|A famous history professor stated that
history was not a science but a continuing investigation into the past;
a person’s conclusion is based on their own bias. This story
will offer evidence that the Alba, Scots, Irish and Pics have been the
longest race held in slavery. The reader will be responsible for
their own bias pertaining to White Slavery.
Alexander Stewart was herded off the
Gildart in July of 1747, bound with chains. Stewart was pushed
onto the auction block in Wecomica, St Mary’s County, Maryland.
Doctor Stewart and his brother William were attending the auction, aware
of Alexander being on that slave ship coming from Liverpool England.
Doctor Stewart and William were residents of Annapolis and brothers to
David of Ballachalun in Montieth, Scotland. The two brothers paid
nine pound six shillings sterling to Mr. Benedict Callvert of Annapolis
for the purchase of Alexander. He was a slave. Alexander
tells of the other 88 Scots sold into slavery that day in “THE LYON IN
MOURNING” pages 242-243.
Jeremiah Howell was a lifetime-indentured
servant by his uncle in Lewis County, Virginia in the early 1700’s.
His son, Jeremiah, won his freedom by fighting in the Revolution.
There were hundreds of thousands of Scots sold into slavery during
Colonial America. White slavery to the American Colonies occurred
as early as 1630 in Scotland.
According to the Egerton manuscript,
British Museum, the enactment of 1652: it may be lawful for two or more
justices of the peace within any county, citty or towne, corporate
belonging to the commonwealth to from tyme to tyme by warrant cause to
be apprehended, seized on and detained all and every person or persons
that shall be found begging and vagrant.. in any towne, parish or place
to be conveyed into the Port of London, or unto any other port from
where such person or persons may be shipped into a forraign collonie or
The judges of Edinburgh Scotland during
the years 1662-1665 ordered the enslavement and shipment to the colonies
a large number of rogues and others who made life unpleasant for the
British upper class. (Register for the Privy Council of Scotland,
third series, vol. 1, p 181, vol. 2, p 101).
The above accounting sounds horrific but
slavery was what the Scots have survived for a thousand years. The
early ancestors of the Scots, Alba and Pics were enslaved as early as
the first century BC. Varro, a Roman philosopher stated in his
agricultural manuscripts that white slaves were only things with a voice
or instrumenti vocali. Julius Caesar enslaves as many as one
million whites from Gaul. (William D Phillips, Jr. SLAVERY
FROM ROMAN TIMES TO EARLY TRANSATLANTIC TRADE, p. 18).
Pope Gregory in the sixth century first
witnessed blonde hair, blue eyed boys awaiting sale in a Roman slave
market. The Romans enslaved thousands of white inhabitants of
Great Britain, who were also known as Angles. Pope Gregory was
very interested in the looks of these boys therefore asking their
origin. He was told they were Angles from Briton. Gregory
stated, “Non Angli, sed Angeli.” (Not Angles but Angels).
The eighth to the eleventh centuries
proved to be very profitable for Rouen France. Rouen was the
transfer point of Irish and Flemish slaves to the Arabian nations.
The early centuries AD the Scottish were known as Irish. William
Phillips on page 63 states that the major component of slave trade in
the eleventh century were the Vikings. They spirited many
‘Irish’ to Spain, Scandinavia and Russia. Legends have it;
some ‘Irish’ may have been taken as far as Constantinople.
Ruth Mazo Karras wrote in her book,
“SLAVERY AND SOCIETY IN MEDEIVEL SCANDINAVIA” pg. 49; Norwegian
Vikings made slave raids not only against the Irish and Scots (who were
often called Irish in Norse sources) but also against Norse settlers in
Ireland or Scottish Isles or even in Norway itself…slave trading was a
major commercial activity of the Viking Age. The children of the
White slaves in Iceland were routinely murdered en masse. (Karras pg 52)
According to these resources as well as
many more, the Scots-Irish have been enslaved longer than any other race
in the world’s history. Most governments do not teach White
Slavery in their World History classes. Children of modern times are
only taught about the African slave trade. The Scots do not need
to be taught because they are very aware of the atrocities upon an
enslaved race. Most importantly, we have survived to become one to
the largest races on Earth!!!
Slavery in America
The topic of this story
is a sensitive one yet one of great importance.
White slavery in America was real. There are many documents that
verify the bondage, kidnapping and transporting of Brits to the Colonies
as slaves. The importance of
this story will help those who cannot find a ship passenger list on their
ancestor. This story may not
pertain to all who came to America that are not listed on ship passenger
The Journal of Negro
History #52 pp.251-273 states, “The sources of racial thought in
Colonial America pertaining to slave trade worked both directions with
white merchandise as well as black.”
Thomas Burton recorded in
his Parliament Diary 1656-1659 vol. 4 pp. 253-274 a debate in the English
Parliament focusing on the selling of British whites into slavery in the
New World. The debate refers
to whites as slaves ‘whose enslavement threatened the liberties of all
The British government
had realized as early as the 1640’s how beneficial white slave labor was
to the profiting colonial plantations.
Slavery was instituted as early as 1627 in the British West Indies.
The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series of 1701 records 25000
slaves in Barbados in which 21700 were white slaves.
George Downing wrote a
letter to the honorable John Winthrop Colonial Governor of Massachusetts
in 1645, “planters who want to make a fortune in the West Indies must
procure white slave labor out of England if they wanted to succeed.”
Lewis Cecil Gray’s History of Agriculture in the Southern United
States to 1860 vol.1 pp 316, 318 records Sir George Sandys’ 1618 plan
for Virginia, referring to bound whites assigned to the treasurer’s
office. “To belong to said office forever.
The service of whites bound to Berkeley Hundred was deemed
The Quoke Walker case in
Massachusetts 1773 ruled that; slavery contrary to the state Constitution
was applied equally to Blacks and Whites in Massachusetts.
Statutes at Large of
Virginia, vol. 1 pp. 174, 198, 200, 243 & 306 did not discriminate
Negroes in bondage from Whites in Bondage.
Marcellus Rivers and
Oxenbridge Foyle, England’s Slaves 1659 consists of a statement smuggled
out of the New World and published in London referring to whites in
bondage who did not think of themselves as indentured servants but as
“England’s Slaves” and “England’s merchandise.”
Colonial Office, Public
Records Office, London 1667, no. 170 records that “even Blacks referred
to the White forced laborers in the colonies as “white slaves.”
Pages 343 through 346 of Historical Sketch of the Persecutions
Suffered by the Catholics of Ireland by; Patrick F. Moran refers to the
transportation of the Irish to the colonies as the “slave-trade.”
Ulrich B. Phillips, Life
and Labor in the Old South explain that white enslavement was crucial to
the development of the Negro slave system.
The system set up for the white slaves governed, organized and
controlled the system for the black slaves.
Black slaves were “late comers fitted into a system already
developed.” Pp 25-26.
John Pory declared in 1619, “white slaves are our principle
The above quotations from
various authors are just the tip of the iceberg on the white slave trade
of the Americas. People from
the British Isles were kidnapped, put in chains and crammed into ships
that transported hundreds of them at a time.
Their destination was Virginia Boston, New York, Barbados and the
West Indies. The white slaves
were treated the same or worse than the black slave.
The white slave did not fetch a good price at the auction blocks.
Bridenbaugh wrote in his accounting on page 118, having paid a
bigger price for the Negro, the planters treated the black better than
they did their “Christian” white servant.
Even the Negroes recognized this and did not hesitate to show their
contempt for those white men who, they could see, were worse off than
Governments have allowed
this part of American and British history to be swallowed up.
The contemptible black slavery has taken a grip on people
associated with American History. Yet,
no one will tell of these accountings that are well established on to the
is not something to be proud of but it is a fact that happened to every
country, kingdom and empire that has been on this earth.
Each of us needs to search our hearts and find the answer to stop
racial hatred. One place to
begin; realize that the black race was not the only race in the last 400
years that was in bondage.