Irish Slaves
- Thread starter Malone
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Nick Griffalco
Banned
Well, disrupting and/or preventing the African slave trade seems like a good place to start
How heavy did the race factor play into this exactly? as far as I know it started off in a way that was similar to the essentially slavery of some members of the English lower classes; particularly in the first part of New World Settlement. I certainly can't see Spain, France or Portugal (the main slave drivers as it was, thirteen colonies excluded) justifying the slavery of white Catholics; hell for Spain the ownership of certain races was against the law, for example Asian Slaves (via kidnapped women and kids in ports) were banned early on.
@ Uruk:
They were, but that was because they were (as the government saw it) rebels and Papist fifth-columnists, not simply because they were Irish.
As for the OP, I'd suggest butterflying away the abolitionist movement so that slavery is still a thing when social Darwinism and scientific racism get going. That way I could easily see prominent intellectuals arguing that some races are naturally fit only for slavery (indeed, they came pretty close to this IOTL, with all that white man's burden stuff), and the Irish might end up getting included in the "slave race" category.
They were, but that was because they were (as the government saw it) rebels and Papist fifth-columnists, not simply because they were Irish.
As for the OP, I'd suggest butterflying away the abolitionist movement so that slavery is still a thing when social Darwinism and scientific racism get going. That way I could easily see prominent intellectuals arguing that some races are naturally fit only for slavery (indeed, they came pretty close to this IOTL, with all that white man's burden stuff), and the Irish might end up getting included in the "slave race" category.
I think with Spain the situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that the colonial population often ignored the dictates of the government back in Spain when it suited them. For example, I'm pretty sure that the Spanish Crown passed laws against the enslavement of native Americans even as early as the sixteenth century (possibly even under the Catholic Monarchs, though I can't remember exactly), but the colonial aristocracy was doing very well out of slavery and so basically ignored them. Even the governors would sometimes do this: Christopher Columbus, for example, tried to hinder missionary efforts to the natives because enslaving Christians was banned.
As for racism, I don't think that it was really a thing before the 19th century brought in the romantic nationalist movement and scientific racism. Before then, whilst people obviously held stereotypes and prejudices about other nations, the idea of there being some sort of fixed and immutable national characteristic which runs in the blood wasn't really as prevalent. People would be just as likely to explain national traits by pointing to culture or the environment ("Italians are all lustful because of the effect the hot sun has on their brains," sort of thing).
Delvestius
Banned
Well seeing that Dublin was founded as a Norwegian slave trading hub, I would say that's already been the case 
The many plausible Norse America timelines would probably satisfy the colonial aspect you seem to be looking for.
The many plausible Norse America timelines would probably satisfy the colonial aspect you seem to be looking for.
Redhand
Banned
Yes he sent a lot of them to Barbados and Jamaica after conquering Ireland. They were treated a lot worse than African slaves because of their Papism and also because they were so cheap. An African slave cost 50 sterling, an Irish slave cost less than 5 sterling. This is why so many of them died and Africans became the slave of choice by the early 1700s as their simply weren't enough Irish political prisoners left by that time. They had been deported for slavery since King James sent over some in 1625.
A popular practice for their owners was to breed Irish women with African men to produce mulatto slaves that could be sold for a nice profit as their were no shipping costs and less risk of death due to disease. The English actually ended up banning this practice as it was causing Slave transporters in England to start to suffer economically.
Arabo-Andalusian slavers manage to raid Ireland regularly, enslaving Irish as on par with other Saqaliba.
Redhand
Banned
How were they able to do this? Did their ships really have the ability to go out into the Atlantic without difficulty? I'm sure they really couldn't do this when the English controlled Ireland without seriously provoking a response. Maybe when Iberia was mostly theirs, but it'd be hard to manage that kind of expedition during the peak of the reconquista.
Just wondering though, does the term Saqaliba mean all European slaves or just those from the Rus and Eastern Europe? I was not aware the term being blanketed to the Iberian Slave trade as well as the one in the east.
Have a surviving Western Roman Empire that maintains Ireland as a squabbling dysfunctional war zone of rival tribes in order to use it as a supply of slaves for the empire. That way you have the cultural bias against the Irish as uncivilized barbarians and the widespread use of them as slaves.
The whole "Irish slaves" thing OTL tends to be overblown recently. A lot of Irish became indentured servants in the Caribbean, some of whom were kidnapped, and no doubt their lives were hell, but most of their descendants became small-time slave owners, rather than slaves. And oddly enough the Caribbean became one of the better places to be Irish (if they survived the initial tropical diseases, a big if) because lower-class whites were in such high demand in the Caribbean as slave overseers and for other jobs that were only entrusted to the small white population that being Irish mattered less than it did elsewhere in the British empire. Most mixed-raced Irish ancestry in the Caribbean traces to Irish slave-owners and African slave women, not Irish who were supposedly slaves.
Oh no, there were occasional Barbary raids on English and Irish villages. Very occasionally, compared to the southern European countries, where the slave raiding was so bad that entire stretches of coast were abandoned, but it happened. Most of the time European captives were ransomed, but those who weren't or couldn't pay ended up as slaves. Until the 18th century, the English navy wasn't strong enough to do much about it, and the state was forced to either pay tribute or endure raids.
As was alluded to, one of the big issues with white indentured servants IOTL is they had a much higher death rate than Africans, by virtue of not being resistant to malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical nasties. They did make better laborers than Indian slaves, which is why they cost more, but they weren't economical really anywhere plantation slavery was dominant.
The only way to get around this issue borders on ASB - somehow stop Africans from being imported to the New World (which will be hard, considering Spain and Portugal were already using African slaves by then - and in the case of Spain, in full-on plantations in the Canaries), or somehow not have Eurasian tropical diseases introduced to the New World.
The only way to get around this issue borders on ASB - somehow stop Africans from being imported to the New World (which will be hard, considering Spain and Portugal were already using African slaves by then - and in the case of Spain, in full-on plantations in the Canaries), or somehow not have Eurasian tropical diseases introduced to the New World.
I think you would need a large population with large families in Ireland during the time of Cromwell.
This would lead to a growing population of Irish in Ireland and the English might want to sell them as slaves to help keep the population under control.
If this happen I think the English would sell Scots too from the highlands.
Selling convicts form English prison would be done too.
I not sure the survival rate were that much worse for Irish than Africans OTL. I think they just ran out of people in Ireland to sell in to slavery as the population declined.
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.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
This would lead to a growing population of Irish in Ireland and the English might want to sell them as slaves to help keep the population under control.
If this happen I think the English would sell Scots too from the highlands.
Selling convicts form English prison would be done too.
I not sure the survival rate were that much worse for Irish than Africans OTL. I think they just ran out of people in Ireland to sell in to slavery as the population declined.
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.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
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Yep, from my understanding the majority of white "indentured" servants shipped to the Caribbean died within their first couple years there from malaria and the like, which conversely improved the lot of the survivors. It was a big part of why a full half of the British Caribbean sugar barons actually resided back in Britain at the time of abolition.
And I am sure it was. Provided the importation numbers you listed were accurate, if the Irish survived in the Caribbean as well as Africans they should have begun having natural increases in population, which would basically preclude any reason to import further African slaves. Instead the white populations on the islands - even ones which were majority white - basically died out save for a small minority in places like Jamaica and Barbados. On most islands, the black population isn't even notably mixed-race to a significant degree - generally speaking they're more African than blacks in the U.S.A. measured as a percentage.
They did, probably in limited numbers, but the presence of Arabo-Islamic traders in the Atlantic is known since the Early Middle Ages.
I'm afraid you had such even in the XVIIth without real answer. While I was talking about Arabo-Andalusians, meaning the Early medieval period (when England didn't have an hold on Ireland), Barbary and Morcoccean expeditions reached up to Iceland without real repercussions.
For example, the 1631 raid in the Cork County (this book seems to focus on the matter : The Stolen Village - Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates.) , without England being really able to do anything about it (not that it was able to do anything when places as Devon were raided as well).
At the peak, maybe (but giving how slaver raids were maintained late in Meditterranean and Atlantic, I would be far less certain than you there). But during the period between, roughly, 760's and 1200's? They proven be able to do so IOTL, in Mediterranea (Balearic Islands being basically the Islamic Tortuga) and while more limited in Atlantic.
What you'd need would be expeditions from Al-Andalus and Morocco more important in the Atlantic. Basically, not that much of a radical change.
Say, no Viking expansion, and it could give more room for this sort of things in the same era.
Technically, it designate all slaves : the boarder sense was "European" slave (even if there's mention of Black Saqaliba) : Alans, Bulgarians, Greek, Frankish, Slavic, Germanic, etc. all of them were considered Saqaliba even if their religion (paganism) could be a possible part of the definition.
Another nuance could be in the geographical area : the average Saqaliba wasn't exactly the same in Iraq than Al-Andalus,
A "better" definition would be "someone coming from the country of Saqaliba"; the country of Saqaliba being itself defined as the place where slaves were taken.
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