Irish indentured servants

This article is about the history of Irish indentured servants. For the myth that some of these servants were slaves, see Irish slaves myth. For indentured servitude more generally, see Indentured servitude.
Modern map of the Caribbean. The Irish went to Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands.

Irish indentured servants were Irish people who became indentured servants in territories under the control of the British Empire, such as the British West Indies (particularly Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands), British North America and later Australia.

Indentures agreed to provide up to seven years of labor in return for passage to the New World and food, housing, and shelter during their indenture. At the end of this period, their masters were legally required to grant them "freedom dues" in the form of either land or capital. An indentured servant's contract could be extended as punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female servants, becoming pregnant.[1]

Those transported unwillingly were not indentures. They were political prisoners, vagrants, or people who had been defined as "undesirable" by the English state.[2] Penal transportation of Irish people was at its height during the 17th century, during the Cromwellian conquest and settlement of Ireland (1649–1653).[2] During this period, thousands of Irish people were sent to the Caribbean, or "Barbadosed", against their will.[3] Similar practices continued as late as the Victorian period, with Irish political prisoners sent to imperial British penal colonies in Australia.[4] Indentures and transportees have been conflated, though they were different.

  1. ^ Detectives, History. "Indentured Servants In The U.S." PBS.org. Oregon Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  2. ^ a b Beckles, Hilary McD. (1990). "A "riotous and Unruly Lot": Irish Indentured Servants and Freemen in the English West Indies, 1644–1713". The William and Mary Quarterly. 47 (4): 503–22. doi:10.2307/2937974. JSTOR 2937974.
  3. ^ Block, Kristen; Shaw, Jenny (1 Feb 2011) [19 Jan 2011]. "Subjects Without an Empire: The Irish in the Early Modern Caribbean". Past and Present (210): 33–60. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtq059. Accessed 2018-10-31.
  4. ^ IrishCentral Staff (11 January 2018). "Fenian convicts transported to Perth remembered in festival". IrishCentral.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2021.