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Anyway, let's find out what happens when a far-right meme collides with history. 1. The co-opted image is a famous Lewis Hine photograph taken at a canning company at Port Royal, South Carolina in 1911. It shows (L-R) three child labourers, Josie (6), Bertha (6) and Sophie (10)
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2. In 1619 one hundred poor English children (not Irish) between 8 and 16 years of age were taken from the streets of London and sent to Virginia and sold into indentured servitude. This was a radical extension of the English Poor Law of 1601.
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3. The "first shipment of black slaves" to the American colonies did not arrive in 1619. According to the Slave Voyages database there were 1,301 slave trading voyages from 1514 to 1619, involving circa 500,000 African victims.
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4. The meme takes a quote from the Remonstrance of the Irish Chiefs to Pope John XXII (1317) three or four centuries out of context and converts it into an imaginary "Law". This Remonstrance sought to invert the slanderous justifications for the Cambro-Norman conquest of Ireland.
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5. "500,000 Irish Catholics" were not sold into slavery in the 1600s. This number is ten times the estimated total migration from Ireland to the West Indies for the entire 17th century, of which several thousand were forcibly transported by the Cromwellian regime in the 1650s.
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6. The number is so absurdly high it is about three times the total population of the British West Indies (c. 1700)
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7. Cost of "Irish slaves" vs. African slaves is a false dichotomy. Indentured servants cost less than slaves because their labour was sold for a number of years (c. 4-7) rather than a lifetime. And unlike slaves, their children were not the property of the slaveowner upon birth.
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8. The meme claims that "many more Irish were sold as slaves than Africans " from 1600 to 1699. In reality thousands of Irish people were sold as servants (most voluntarily) while c. 1,900,000 Africans were shipped to the colonies as slaves (always involuntarily)
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9. This incident where 132 "Irish slaves" were "dumped overboard to drown because ship's supplies were running low" is a disturbing co-option of the Zong Massacre (1781) when the crew murdered over 132 enslaved Africans to cash in on the insurance money during a stricken voyage.
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This is not really about history btw. That’s a distraction. It’s racists essentially digging up our ancestors bones and sharpening them into rhetorical weapons to use against black people.https://twitter.com/limerick1914/status/1062432425173749760?s=21 …
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These various “Irish slaves” and “white slaves” memes project a pseudo-mythological narrative to provide (a)historical justification for racial prejudice. The memefication of “white slavery” is like catnip for racists because it is The Bell Curve in shorthand.
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I’ve been tracking the extremist groups and websites that have promoted this propaganda for the past decade. Here’s just a sample.pic.twitter.com/AtRpPt73hW
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P.S. Thanks for all the support and encouragement. I don’t say that enough.
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The far-right embrace of the “Irish were the first slaves in America” mythology continues.pic.twitter.com/4PyxDXWgjF
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The next group to share this “Irish slaves” meme is the CCIFV (The Committee for the Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims). Last year they had an initiative launched by the President of Ireland.pic.twitter.com/fDOlkkeWEl
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I’ve never seen the
@NMIreland implicated in the “cover up” before, so at least that’s original.Show this thread -
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