Irish Indentured Servants

[Cyanna]

Yes, the use of indentured servants did become very rare in the mid-19th century, but it did still occur sometimes

[calvinbama]

The oldest surname ancestor I know of in the US was born in south carolina in the 1770's. I never even imagined our family coming over as indentured servants from Ireland. If they were indentured immigrants, and my life here is a result of that then the differences in standard of living are amazing and I owe them very much!

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by calvinbama

The oldest surname ancestor I know of in the US was born in south carolina in the 1770's. I never even imagined our family coming over as indentured servants from Ireland. If they were indentured immigrants, and my life here is a result of that then the differences in standard of living are amazing and I owe them very much!

I have no facts to back this up other than my own family tree but it seems like the indentured servants or their descendents pretty much all supported the American revolution as patriots. Many of those folks who came here with greater affluence seemed to have more often sided with the tories.

[cokatie]

Originally Posted by queensgrl

I am trying to identify the circumstances surrounding my great-great-great grandmother and her two sons coming to America around the 1850s. They came from Ireland and my great-great-grandfather was indentured in Charlotte County, Virginia, was eventually "freed" and became an independent farmer.

I do not know what happened to his mother and brother. Surely this was a legal/financial transaction and there must be records somewhere. I really would like to know what part of Ireland they are from and what forced them into "slavery."

Rosie O'Donnell had a similar family story on her episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

Any help is appreciated.

There's a lot of old stories around various parishes in Ireland during this time period. Generally, farmers in a lot of parts of Ireland were what we know as "share-croppers". By that I mean that they were allotted a certain piece of the land to farm that they were responsible for. The land, however, was owned by an OverLord. This Lord was paid rent for the land the sharecroppers did. And yes, in most cases, the entirety of the land had probably once belonged to the poor guy's family that was now renting it out. But that gets into another story, so we'll just stay with this one.

Once the famine hit and no crops were coming, rents were still owed. You didn't pay, you were evicted from your hovel along with your family. By this point in the game, the Catholic Church was getting involved and trying to get more rights for farmers. Again, this is a WAY longer story, but part of the agreement would be to take the farmer and his able-bodied children, and send them off as indentured servants in either the US or Australia. They would work there for the agreed upon period, and then be free men again.

There are various links of the sheriff's/constables going door to door in the part of the country where my Mom's family is from. My Dad's side was not as impacted since it was always a bit of a Fenian stronghold with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and churlish mountains on another and enough local know-how on how to take care of their own.

When you look at the Rosie O'Donnell story, it was about people being driven off their farms (no doubt for non-payment of rent) and then being herded to a larger city where there was a Workhouse and various Christian groups there working to get them out of the country by any means necessary - and that included as indentured servants.

Let me know if you need anymore information.