The Forgotten Slave

The journey of one Thomas O'Mally a white Irish slave.

As winter begins to ebb the setting of the sun lingers just awhile longer before disappearing over the western horizon. It is this time of year that ought to remind one that seasons come and go. Through the centuries there have been many winter days and nights when man would often contemplate the coming of spring. The warmth of the rising sun after those long cold winter nights should bring solace that life begins anew. It was just a year ago around this time of year one would always ask will this spring bring about the blossoms of peace and prosperity? A spring where the hope and dreams of man finally be realized. But, in all of history humanity has been plagued by the tempests of brutal and savage reprisals against their fellow man.

 

The world continues to turn passing from season to season. Through it all mankind has only continued to harbor a deep seeded condemnation toward others. The inhumane dominance whether it be by individuals, countries or certain fanatical factions over others have continue their brutality down through the ages. Regardless of the change of seasons man continues their selfish dominance over others. A dominance that has spanned through-out history where man enslaves man. The persecution toward another ethnicity, religion, culture, the feeble or the sick has been going on since the begining. There have been glimmers of hope, prosperity and peace. But, they are ever so fleeting in a constantly changing world.

They were white and they were slaves is a sad but true tale contrary to the conventional historiography of colonial and industrial labor. This is a stunning journey into a hidden epoch, the slave trade of hundreds of thousands of white slaves who were kidnapped, chained, whipped and worked to death in the American colonies and during the first Industrial Revolution. This a chronicle that has never been fully told, part of a vital heritage that has been hidden in the darkest corner of suppressed history.

 

His name was Thomas O'Mally born on a cold winter night in 1645 on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland. From the time Thomas was born he only knew his mother. His father was captured by the British and sold into slavery and shipped off to what is today the islands of the Caribbean right after Thomas was born.  For Thomas's story is like so many others of Irish decent that have been forced into slavery. Sold into bondage by those taskmasters, the British.   For the Irish theirs is a long brutal history that is almost forgotten and rarely mentioned in history books. When most of us today think about slavery in the Americas and in the United States we are so often reminded of African Slaves and the struggles that they went through so poignantly portrayed in that TV mini series "Roots".  The Irish slave trade on the other hand was a more sinister brutal realm of reality that is all but forgotten, left out, or just ignored by many historians in the history of the Americas. The British were infamous in their justifications to enslave even there own citizens. The Irish though were the most victimized and persecuted in a period when King James II and Oliver Cromwell held the British throne. Cromwell was probably the most notorious in his practice of dehumanizing one's neighbor.

By the time Thomas was 10 on a cold blustery night British troops were scouring the streets of Dublin grabbing and Shanghaiing anyone over the age of 10. Soon they came to the tiny hut where Thomas and his mother were. In an instant they were both taken into custody and now classified as human cargo brought aboard one of the tall ships bound for the Americas. As Thomas latter recalls many who rebelled or even offer the slightest resistance or disobeyed an order were savagely and brutally punished. In contrast to African Slaves the Irish were treated far more brutally. A over sight by many historians today. When Thomas reached Port Royal in 1646 he witnessed first hand how brutal slave owners were. Owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire for the slightest infractions. Many were burned alive and had their heads place on pikes in the center of town as a warning to other captives. A sight that was forever engrained in Thomas memory. 

It is the Irish slave trade that really began when James II captured and sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main source of slaves sold in Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. It was Ireland that quickly became the biggest source of slaves for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white Irish slaves.

In just eleven years from 1641 to 1652 the Irish population of over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. In just that one short decade Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000. It was the equivalent to the Jewish Holocaust during World War II. Families like Thomas's were ripped apart. From 1635 to around 1660 over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In 1650 52,000 Irish mostly women and children were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Today, many people really don't know the brutal reality that the Irish endured during one of their darkest periods in their history and unfortunately ours too. In too many accounts we realize today so many actually don't know the true Irish history in relation to the early settlers in America. Many still think how can the Irish be considered slaves when all most of us have read in our history books slaves were from Africa. The story of Thomas O'Mally is one such instance when facts are told that shed light on histories forgotten slave trade. From the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle. By the late 1690's the African slave trade was just beginning and then from then on the Irish and African slaves were the main labor source for the American colonies and the Islands of the Caribbean.

It is well recorded that African slaves, and not the Irish who were mostly Catholic were more expensive to purchase, and in many cases treated far better than their Irish counterparts. African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s.  Irish slaves were far cheaper. If a planter whipped, branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. Their lives were of no consequence. A death was just a small monetary setback, far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 Irish slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat. And the atrocities continued.

There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery. It has always though been under reported and pretty much hidden for over three hundred years.  For Thomas O'Mally he was one of the fortunate few to have endured the horrors of his youth trapped inside a ships hold for weeks at a time on his way to Port Royal.  As he grew older he was able to attain his freedom by escaping to America ending up in Boston by the time he was 40. It is the journey that Thomas O'Mally traveled now a free man able to live out his life far removed from the anguish and despair of his youth and young adult life. His is a journey unlike any of us today can ever imagine. Filled with the horror of his youth surviving the retched stench of human cargo on the long voyage to the New World. Arriving in a strange new world so foreign never in his young mind could he have ever realized how brutal, savage and inhumane people could actually be. 

The rarely told story of the white slave trade so brutal in it's history more so then the African slave trade and yet equally contributed to the heritage of the Americas that we have today. For one Thomas O'Mally his is a fascinating tale of survival in an age when just being able to live past the age of 20 it is a miracle that he survived at all.