We all know perfectly well that today's black Americans are the descendants of slaves who were once brought from Africa. But not only African blacks became slaves. Whites could have become them. Moreover, they were valued much cheaper.
Where did the white slaves come from?
"… The first slaves in the American colonies were white and came from Europe," - says the writer Alexander Bushkov in the book "The Unknown War. The Secret History of the United States ".
For example, during the reign of the English monarchs James II and Charles I, the Irish were sold into slavery. By a proclamation of 1625, tens of thousands of political prisoners or those persecuted for their religious beliefs were sent abroad. They were to be sold to English colonists in the West Indies, Virginia, Barbados, and New England. At the same time, the Irish were not allowed to take their families with them. Their wives and children were also sold through special slave auctions. IN
In 1656, Oliver Cromwell, who came to power, ordered 2,000 Irish children to be sent to Jamaica, where they passed into the hands of the English conquistadors. Quite often, white children, especially in port cities, were simply kidnapped to sell to slave traders.
Children from the age of six were sent to factories, where they worked 16 hours a day and were mistreated. Often, factory machines crippled them and they simply died on the street.
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Everything for the sake of profit
By the end of the 17th century, African slaves, who were still exotic, cost an average of £ 50, while a slave of Irish descent cost only £ 5.
The fact is that there were much more light-skinned slaves. The attitude towards black and white slaves was also corresponding. Expensive blacks were taken care of, but an Irishman could be beaten to death by a planter. In addition, white Irish slaves often became concubines of their masters. Gradually, the colonists came up with the idea that they began to interbreed Irish girls and women with Africans in order to get mulatto slaves, the cost of which was quite high. The practice was so widespread that a law was passed in the United States in 1681 banning it "for the purpose of producing slaves for sale." But it was not at all the rights of the slaves themselves that he defended, it was just that such “pairing” prevented professional slave traders from making a profit.
The white slave trade continued for over a century. So, after the Irish Uprising of 1798, thousands more Irish got on board slave ships going to America and Australia. Many of them died on the way, as they were practically not fed and were not allowed anywhere from the holds, where they were in shackles, and the sailing period was up to 3 months. “It’s as if British traders had diverted their ships from the African coast to
the coast of Ireland, and white servants rode in much the same conditions as African slaves, "wrote Warren Smith in White Slavery in Colonial South Carolina. Historian Sharon Salinger states: "Scattered evidence suggests that mortality among [white] servants at other times equaled [black] slaves en route from Africa, and in some periods exceeded mortality [black] slaves."
Although England ceased to engage in the slave trade in 1839, English pirates captured ships, took passengers and crew prisoners and sold them as slaves.
Contracted slaves
Some fell into slavery voluntarily. They were mainly poor English and Irish peasants and artisans who lost their livelihoods as a result of the industrial revolution in England. If, for some reason, a person wanted to move to the New World, but he did not have money, recruiters offered him to sign a contract, according to which he was obliged to work out the costs of being a servant-slave for five years. Upon arrival, these Irishmen were also sold at auction, they were simply called otherwise - "contract servants". Not everyone completed the deadline - some fled earlier because of the terrible living and working conditions. Sometimes such a slave never got his freedom due to the formation of new debts.
Another category of "contract servants" or "servants" were convicted criminals from Europe. Usually they had to work for the owners for 7 years.
Forgotten page of history
White slaves often escaped. Often they were caught, severely punished, branded, and sometimes executed. However, some managed to move to the West, to border settlements, where they seized foreign lands and turned into squatters. If the colonial authorities tried to drive them out of the occupied areas, the squatters rebelled against them with weapons in their hands. Sometimes they conspired with black slaves and raised joint revolts against the slave owners. “In 1661, the rebels under the leadership of Freud and Clutton not only put together a detachment, but even got guns and were going to march across the country, gathering both white slaves and blacks, and intended to seek freedom for all …”, - says A. Bushkov.
A small part of white slaves, who once arrived from Europe, managed to get through to the "top". Some even later entered the so-called "high society". But many in slavery did not live even a year.
The white slave trade fell in the 18th century due to an increase in the number of black slaves from Africa. Moreover, slavery of blacks was lifelong, while whites at that time could be turned into captivity, as a rule, only for a certain period. The children of the black slave also became the property of his master. In addition, African blacks were more accustomed to farming.
Today, the history of white slavery in the United States is diligently hushed up. There is almost no mention of this even in reference books and textbooks. Apparently, there are reasons for this …
Irina Shlionskaya
