well-Known Member

The Rhetoric of Life Banned

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

submarinepainter Well-Known Member Past Donor

DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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