I’m white, yet I can claim a reparation.  You roll your eyes and think, “Another boring article on a subject about which almost everything has been written.”  Well, yes and no. 

First, why reparations?  The governors of each colony knew that labor is essential for economic survival, so they provided incentives for plantation owners to import laborers.  For each laborer brought across the Atlantic, plantation owners were given 50 acres of land.  Plantation owners used this system to dramatically increase their land holdings.  The plantation owners imported slaves for labor.  It’s descendants of the African origin slaves who claim reparations are owed them.

Now, writing about reparations.

“Yes” if reparations are viewed as the result of a single historical event.  “No” if reparations are viewed as a concept that can be accessed exclusively by blacks or African-Americans.  Why yes or no?  Because slavery in America was not limited to people from Africa.

It’s true that people from Africa arrived in Virginia in 1619.  English privateers attacked the Portuguese slave ship São João Bautista in the Gulf of Mexico and took the Africans by force.  The privateer ship White Lion brought the Africans to Old Point Comfort in the colony of Virginia.  There, its captain sold 15 women and 17 men to English colonists.  The “history” upon which reparations for African slaves is based can be found in The New York Times’ 1619 Project.

It’s not true, however, that there were no white slaves; that all whites chose to come to America; or that only Africans were kidnapped, shackled, and forcibly sent here.  It’s not true that only Africans suffered through the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic, that only Africans were beaten, whipped, sold on auction blocks, were forcibly separated from their families, that only African women were raped by slave-masters, that only Africans were brutalized by their masters to the point where they ran away.

“Lily-white” Irish people were also slaves.  This is the basis for my claim.  My family name, Beatty, is of Irish origin, is derived from the Gaelic name Mac Bhiadhtaigh, a name derived from the word “biadhtach,” which translates to “food provider” or “hospitable.”    

The brutalities associated with African slaves were also inflicted upon Irish slaves.  It in no way detracts from African slaves’ suffering to say that Irish slaves suffered agonies in common with African slaves.  Some Irish slaves were treated with less humanity than the African slaves working beside them.  It was not humane feelings, but economics that drove the difference between treatment of Irish slaves and African slaves.  As property, African slaves were valuable.  An African slave with a broken back or a shattered limb was a wasted asset.  An Irishman, be he slave or indentured (more on this below), by contrast, was expendable.

The ever-truthful regardless of politics Snopes tried to dodge the Irish slaves issue by referring to the Irish as “indentured servants.”  The term applied to European immigrants who sold their labor for a period of years (usually five to seven) in exchange for passage to the Americas.  The term was a “deceptively mild label” applied to hundreds of thousands of Irish men, women, and children shipped from Britain to America and the Caribbean.

A contract was written that stipulated the length of indentured service.  The indentured servant would then have his fare across the Atlantic paid by his plantation owner.  The indentured servant would be supplied room and board while working in the plantation owner’s fields. 

This appeared as a great way for poor Europeans to reach America.  This was however not often the case.  Only about 40 percent of indentured servants lived to complete the terms of their contracts.  Female indentured servants were often subjected to harassment from their masters.  A woman who became pregnant while an indentured servant often had years tacked on to the end of her service time.

Snopes also says that unlike slaves, indentured servants were not considered property.  Here’s an interesting fact that Snopes conveniently (on purpose?) overlooked: indentured servants could be sold, loaned, or inherited, at least during the duration of their contract.  If indentured servants were not considered property, how could they be sold, loaned, or inherited?

Indentured servants lived under conditions so brutal that most were whipped and beaten, sometimes to death.  When they escaped, ads were placed in newspapers for their capture, just like slaves.

Further, indentured servants did not always enter into voluntary contracts.  There is overwhelming evidence that many of them were kidnapped by organized criminal rings and sent to work on American plantations.

The left-leaning Pacific Standard Magazine did its best to say Irish slavery is a myth.  It reported that the Irish were indentured servants.  This article quotes Limerick City librarian Liam Lawson: “While the majority of Irish people who became indentured servants in the colonies did so willingly (why they felt they had to so is, of course, another question), a not insignificant number were forcibly deported and sold into indentured servitude.”

Did you catch the last of Lawson’s statement?  Even Lawson, while attempting to debunk the Irish slavery fact, stated, “A not insignificant number were forcibly deported and sold into indentured servitude.”  “Forcibly deported”?   “Sold”?  That sounds exactly like what happened to slaves from Africa. 

You will be comforted to know that the article that quotes Lawson says he is “well known to his 30,000-plus Twitter followers and readers as a passionate and informed voice working against the myths of Irish slavery.”  Great reference.

It seems that the Snopes fact-checkers also missed (on purpose?) this fact: 850,000 Irish were killed during the Confederation War of 1641–1652.  When the war ended, the English government forcibly transported Irish men, women, and children to the American colonies.  The Irish slave trade began in earnest when King James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to America.  Great Britain’s famous Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice.  Over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold by him as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia, and New England during the 1650s.  Fifty-two thousand Irish (mostly women and children) were sold in Barbados and Virginia.  This video presents an interesting perspective about the entire Irish slavery episode.

So, all you Irish, claim your reparation.  You are as entitled to one as any “person of color.”  When any government begins paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves, let them begin payments also to the descendants of the Irish.

Image via PickPik.