Debunking a Myth: The Irish Were Not Slaves, Too

The drive for most of those who came here early, I'm referring to the period of 1620 to 1760 would have a mix of religious freedom, which we have been taught, but also the great bait on the hook was the opportunity to own your own land in amounts impossible in Europe.
The indentured servitude program had clauses that granted either gold or real estate when the servitude period was met.
Lucky was the one who fulfilled his obligations and receive his allotted land, in our ancestors case Casper Jacobse had the good fortune of being sponsored by Van Ressaler, and being of good health became a holder of much real estate which he paid 6 beaver skins per year for! He owned several lots in Albany, his estate was next door to Philip Schuyler.
Six of his descendants served under Gen. Schuyler in the Revolutionary War and were granted land warrants. Which were used to claim land in Pennsylvania.
He was lucky not to end up in a southern colony where clearing swamps and planting tobacco and rice was the norm.


Rats! Now I must go back and look- you're bringing up names. Schuyler, Yates- counties in NY the New Amsterdam ancestors settled. Huson was one although at the time Hughson and fought for the Wrong George- we've never been able to figure out how in heck they managed to keep their lands, post war. The rest were Dutch. My aunt has a few back to their first days here, this makes me wish to know more. It does seem, no matter what, the human spirit chose that chance to go somewhere, no matter how hard or how great the odds.

Seems a combination, luck and some kind of insane drive. I mean really, for an indentured servant to know, the ridiculous amount of misery suffered that day could be endured because one day it could lead to being a landowner, a successful, independent citizen- took unimaginable vision. I don't know. A revolution composed of so many men like this could hold a clue of why we succeeded against such great odds.
 
Indentured servitude was outlawed not to much beyond the Revolution if memory serves.

Lefty, no, indenture in fact survived into the 20th century. There is a long article on this, here. Following is among its footnotes, FYI:

95 HoLT, supra note 33, at 178-179 (“in 1927 12 states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska and Kansas still allowed indenture of institutional charges and children who had been turned over to the county poor farm authorities.”).
 
Lefty, no, indenture in fact survived into the 20th century. There is a long article on this, here. Following is among its footnotes, FYI:

95 HoLT, supra note 33, at 178-179 (“in 1927 12 states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska and Kansas still allowed indenture of institutional charges and children who had been turned over to the county poor farm authorities.”).
I went to the end note and it really doesn't say much at all. I read part of the article and it's about orphan trains.
1. It is not about Irish slavery.
2. Unlike Indentured servants their is no financial payment or land given to orphans.
3. Does the article state that the orphans had to work a set amount of hours for their adopted families?
4.Where the families allowed to beat the orphans if they didn't work?
5. Couldn't the orphan leave at 18?
6. Do we know for a fact that every orphan had to work a set amount of hours?
Perhaps you can flesh out your argument a little more.
Leftyhunter
 
Lefty, no, indenture in fact survived into the 20th century. There is a long article on this, here. Following is among its footnotes, FYI:

95 HoLT, supra note 33, at 178-179 (“in 1927 12 states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia, Nebraska and Kansas still allowed indenture of institutional charges and children who had been turned over to the county poor farm authorities.”).
At the end of page 6 of the link various states required that charities post bonds if they placed orphans in their states in order to insure said orphans don't become a public charge. Is that the reference you are referring to? If so that is not an example of indentured servitude. The report mentions that some orphan boys would runaway to other farms because they would be paid money to work their.
It's an interesting article but how is it the same as the practice of Indentured Servitude? Is it a terrible human rights violation to take a child out of the streets and require a few hours a day to work in a farm while they leave the evils of the urban slums behind? In other words where the urban orphans better off running in the street and joining local street gangs?
Where orphaned children abused? Most likely some where just like we constantly read in the papers of modern foster parents that abuse their charges. On the other hand parents abuse their biological children all the time so what is worse in terms of abuse per capita?
Leftyhunter
 
I went to the end note and it really doesn't say much at all. I read part of the article and it's about orphan trains.
1. It is not about Irish slavery.
2. Unlike Indentured servants their is no financial payment or land given to orphans.
3. Does the article state that the orphans had to work a set amount of hours for their adopted families?
4.Where the families allowed to beat the orphans if they didn't work?
5. Couldn't the orphan leave at 18?
6. Do we know for a fact that every orphan had to work a set amount of hours?
Perhaps you can flesh out your argument a little more.
Leftyhunter

It's not an 'argument.' You said indenture was outlawed after the Revolution. That is not true.

This thread is about the assertion of Irish slavery. We really ought to keep it to that.
 
It's not an 'argument.' You said indenture was outlawed after the Revolution. That is not true.

This thread is about the assertion of Irish slavery. We really ought to keep it to that.
Where in the article does it state that orphaned childten were mandated to work a set amount of hours for their adopted families? You brought the article in to the thread perhaps you could explain it's relevance? Did all rural families that adopted urban orphans have uniform set work standards for the orphans? Did rural families adopt physically or mentally disabled orphans who could not work?
Did some orphans work under harsh conditions or did they all?
Again it's your link and you might be right about the continuation of indentured servitude. It just needs to be fleshed out.
Leftyhunter
 
Where in the article does it state that orphaned childten were mandated to work a set amount of hours for their adopted families? You brought the article in to the thread perhaps you could explain it's relevance? Did all rural families that adopted urban orphans have uniform set work standards for the orphans? Did rural families adopt physically or mentally disabled orphans who could not work?
Did some orphans work under harsh conditions or did they all?
Again it's your link and you might be right about the continuation of indentured servitude. It just needs to be fleshed out.
Leftyhunter

Lefty, it doesn't need to be fleshed out in this thread. Look at the OP? It's about the assertion of Irish slavery.

Start a new thread about indenture if you wish. We oughtn't blow up this one. Cheers.
 
It's not an 'argument.' You said indenture was outlawed after the Revolution. That is not true.

This thread is about the assertion of Irish slavery. We really ought to keep it to that.
I stated if memory serves me correctly indentured servitude was outlawed shortly after the Revolutionary War. In fact Indentured servitude was outlawed wuite a bit later by the 13th Amendment although it eas on the sharp decline by the early 1800s. I didn't state it as a fact that Indentured servitude was outlawed shortly after the Revolutionary War.
Leftyhunter
 
I stated if memory serves me correctly indentured servitude was outlawed shortly after the Revolutionary War. In fact Indentured servitude was outlawed wuite a bit later by the 13th Amendment although it eas on the sharp decline by the early 1800s. I didn't state it as a fact that Indentured servitude was outlawed shortly after the Revolutionary War.
Leftyhunter

Alright, no harm, no foul. Has anyone found the Irish slaves yet?
 
Alright, no harm, no foul. Has anyone found the Irish slaves yet?
So far no they don't seem to have existed other then a right wing fantasy. Not to argue that being an indentured servant was all that great but then again neither was being poor to begin with. Especially being poor Catholic and discriminated against.
Leftyhunter
 
What year were said pictures of Irish children working on machines taken? Indentured servitude was outlawed not to much beyond the Revolution if memory serves. The Irish children may of been chil labourers. Not that child labor didn't have it's own issues but it wasn't the same as indentured servitude.
Leftyhunter
Since when did outlawing something make it go away? The world is full of people who don't give a flip about the law, so long as they can contrive to evade it.
 
Yep. It's a convenient deflection.


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I doubt, frankly, that most of the folks who claim Irish ancestry today in the United States had (or can document) ancestors who actually were indentured servants; that practice peaked in the first half of the 18th century, while the largest wave of Irish immigration didn't come for another hundred years, in the two decades just prior to the Civil War. The 10,000 to 12,000 estimate of forced deportations from Ireland in the Commonwealth period is less than 1% of the the roughly two million Irish who came to the United States just in the decade of the 1850s.

ETA: I also suspect that a lot of the folks who are claiming Irish immigrant ancestry earlier than the 19th century are also conflating the Irish and Scots-Irish which, as either group will firmly correct you, are not the same thing, at all.

Spot on. Many of us who are of Scotch-Irish (see what I did there? See here: http://www.scotch-irishsocietyusa.org/) descent do not claim it is the same as Irish, although the history has faded and more folks are claiming it now. But your points about no documentation of indentured servitude for IRISH ancestors in the United States are undoubted since most Irish came here after the Famine.
 
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