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The Irish slaves myth is a fringe
pseudohistorical Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohis ...
narrative that conflates the
penal transportation Penal transportation or transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their ...
and
indentured servitude Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repaymen ...
of
Irish people The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been co ...
during the 17th and 18th centuries, with the hereditary
chattel slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
experienced by the forebears of the
African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were ...
. Some
white nationalists White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwo ...
, and others who want to minimize the effects of hereditary chattel slavery on Africans and their descendants, have used this
false equivalence False equivalence is an informal fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency. Colloquially, a false equivalence is often called "com ...
to deny
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race over another. It may also mean prejudice, d ...
against
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
or claim that African Americans are too vocal in seeking justice for historical grievances. It also can hide the facts around Irish involvement in the
transatlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
. The myth has been in circulation since at least the 1990s and has been disseminated in online
meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...
s and social media debates. According to historians Jerome S. Handler and Matthew C. Reilly, "it is misleading, if not erroneous, to apply the term 'slave' to Irish and other indentured servants in early
Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
". In 2016, academics and Irish historians wrote to condemn the myth.


Common elements

Common elements to memes that propagate the myth are: * The conspiracy theory that historians and the media are covering up Irish slavery. * That all Irish people were enslaved after the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland or Cromwellian war in Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell invaded Ireland wi ...
in 1649. * Irish slaves were treated worse than African slaves. * Irish women were forced to reproduce with African men. * Intending to diminish the discrimination that African-Americans have historically experienced, with memes like "The Irish were slaves, too. We got over it, so why can't you?". * Using photographs of victims of
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
or 20th century child laborers, claiming that they are Irish slaves. * A reference to an alleged 1625 declaration by
King James II James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...
to send thousands of Irish prisoners to the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater ...
as slaves. James II had not been even born yet; he was born in 1633 and started his rule in 1685. 1625 saw the end of
King James I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until hi ...
's rule and the rise of King Charles I to the throne. * The substitution of the victims of actual atrocities committed against enslaved Africans with Irish victims.


Background

During
British rule in Ireland British rule in Ireland spanned several centuries and involved British control of parts, or entirety, of the island of Ireland. British involvement in Ireland began with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. Most of Ireland gained indepen ...
, and particularly during the
Plantations of Ireland Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from Great Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, angl ...
and the Cromwellian conquest, the terms "slaves" or "bond slaves" were used to describe the "time-bound" system of servitude of tens of thousands of Irish. The official British legal terminology used was "indentured servants" whether the servants in question had willingly signed the indenture contract to emigrate to the Americas or were forced to go. In any other form, those transported unwillingly were not considered to be indentured. This included
political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s,
vagrants Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...
,
convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...
s,
prostitutes Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
, or people who had been defined as "undesirable" by the British government.
Penal transportation Penal transportation or transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their ...
of Irish people was at its height during the 17th century, most was for various
felonies A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resul ...
such as highway robbery, vagrancy (homelessness),
burglary Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...
, and
horse theft Horse theft is the crime of stealing horses. A person engaged in stealing horses is known as a horse thief. Historically, punishments were often severe for horse theft, with several cultures pronouncing the sentence of death upon actual or presu ...
. Penal transportation was a general practice in Great Britain as well as Ireland. These were the offences most often punished with transportation for men in the 1670s, though for women it was theft. They were then subjected to
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of e ...
for a given period when they arrived in the Americas or Australia.Bartlett, Thomas. "'This famous island set in a Virginian sea': Ireland in the British Empire, 1690–1801." In ''The Oxford History of the British Empire''. Volume II: The Eighteenth Century, by Marshall, P.J., Alaine Low, and Wm. Roger Louis, edited by P.J. Marshall and Alaine Low. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. p. 256. During this same period, the Atlantic slave trade was transporting millions of Africans across the Atlantic and bringing them to various European colonies in America (including
British America British America comprised the colonial territories of the English Empire, which became the British Empire after the 1707 union of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, in the Americas from 16 ...
) where they were purchased by European colonists and put to work. Treatment of Irish indentured servants varied widely, but the transport, physical work, and living conditions have been compared by scholars to the treatment of enslaved Africans. However, the usual period of indenture for an Irish person was from four years to nine years, after which they were free – able to travel freely, own property, and accumulate wealth. Additionally, the formerly indentured Irish person could now marry whom they chose and their children were born free. Unlike Irish indentured servants, enslaved Africans generally were made slaves for life and this perpetual slave status was imposed on their children at birth. Both systematically and legally, enslaved Africans were subjected to a lifelong, inheritable condition of slavery that indentured Irish people never were.
Donald Harman Akenson Donald Harman Akenson (born May 22, 1941, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American historian and author. Notably prolific, he has written at least 23 book-length, scholarly monographs, 3 jointly-authored scholarly books, 6 works of fiction and histo ...
makes the point that in this "white indentured servitude was so very different from black slavery as to be from another galaxy of human experience". Additionally, in terms of numbers, the "most likely exaggerated" high estimates of Irish laborers sent to the Caribbean, along with estimates of total numbers of prisoners and indentured servants in British America, "pales by comparison" to the millions of enslaved Africans who were transported to the Americas."


Irish involvement in the slave trade

According to historian Nini Rodgers, in the 18th century "every group in Ireland aelic, Hiberno-Norman or Anglo-Irishproduced merchants who benefited from the slave trade and the expanding slave colonies." However, historians have noted that "very little of the slave trade profits actually wound up in Ireland." During this same period, the transatlantic slave trade was transporting millions of Africans across the Atlantic and bringing them to various European colonies in the Americas, where they were purchased by European colonists and put to work. Although the
Navigation Acts The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The ...
prevented Ireland from participating directly in the slave trade, Irish merchants of different religious and social backgrounds generated significant wealth by exporting goods to overseas plantations and importing slave-produced goods into Ireland as part of the
triangular trade Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset ...
. Exports of salted and pickled provisions to colonies were central to economic expansion in
Georgian era The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian Kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the relatively short reign of Will ...
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
,
Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
, and
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, while imports of West Indian
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double s ...
contributed to urban growth and the rise of a Catholic middle class. Rodgers concluded that by the end of the 18th century "Ireland was very much a part of the Black Atlantic World". Some Irishmen worked as "agents of empire". Jane Ohlmeyer notes that by 1660, Irishmen, both Protestants and Catholics, "were to be found in the
French Caribbean The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe, ...
, the
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
and later Dutch Amazon, Spanish Mexico, and the English colonies in the Atlantic where they... forged commercial networks as they traded
calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick tha ...
s,
spices A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices ar ...
,
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus ''Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chie ...
, sugar, and slaves." The French port of
Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabit ...
, in particular, was dominated by a community of exiled Irish
Jacobites Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...
, and rose to prominence in the 18th century as France's foremost slave trading port. Irish-Catholics made up more than two-thirds of the
Anglo-Caribbean The Commonwealth Caribbean is the region of the Caribbean with English-speaking countries and territories, which once constituted the Caribbean portion of the British Empire and are now part of the Commonwealth of Nations. The term includes m ...
island of Montserrat's plantation owners as early as the 17th century, and according to historian
Donald Akenson Donald Harman Akenson (born May 22, 1941, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American historian and author. Notably prolific, he has written at least 23 book-length, scholarly monographs, 3 jointly-authored scholarly books, 6 works of fiction and histo ...
"they knew how to be hard and efficient slave masters." American historian Brian Kelly cautions against indicting "the country as a whole" as "overwhelmingly the benefits of Ireland’s involvement in transatlantic slavery went to the same class that presided over the misery that culminated in the horrors of famine and mass starvation."


Origins and propagation

According to historian Liam Kennedy, the idea of 'Irish slavery' was popular within the nineteenth-century Irish independence movement
Young Ireland Young Ireland ( ga, Éire Óg, ) was a political and cultural movement in the 1840s committed to an all-Ireland struggle for independence and democratic reform. Grouped around the Dublin weekly ''The Nation'', it took issue with the compromise ...
. Young Irelander
John Mitchel John Mitchel ( ga, Seán Mistéal; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalist activist, author, and political journalist. In the Famine years of the 1840s he was a leading writer for ''The Nation'' newspaper produced by the ...
was particularly vocal in his claim that the Irish had been enslaved, although he was a supporter of the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in the Americas, enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the tria ...
. An ''
Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'' article notes that
Irish republicans Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The developm ...
"are intent on drawing direct parallels between the experiences of black people under slavery and of Irish people under British rule", which has in turn been repurposed "by white supremacist groups in the US to attack and denigrate the African-American experience of slavery." According to history professor Ciaran O’Neill of
Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...
, while those most active in propagating myth – who are often located in Australia and the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
– "want to create false equivalence between the Atlantic slave trade and the phenomenon of indentured Irish labour in the Caribbean" for the purpose of undermining the
Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brutali ...
movement, research librarian and independent scholar Liam Hogan "also makes the point that this narrative has been used to help obscure the fact that many Irish people participated in and profited from slavery." In the ''
Dublin Review of Books The ''Dublin Review of Books'' (''drb'') is an Irish review of literature, history, the arts, and culture. The magazine publishes long-form essays exploring themes related to newly published books; shorter, more conventional book reviews; blog ...
'', professor Bryan Fanning states: "The popularity of the 'Irish slaves' meme cannot simply be blamed on the online propaganda of white supremacist groups. There are several elements at play beyond the deliberate falsification of the past. Widespread acceptance online of a false equivalence between chattel slavery and the treatment of Irish migrants appears to be rooted in Irish narratives of victimhood that continue to be articulated within Ireland’s cultural and political mainstreams." Irish people's history has embraced both a legacy of identification with the oppressed, and elements of racism in the service of Irish nationalism, according to Fanning.


In print

A number of books have been written on the subject, including ''White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America''; and ''The Irish Slaves: Slavery, Indenture and Contract Labor Among Irish Immigrants''. According to Hogan, the most influential book to assert the myth was ''They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America'', self-published in the US in 1993 by
conspiracy theorist A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
and
Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...
Michael A. Hoffman II (who blamed Jews for the Atlantic slave trade). ''To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland'' (2000)'','' by Irish writer
Sean O'Callaghan Sean O'Callaghan (10 October 1954 – 23 August 2017) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s worked against the organisation from within as an intelligence agent for the Irish Gov ...
, is advertised as "a vivid account of the Irish slave trade: the previously untold story of over 50,000 Irish men, women and children who were transported to Barbados and Virginia." The book continued the same themes as Hoffman, and introduced the concept of Irish women being forcibly bred with Africans. Other authors repeated these lurid descriptions of Irish women being compelled to have sex with African men. The book has been described as shoddily researched. Brian Kelly calls the book "highly problematic" and writes: "The careless blurring of the lines between slavery and indenture in O’Callaghan’s work, rooted in sentimental nationalism than a commitment to white supremacy – provided an aura of credibility for the ‘Irish slaves’ meme that it would not have otherwise enjoyed." According to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', "In America, 'Callaghan'sbook connected the white slave narrative to an influential ethnic group
Irish-Americans , image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png , image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state , caption = Notable Irish Americans , population = 36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
] of over 34 million people, many of whom had been raised on stories of Irish rebellion against Britain and tales of anti-Irish bias in America at the turn of the 20th century. From there, it took off."


Online

O'Callaghan's claims were repeated on Irish genealogy websites, the Canadian
conspiracy theory A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
website '' GlobalResearch.ca'', and
Niall O'Dowd Niall O'Dowd (born 18 May 1953) in County Tipperary, Ireland, is an Irish American journalist and author living in the United States. He was involved in the negotiations leading to the Northern Irish Good Friday Peace Agreement. He is founde ...
's ''IrishCentral''. The 2008 article on ''GlobalResearch.ca'' has been a significant online source for the myth, having been shared almost a million times by March 2016. The myth has been spread on
white nationalist White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwo ...
message boards, 
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post– World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...
websites, the far-right conspiracy website ''
InfoWars ''InfoWars'' is an American far-right conspiracy theory and fake news website owned by Alex Jones. It was founded in 1999, and operates under Free Speech Systems LLC. Talk shows and other content for the site are created primarily in stud ...
'', and has been shared millions of times on Facebook. The myth was shared in the form of a meme, frequently used historical paintings or photographs purposefully misidentified via historical falsifications. For example, images of child labourers, paintings of Roman-era slaves, and photographs of
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...
were all falsely captioned as evidence of Irish slaves. "Almost all of the popular 'Irish slaves' articles are promoted by websites or Facebook groups based in the U.S. So it’s predominantly a social media phenomenon of white America." The myth is especially popular with apologists for the Confederate States of America, the secessionist
slave state In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...
s of the South during the American Civil War. The myth has been a common trope on the
white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
website '' Stormfront'' since 2003. It has circulated widely in the United States, and has recently begun to become common in Ireland after the "Irish slaves"
meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...
went viral on social media in 2013. After the 2014 arrival of the
Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brutali ...
movement, the myth was frequently referenced by right-wing
white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
attempting to undermine it and other African-American civil rights issues, according to Aidan McQuade, director of
Anti-Slavery International Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest intern ...
. In August 2015, the meme was referred to in the context of debates about the continued flying of the Confederate flag, following the
Charleston church shooting On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...
. In May 2016, it was referenced by prominent members of
Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
, after their leader
Gerry Adams Gerard Adams ( ga, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. ...
, "while seeking to compare the treatment of African Americans with Catholics in Northern Ireland", became involved in a controversy over his use of the word "
nigger In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cas ...
" in a false-equivalence reference to Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland. ''
Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'' columnist Donald Clarke criticises the myth as being racist, writing that "more commonly we see racists using the myth to belittle the suffering visited on black slaves and to siphon some sympathy towards their own clan." According to ''The New York Times'', the myth is "often politically motivated" and has been used to create "racist barbs" against African-Americans. Several online articles about "Irish slaves" substituted the 132 African victims of the 1781
Zong massacre The ''Zong'' massacre was a mass killing of more than 130 African enslaved people by the crew of the British slaver ship ''Zong'' on and in the days following 29 November 1781. The William Gregson slave-trading syndicate, based in Liverpool ...
with Irish victims. ''GlobalResearch.ca'' and ''InfoWars'', both conspiracy websites, inflated the number from 132 victims to 1,302 during such substitutions. In 2015, independent scholar Liam Hogan theorized that the juxtaposing of the ''Zong'' massacre with Irish penal labourers originated with a 2002 article, by James Mullin, then chair of the
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
-based Irish Famine Curriculum Committee and Education Fund, titled, "Out of Africa". Though Mullin did not misidentify the victims of the ''Zong'' Massacre, his article nevertheless blurred the line between the history of African slavery in colonial America with the history of Irish indentured servants sent to English colonies in North America.


Academic criticism and responses

The ''
Irish Examiner The ''Irish Examiner'', formerly ''The Cork Examiner'' and then ''The Examiner'', is an Irish national daily newspaper which primarily circulates in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, though it is available throughout the country ...
'' removed an article that cited John Martin's 'Globalresearch.ca' piece from its website in early 2016 after 82 writers, historians and academics wrote an open letter condemning the myth. ''
Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...
'' published a blog post in 2015, which was also debunked in the open letter, and later heavily revised the blog to remove the incorrect historical material. Writing in ''The New York Times'', Liam Stack noted that inaccurate "Irish slavery" claims "also appeared on ''IrishCentral'', a leading Irish-American news website." In 2017 ''IrishCentral'' publisher Niall O'Dowd then wrote an op-ed in which he states that "there is no way the Irish slave experience mirrored the extent or level of centuries-long degradation that African slaves went through." In 2020, the website said that propagation of false social media about Irish slaves are "attempts to trivialize and deny centuries institutionalized, race-based slavery." Sean O'Callaghan's book ''To Hell or Barbados'' in particular has been criticised by, among others, Nini Rodgers, who stated that his narrative appeared to arise from his horror at seeing white people being treated on the same social level with blacks. Bryan Fanning notes the book ignored scholarly research. Anthropologist Mark Auslander states in a 2017 article that the current racial climate is leaning toward denial of certain events in history: "There is a strange war on memory that's going on right now, denying the facts of chattel slavery, or claiming to have learned on Facebook or social media that, say, Irish slavery was worse, that white people were enslaved as well. Not true." Historians note that unlike slaves, many indentured servants willingly entered into contracts, served for a finite period, did not pass their unfree status on to their children, and were still considered fully human. In ''
Jezebel Jezebel (;"Jezebel"
(US) and
) was the daughte ...
'', Matthew Reilly states clearly: "The Irish slave myth is not supported by the historical evidence. Thousands of Irish were sent to colonies like Barbados against their will, never to return. Upon their arrival, however, they were socially and legally distinct from the enslaved Africans with whom they often labored. While not denying the vast hardships endured by indentured servants, it is necessary to recognize the differences between forms of labor in order to understand the depths of the inhumane system of chattel slavery that endured in the region for several centuries, as well as the legacies of race-based slavery in our own times." According to Hogan, the debate over the exact definition of slavery allowed for a grey area in historical discourse that was then seized upon as a political weapon by white supremacists.


References


Further reading

* * * * * *{{Cite news , author=Reuters Staff , date=2020-06-19 , title=Fact check: First slaves in North American colonies were not "100 white children from Ireland" , language=en , work=Reuters , url=https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-irish-slaves-idUSKBN23O2BS , access-date=2020-09-16


External links


"Episode 10: The Irish Slaves Myth"
Anti-black racism in Europe Anti-black racism in the United States Historiography of Ireland History of slavery Indentured servitude in the Americas Irish-American history Irish Caribbean Irish diaspora in North America Irish nationalism Penal labour Propaganda in the United States Pseudohistory White nationalism in the United States White supremacy Victimology