For thousands of years racism was
responsible for most of the justification for slavery. Mostly through lack of education, there
exists, even today, the racism of old. In reality there is only one race, and
that is the human race. Almost all peoples
have been enslaved, at one time or another, throughout history.
Ask the average school child about
slavery and they think only white people had slaves. A tobacco farmer named Anthony
Johnson was the first man in the U.S. who owned a slave: the slave
owner was a black man and the slave was black. The courts gave judicial
sanction for blacks to own a slave of their own race. In 1830 there were 3,775
free black people who owned 12,740 black slaves. Many black slaves were allowed
to have jobs, own businesses and own real estate. In 1860 the largest slave
holder in North Carolina
was a black plantation owner named William Ellison. American Indians owned
thousands of black slaves. Many Indian tribes made slaves out of the Indians of
other tribes they conquered, as well as white people they captured.
Most slaves brought to America, from Africa,
were bought from black slavers, almost all of which were Islamist's, who
continue the practice of slavery today. Slavery was common throughput the world
for thousands of years. Whites were the first people to stop slavery in modern
times.
In the sixteenth through the
eighteenth century, Africans enslaved one and a half million white Europeans.
The British were involved in slavery of whites as well. "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.
Whenever they rebelled or even
disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would
hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as
one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on
pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
We don’t really need to go through
all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the
African slave trade.
But, are we talking about African slavery? King James II and
Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed
Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door
neighbor.
The Irish slave trade began when James II 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 or 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. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would
remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found
emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women
(in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: 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.
England continued to ship tens of thousands of
Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish
Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses
of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves
into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would
have plenty of food to eat.
There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors
of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There
is, also, very little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in
your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and
Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain
finally decided on it’s own to end it’s participation in Satan’s highway to
hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates
from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of
nightmarish Irish misery.
But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only
an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong.
Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from
our memories.
But, where are our public (and PRIVATE) schools???? Where are
the history books? Why is it so seldom discussed?
Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims merit
more than a mention from an unknown writer?
Or is their story to be one that their English pirates intended:
To (unlike the African book) have the Irish story utterly and completely
disappear as if it never happened.
None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to
describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased
history books conveniently forgot."
"The Irish were further exploited
when the British began to “breed” Irish women - or girls, sometimes as young as
12 - with African males.
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 breeding 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."
It
might be pointed out that all, I repeat all, peoples were involved in slavery
at one point or another. Moslems, Christians, Jews, Arabs, Africans and many
others were involved in this abomination. The biggest problem is that it exists
today.
The modern
name for slavery is human trafficking. “Human trafficking is a crime. We have
found a direct nexus between prostitution and human trafficking, and we combat
this crime by conducting undercover prostitution investigations. Whether it is
on the street or online, prostitution, and the crimes it attempts to disguise,
is illegal and we will continue to investigate and arrest those involved.” –
Sheriff Grady Judd, Polk County Florida
"Yemen
to end public trading of slaves as recently as 1962 and Mauritania in 1980, though many
Muslim countries still are clandestinely involved. Slavery, forced marriages,
sexual slaves and child sex trafficking continues in countries with large
Muslim populations, such as: Sudan,
Niger, Nigeria, Benin,
Togo, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan,
Albania, Bosnia, Turkey
and Indonesia.
Organizations tracking modern
slavery are: Anti-Slavery International,
Human Rights Watch, American
Anti-Slavery Group, National Underground
Railroad Freedom Center, Free
the Slaves, Christian Freedom International, International Labor Rights and Education
Fund, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and Anti-Slavery Society.
(freetheslaves.net, anti-slaverysociety.addr.com,
freedomcenter.org,antislavery.org, iabolish.org)"
What does the Bible say about
slavery?
The Old Testament seems to accept slavery as common
practice, as it was throughout the rest of the world at the time. In Genesis 39,
Joseph was sold as a slave in Egypt.
In the New Testament, slavery takes on a different connotation for Christians.
Christians are said to be slaves of Christ and should be in obedience to Him.
Christian slaves are instructed to serve their owner as unto Christ, especially
if they have a Christian owner. We
must keep in mind that the Romans, who controlled the Holy
Land, had slavery, and allowed it in their realm of influence. It
was not that God condoned slavery, but that slavery is simply an example of
mans inhumanity to man, and the fallen state of mankind.
During the American civil war, hundreds of thousands
(mostly white) died for the freedom of the slaves. The issue of slavery was an
afterthought of President Lincoln, that he used to keep the north interested in
continuing the War Between The States. After the war, the 13th Amendment abolished
slavery. It was adopted with 100% Republican support and 23% Democrat support. The
14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to freed slaves was adopted with 94%
Republican support and 0% Democrat support. The 15th Amendment, which gave the
right to vote to all, was adopted with 100% Republican support and 0% Democrat
support. As we can see, the matter of slavery was not completely settled in
some folks minds.
page 251, What Every American Needs to Know About the
Qur’an-A History of Islam & the United States, By William J.
Federer
