Talk:Irish indentured servants

Going too far against the myth?

Its very obvious that white supremacists are basically trying to downplay the black experience in America by conflating indentured servitude with slavery. Its clearly a deflection and the attempt to mitigate black slavery is full of falsehoods. However, upon searching this I feel like the debunkers are going a bit too far. My question is if there is a some truth to this Irish slave myth? From what I understand slavery existed in Ireland as it has existed most places. They issue here shouldn't be confused with English mistreatment of the Irish in Ireland which many proponents of the Irish sale myth try to do. These atrocities are very well known(famines, repression, racism). Similarly we need to be vigilante and point out attempts to conflate mistreatment of free people with slavery. Plenty of miners and industrial workers died on job sites in work accidents, they weren't slaves because they had very hard lives. Even when indentured servants who toiled in fields were beaten they still weren't slaves.

But, how much truth, if any, can be found in the idea hat the Irish are being brought to the Americas as slaves the way Africans were? Most myths have some nugget of truth at their core. From my limited research it seems like Cromwell sent some 10's of thousands of political prisoners to the Caribbean as slaves after his invasion. But thats it. The rest seem to have gone to the Caribbean or North America voluntarily, either as very poorly treated servants, indentured servants, or as free people. There was definitely discrimination against them, people seemed to view the Irish beneath other Europeans, especially ones who were Protestant. I'm assuming its possible because slavery did exist in Ireland that Irish slaves may have been brought to the new world with their masters, who themselves may have been Irish or English. To sum up, I'm looking for a reliable number on how many people of Irish descent were brought to North America as actual LEGAL slaves.

My other issue is that only this Liam Hogan fellow is really being cited. Even articles not written by him seem to be using him a their main source. We need more work from other authors.

NeoStalinist (talk) 04:58, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

See Irish slave trade. Alfie Gandon (talk) 11:45, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

So basically there wasn't one in America. Aside from the initial political prisoners(~50,000) Cromwell sent over that was it for the "Irish-Atalnitc Salve Trade". I'd like to thank you for your answer and your work on these two articles. They're both really good so far. NeoStalinist (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2016 (UTC)