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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.
Indentured servants could not marry without the permission of their master, were frequently subject to physical punishment, and did not receive legal favor from the courts. Female indentured servants in particular might be raped and/or sexually abused by their masters. If children were produced the labour would be extended by two years. [14]
It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century. [1]
However, this conflation of Irish indentured servants with African chattel slaves, known as the Irish slaves myth, is incorrect and ahistorical. Chattel slavery was a different legal category based on race as codified in The Barbados Slave Code, did not cease after a period of time (usually 7 years for indentured servitude), and stripped those ...
Indentured servants (such as the Irish) served as a training ground. Planters learned the necessary knowledge and skills needed and then shifted to African slaves. [ 3 ] Slaves were unskilled laborers who could work the fields for cheaper while indentured servants could perform skilled crafts and even manage the slaves.
Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms. [19] In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans, mostly from outside the British Isles, traveled to the colonies as redemptioners, a particularly harsh form of indenture. [25] Indentured servants were a separate category from bound apprentices. The ...
This resulted in British indentured servants becoming less attractive to potential colonial masters. [1] A similar law was passed in Ireland, in an act of Parliament, whereby, in return for passage to America, the servant gave the purchaser of his indenture all rights to his labour for an agreed period of time, usually four years.
Many of the Redlegs' ancestors were transported by Oliver Cromwell after his conquest of Ireland. [5] Others had originally arrived on Barbados in the early to mid-17th century as indentured servants, to work on the sugar plantations. [3] [6] Small groups of Germans and Portuguese prisoners of war were also imported as plantation labourers. [7]