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Politesub53 -> RE: The hidden backlash…what many white Americans I know really think about race in America. (7/21/2013 3:43:46 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
Before the African slave trade got into full swing, the need for labor in the colonies was supplied by white slaves. They were mainly Irish, though many were shipped from Britain and Scotland as well. There was in some cases a pretense of indenture and eventual manumission, but in the meantime they were property. They could be bought and sold as chattel. And in practice, few lived long enough or were paid enough ever to see the light of freedom.
The white slave trade in America preceded and continued for a time alongside the trade in African slaves. White slaves were cheaper than African slaves. But as the colonies grew, even the wholesale rape of Ireland could not supply sufficient labor. Note, too, that in addition to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, whites in southern Europe routinely fell victim to a flourishing Mediterranean slave trade.
And, it wasn't just whites who owned slaves in America. Blacks and Indians also owned slaves, including white slaves. So claims that the history of black slavery in America supports some kind of special entitlement for blacks, or excuses or explains the violent and dysfunctional sub-culture within the black community that is responsible almost half of our entire national homicide rate, are pure and unmitigated bunk.
The Irish Slave Trade - The Forgotten White Slaves: The slaves that time forgot
When Europeans were Slaves: Research suggests white slavery was much more common than previously believed
K.
It is nonsense to suggest the majority of indentured/transported whites in the US were Irish. Most were convicts, many were children kidnapped of off the streets of the major British cities. Almost all were the poor. Many were tradesmen such as carpenters arrested on trumped up charges and sent to plantations to work. Transportation as such stopped in America in 1776. It carried on right up until the 1850s in Australia though. Right up until the 1970s children from orphanages were being sent to Australia, ostensibly for a better laugh, but more often than not hard work and abuse was the norm.
Its an irony and a disgrace that long after slavery was abolished in the UK, Parliament refsued to ban sending ten year olds up chimneys, as they were considered property of the bosses.
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