"Britain's white slave trade" Topic

Fascinating book and article documenting Britians's White Slave trade to the American and other colonies. Proving slavery doen't depend upon your skin color.

link

I read that book a couple of years ago, it is very good.

I had no idea indentured servitude lasted into 1789.
I also had no idea it was so large an enterprise.

I wonder how many people brag about it in their genealogy "research".
"And here is Kate McGraw, a prostitute taken from the streets of London in 1737." No, not as much space as "One of the leading landowners in Virginia."

It didn't really stop until the 1960's, particularly the export of children to 'the colonies' after WW2, where thousands of separated kids were told their parents had died (and vice versa), the kids ending up on 'charity' owned farms, working and being abused until they were released, pennyless and under educated, at 16.

Prisoners of war from Culloden were shipped over as indentured servants to the Saugus Iron Works here in Massachusetts.

No where near the harsh conditions of black slavery in America, there is a very significant difference. The Scots were still considered to be human beings. But a form of slavery nonetheless.

I had no idea indentured servitude lasted into 1789.

You're off by at least a century. My great-grandmother came from Sweden to America as an indentured servant in the 1880's.

Same with my GG'mother. She was an indentured servant
from Ireland. Arrived in 1848, her indenture period
ended in 1856.

Winston, you write as though "taken walking the streets in London" and "one of the largest landowners of Virginia" refer to separate people. Not necessarily so. Most of us are many things in our lifetimes, and part of the art of genealogy is choosing which to emphasize.

Minor hedges. The reviewer doesn't distinguish between slavery and indenture, but the distinction was important. Indenture could be a valid choice, and at least wasn't hereditary. For contrast, West Country men caught up in Monmouth's Rebellion were sold as slaves, not indentured servants, in the West Indies. They still have descendants there. And if the attrition rate in the first year of an indenture to 17th Century Virginia was high, it was also ferocious among those not indentured. Blame Britain and America for what we did morally wrong--not for the state of 17th Century medicine.

About twenty years ago, I read part of "The Redneck Manifesto." It spoke the truth about white indentured servants/slaves in America; it was the first time I'd ever heard about this, save for one brief Hollywood movie reference in "The Unconquered."

You might not want to rush to find a copy of "The Redneck Manifesto." I couldn't agree with everything the author wrote, especially regarding Christianity. I also learned that the author also found himself in prison for a very cruel crime. I confess that I bought "The Redneck Manifesto" simply because of its title.

My copy of this book is long gone. Still, for the part of his book concerning white indentured servitude, the author did his research.

In English usage in the twentieth century, 'white slavery'was usually a euphemism for prostitution.

Anyway, all prostitution and,other clandestine human trafficking aside …

I guess that legal and institutionalized indentured servitude of Europeans (Brits weren't the only ones) in New World colonies is no longer taught in schools these days, the way it was taught back when I was growing up. Hmm, I wonder why? :)

Legally sanctioned "White" slavery continued for much longer than that. Historically, places like Zanzibar catered to sultans, sheiks and other wealthy brethren with peculiar tastes. And all those transactions were perfectly legal in those countries.

Even today, young girls with green or blue eyes sell for a fortune at public auctions in some extremely religious parts of the world. There is plenty of video and witness testimony to prove that this isn't just among ISIS and the Taliban.

Dan
PS. Europeans arrived late into the slavery business and then they left it after just a few centuries. However, there are some societies who were among the first slave dealers and owners, since ancient times, and who still follow that horrible tradition right now.

Would you rather be an indentured servant or a slave?
At least the "owner" has a financial investment in a slave, and thus incentive to keep you in good working condition.

That is one of the points made in the book. The slaves were fed and clothed better than the indentured servants and typically lived longer.

Unfortunately, the closer to the source of the slaves, the cheaper they were, and the more expendable they became in the eyes of the slavers, as these 1889 illustrations of Zanzibar Muslim slavers show.

Dan

You may find that 19th Century illustrations of the depravity of slavers were often exaggerated caricatures.

Much easier to justify European brutality, invasion, outright expropriation, rape and plunder, if you can persuade your public (and yourself), that you are intervening to free the poor helpless inhabitants from the terrible acts of their own leaders.

It's been a tactic since before written history, and it continues to this day. I am sure we can all think of examples.

I remember when this first came out thinking it did seem right. The more I looked into it the more I realized who ever is writing this stuff is not being honest. reviewing period laws indentured servants did have rights and there were laws to protect them This was hardly the case with slaves. In fact to compare the two are like comparing apples and trains. There is very little comparison.

"The implication is that slaves were either African or Irish, black or white, didn't really make a difference. A prime example is the 1993 book They Were White and They Were Slaves by Holocaust denier Michael Hoffman, available as a PDF from Aryan websites. Hoffman's exact trick was copied into a Cavanagh family history blog post in 2003 titled "Irish Slaves in the Caribbean". This was then copy-pasted — almost word-for-word — to the far-left website Daily Kos in 2013 under the title "The Slaves that Time Forgot". It also served as the primary source for the most radical of all these articles, so bad that practically every sentence contains an overt lie: 2008's "The Irish Slave Trade — The Forgotten White Slaves" by John Martin, published on the conspiracy theory website Global Research. This became the single most-shared such article online. "

For a complete debunking here is a good read:

skeptoid.com/episodes/4609