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"There is no race of people on earth that hasn't at some point in time enslaved its own people, including blacks enslaving other blacks. That’s why one race trying to make another race feel uniquely guilty for slavery is really very stupid."
This was 1656 according to the blog in the OP, and I don't recall England even having many colonies at the time although I agree that between 1642 and 1651 lots of people were killed, however the majority were in England and due to the English Civil Wars, which saw the highest percentage of the population killed of any war in Englands history overshadowing even the two world wars. Has this idiot even picked up a history book.
The figures quoted are even more stupid, and he doesn't seem to understand that King James VI was a Scottish King and that Britain didn't even exist at the time, the act of union was not signed until 1707 .
As already stated Cromwell is a hated and despised figure and he was responsible for the killing of many people in across the British Isles and not just in Ireland.
It seems like the blogger is trying to reinforce some pantomime sterotype of the poor unfortuante Irish and the wicked English, when in fact it's a lot more complex than that, indeed Cromwell was hated by many people in England. Even the Irish themselves get sick and tired of a lot of this nonsense, and up to 35% of the population in many Englush cities such as Manchester and Liverpool can claim Irish ancestry ,as many Irish people crossed the short jorney across the Irish Sea to find employment and opportunity.
Even the NYT has taken up this issue with a story in today's paper describing the Irish slave theory as a nasty meme that's now widely circulating on the internet.
It has shown up on Irish trivia Facebook pages, in Scientific American magazine, and on white nationalist message boards: the little-known story of the Irish slaves who built America, who are sometimes said to have outnumbered and been treated worse than slaves from Africa.
But it’s not true.
Historians say the idea of Irish slaves is based on a misreading of history and that the distortion is often politically motivated. Far-right memes have taken off online and are used as racist barbs against African-Americans. “The Irish were slaves, too,” the memes often say. “We got over it, so why can’t you?”
Intriguing to take a look at the political transformation of various populations over the years, many which remain surprising identifiable even in the so-called U.S. melting pot.
Indentured or not, "slave" or not, what political impact did the "Irish" have on America? There were two separate populations or cultural groupings with two different answers. Most of the so-called Irish described in this thread have but shallow roots to Ireland. They are the Protestant Scots-Irish of the Colonial Era (many of whom came thru Ulster, some directly from border counties of Scotland and England) who spread through the southern Appalachian backcountry and were in the forefront of the frontier that moved west towards Texas. Fiercely independent and suspicious of government, they became the dominant cultural group in these areas with ideologies often expressed in the form of the "Tea Party" and the like.
The Irish of St. Patrick's Day? The Catholic Irish arrived much later forming tight-knit communities in Northern cities, but largely integrated into and adopted so-called Yankee politics. Those smaller numbers of Catholic Irish that did emigrate to the South integrated into *that* political structure, later supporting the Confederate side in the Civil War. The two distinctly different "American" ideologies continue to battle today, albeit in elections and on the internet.
THis story is a white supremacist lie intended to portray white poeple as victims.
I studied Irish history the first thing that proves this story is bull, it that they did not even bother to check the popluation stats. freely available and extremely accurate going back 800 years. Yes you read that correctly.
Perhaps the only folks who're not surprised by the re-emergence of these mythologies & the normalization of such are the Racial Nationalists & Supremacists et al:
Quote:
...Trump’s appeal to his base has two main components: the promise of a return to prosperity and an “America First” identity politics. But one seems to have outweighed the other. “If it were just an economic issue, there would be blacks and Latinos lining up behind Trump,” says Nell Irvin Painter, a historian at Princeton University. In reality, the line between “America First” and “whites first” is hopelessly blurred.
Which is of course, where the alt-right gets excited. “Donald Trump is certainly not a member of the alt-right,” says Jared Taylor, a prominent alt-right leader and head of the white supremacist New Century Foundation. “But he seems to have instinctively, clumsily stumbled upon some of the policies that we’ve been promoting for a long time.” To alt-right leaders, Donald Trump is less messiah than a convenient, half-enlightened monkey wrench thrown into the political machine.
But they see in his anti-immigrant and isolationist policies a future for their interests. “It’s impossible to know how many people voted for Trump based on feelings of racial dispossession. But a Trump presidency reopens a closed book,” Taylor says. ...
It's not complicated. If the Irish had the same experience as Africans in America's, they would be in no better situation today than African Americans. Any group of people oppressed like African Americans, in the same time and place as African Americans, would be in the situation that African Americans are in today. African Americans still live in the lands of their oppression. Most other oppressed groups migrated from their oppressed lands before they did better.
That having been said....white supremacy HAS to attempt to show that others have been through what blacks have been through to argue implicitly that blacks are inferior. In other words, those who see blacks as an inferior race need to discredit the oppression of blacks as having created the inferior conditions of blacks today relative to other races.
Yes, the Irish were enslaved in the United States and the Caribbean.
This is both false and foolish. Africans from over 45 different ethnicities were enslaved throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. The Irish are one group that was later integrated into the white population. Not comparable.
That's not a complaint. Those are facts.
Some of you cannot keep Obama out of your mouths. As for AAs, most were quite happy during his tenure. But you know that already...
Actually the Irish arrived at a time of need for America. The country was growing and it needed men to do the heavy work of building bridges, canals, and railroads. It was hard, dangerous work, a common expression heard among the railroad workers was "an Irishman was buried under every tie." Desperation drove them to these jobs.
Not only the men worked, but the women too. They became chamber maids, cooks, and the caretakers of children. Early Americans disdained this type of work, fit only for servants, the common sentiment being, "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place..." The Blacks hated the Irish and it appeared to be a mutual feeling. They were the first to call the Irish "white ******."
The days of "No Irish Need Apply" passed. St.Patrick day parade replaced violent confrontations. The Irish not only won acceptance for their day, but persuaded everyone else to become Irish at least for St.Patrick's Day.
Moral of the story stop the hate and find the tie that binds you to America.
Actually the Irish arrived at a time of need for America. The country was growing and it needed men to do the heavy work of building bridges, canals, and railroads. It was hard, dangerous work, a common expression heard among the railroad workers was "an Irishman was buried under every tie." Desperation drove them to these jobs.
Not only the men worked, but the women too. They became chamber maids, cooks, and the caretakers of children. Early Americans disdained this type of work, fit only for servants, the common sentiment being, "Let Negroes be servants, and if not Negroes, let Irishmen fill their place..." The Blacks hated the Irish and it appeared to be a mutual feeling. They were the first to call the Irish "white ******."
The days of "No Irish Need Apply" passed. St.Patrick day parade replaced violent confrontations. The Irish not only won acceptance for their day, but persuaded everyone else to become Irish at least for St.Patrick's Day.
Moral of the story stop the hate and find the tie that binds you to America.
Downing a mug of green beer or putting on a green tie once a year? Please be serious here.
The stats on far more relevant indicators?
Look how many Americans proudly claim partial Irish ancestry where only a few decades ago many states had laws on the books forbidding interracial marriages.
As for Blacks "hating" the Irish with the feeling mutual ... what in the world is THAT about? Common for two subordinate groups fighting for the bottom dregs to either set themselves against each other - or BE set.
Interesting point...to be precise..their contracts were what was transferable---and under the law...indentured servants were not property..in the same sense as the African slaves.
The difference being..that the African was deemed sub-human, thus they fell into the same category as beasts of burden.
The indentured servant was still deemed human and indeed..technically...had recourse under the law.
The reality was that an indentured servant's word in court was seldom listened to.
IMHO..comparing indentured servitude to African slavery is interesting..but in the end...the one was not the other.
The only difference was, indentured servants earned their freedom after a period of time. It was sort of a barter system where the person you were indebted to paid for your boat trip to America and in return you worked for an agreed period of time. And yes the Irish were looked upon as sub human by many. Many employers put signs up, "Irish need not apply".
It's not complicated. If the Irish had the same experience as Africans in America's, they would be in no better situation today than African Americans. Any group of people oppressed like African Americans, in the same time and place as African Americans, would be in the situation that African Americans are in today. African Americans still live in the lands of their oppression. Most other oppressed groups migrated from their oppressed lands before they did better.
That having been said....white supremacy HAS to attempt to show that others have been through what blacks have been through to argue implicitly that blacks are inferior. In other words, those who see blacks as an inferior race need to discredit the oppression of blacks as having created the inferior conditions of blacks today relative to other races.
The difference here is, the Irish picked up and moved on, many blacks still live in victimhood mode.
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