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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. On a

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Speaker 1: very regular basis, when we post about slavery on our

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Speaker 1: Facebook page, especially when that post has some kind of

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Speaker 1: connection to the more recent past or the present, somebody

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Speaker 1: always comes along and leaves a comment that what we

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Speaker 1: should really be talking about is the Irish slaves and

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Speaker 1: these were, according to the comment or, people who were

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Speaker 1: enslaved earlier and treated worse than people from Africa. Where

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Speaker 1: it's really like clockwork, And the more widely a post

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Speaker 1: gets shared, the more likely it is to get these

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Speaker 1: kinds of comments. This idea that Irish people were enslaved

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Speaker 1: and that that is what we really should be talking

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Speaker 1: about tends to be circulated a whole lot more aggressively.

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Speaker 1: Anytime there's a lot of mainstream news coverage or other

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Speaker 1: really prominent discussion about equal rights or social issues related

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Speaker 1: to black Americans like this is not a unique to

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Speaker 1: the United States, but that's where our experience is. So

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Speaker 1: for example, right now, when there's ongoing and very widespread

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Speaker 1: protest against police brutality, and racism going on in the

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Speaker 1: United States and around the world. This whole idea of

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Speaker 1: the Irish slaves really distort some things that really did happen.

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Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about that history and

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Speaker 1: how it's being really twisted and misused today. And yes,

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Speaker 1: I recognize the irony in doing this episode at all,

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Speaker 1: but this has come up so many times that I

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Speaker 1: would really like to dispel it. And before we get started,

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Speaker 1: I also wanted to note that one particular researcher, which

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Speaker 1: is Irish librarian and independent scholar Liam Hogan, has done

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Speaker 1: enormous amounts of work documenting not just the history of

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Speaker 1: this idea, but also how it's become a racist meme.

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Speaker 1: His work is and of several resources that were used

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Speaker 1: in this episode, and he has been so diligent and

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Speaker 1: so prolific on this subject for so many years um

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Speaker 1: that even though it's not sourced only from his work,

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Speaker 1: we would be remiss not to mention it upfront. In general,

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Speaker 1: memes and viral posts about the idea of Irish slaves

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Speaker 1: misrepresent the English subjugation of Ireland, which is something that

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Speaker 1: really did happen. They also misrepresent the nuances in how

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Speaker 1: European powers, specifically Britain, used unfree labor while colonizing the America's.

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Speaker 1: That is another thing that really did happen. All of

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Speaker 1: this history gets meshed together, and we're going to start

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Speaker 1: with the general background of unfree labor. When European nations

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Speaker 1: started colonizing the America's, they wanted a plentiful source of

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Speaker 1: inexpensive labor, and there just were not enough free people

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Speaker 1: who wanted to emigrate and could pay their way by themselves.

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Speaker 1: And of course, unfree labor can be a lot cheaper

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Speaker 1: than paying free people fair wages. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: the colonial labor force was not free. It was made

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Speaker 1: up of people who were indentured or enslaved. The colonists

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Speaker 1: first enslaved workforce in the America's was primarily indigenous people

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Speaker 1: from the places that were being colonized. Colonists either enslaved

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Speaker 1: indigenous people and forced them to work in the colony,

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Speaker 1: or they captured indigenous people and transported them back to

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Speaker 1: Europe to self for profit. And as we talked about

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Speaker 1: in our episode on King Philip's War, colonial officials also

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Speaker 1: enslaved indigenous people and transported them to other colonies. This

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Speaker 1: practice started to wane in the late seventeen hundreds as

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Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade became more established and African people

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Speaker 1: and their descendants made up more and more of the

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Speaker 1: enslaved workforce. We talked about indentured servitude and our episode

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Speaker 1: on Bacon's Rebellion back in April of twenty nineteen. So

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Speaker 1: as a recap and an indenture, a person signed a

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Speaker 1: contract to work for a specific period of time. During

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Speaker 1: that time, they were not free. Although they were still

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Speaker 1: considered to be people, they still had a lot of

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Speaker 1: the same legal rights and protections as non indentured people

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Speaker 1: of the same nationality. Indentures typically lasted for between five

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Speaker 1: and eight years, although in some cases that might be

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Speaker 1: as long as ten years. In exchange for this commitment,

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Speaker 1: indentured workers were given passage to the America's at least

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Speaker 1: in theory. They were also supposed to be given food, shelter, clothing,

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Speaker 1: the tools they needed to do their work, and some

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Speaker 1: kind of compensation when their indenture ended. However, there were

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Speaker 1: definitely cases in which indentured people were not given any

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Speaker 1: of that, and cases in which people did not live

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Speaker 1: to see the end of their contract. Whether that was

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Speaker 1: due to disease, overwork, poor living and working conditions, abuse,

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Speaker 1: or some other cause. The degree of choice and freedom

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Speaker 1: that a person had in signing one of these contracts

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Speaker 1: was really all over the map. There were people who

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Speaker 1: wanted to immigrate and to start new life for all

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Speaker 1: kinds of reasons, but couldn't afford to do it unless

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Speaker 1: they signed an indenture. Other people were indentured and deported

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Speaker 1: after being convicted of a crime. Some indentured workers were

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Speaker 1: prisoners of war or political prisoners, And of course there

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Speaker 1: were a lot of people who technically signed an indenture

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Speaker 1: of their own free will, but whose social and economic

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Speaker 1: circumstances really left them no other option. Irish slave memes

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Speaker 1: typically referenced Irish indentured workers who were transported to the

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Speaker 1: island of Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean. Of course, colonists

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Speaker 1: and their labor force were not the island's first inhabitants.

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Speaker 1: The first people to settle on Barbados probably arrived from

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Speaker 1: the South American continent sometime in the seventeenth century b c.

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Speaker 1: By about five hundred CE, the island was home to

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Speaker 1: both carib and Arawak peoples. The first Europeans to arrive

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Speaker 1: on the island where the Spanish in the sixteenth century,

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Speaker 1: and the name Barbados was coined by the Portuguese not

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Speaker 1: long after, means bearded ones, and it's probably a reference

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Speaker 1: to the islands bearded fig trees. Spanish forces used the

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Speaker 1: indigenous population of Barbados as a source of enslaved labor

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Speaker 1: extensively through the sixteenth century, enslaving people from the island

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Speaker 1: and moving them to colonies elsewhere. After nearly stripping the

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Speaker 1: island of its population, they essentially abandoned it in the

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Speaker 1: late fifteen hundreds. Then an English expedition arrived on Barbados

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Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty five, carrying about eighty English people and

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Speaker 1: about ten enslaved Africans. Within two years, England was actively

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Speaker 1: building a colony on the island and looking for a

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Speaker 1: profitable export crop to grow there. The first exports were

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Speaker 1: primarily cotton and tobacco, along with products like indigo and aloe,

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Speaker 1: and smaller amounts. At first, most of the labor force

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Speaker 1: on Barbados was indentured people from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales,

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Speaker 1: most of whom had come voluntarily. But as early as

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Speaker 1: sixteen thirty six the Barbados Council was outlining the distinction

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Speaker 1: between indentured people from Europe, often described as Christian in

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Speaker 1: laws and other documents, and enslaved people from Africa or

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Speaker 1: the America's That year, the Council resolved that quote Negroes

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Speaker 1: and Indians that came here to be sold should serve

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Speaker 1: for life unless a contract was before made to the contrary.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, Europeans who arrived without a contract

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Speaker 1: were put into an indenture according to the quote custom

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Speaker 1: of the country. That's basically saying five to eight years.

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Speaker 1: In the sixteen forties, the island started shifting its production

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Speaker 1: over to sugar. That change happened pretty rapidly. By sixteen fifty,

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Speaker 1: sugar was essentially the only export crop that was being

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Speaker 1: grown on the island, although food crops were also being

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Speaker 1: grown to support the island's population. Before this shift, there

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Speaker 1: had been lots of smaller farms, each with its own

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Speaker 1: relatively small workforce of free, indentured, and enslaved workers, and

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Speaker 1: most of the indentured workers had signed their indentures voluntarily.

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Speaker 1: As the island turned to sugar production, many of these

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Speaker 1: smaller farms were consolidated. There were still free, indentured and

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Speaker 1: enslaved people working, but the farms got bigger and bigger

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Speaker 1: and they were owned by fewer people As they shifted

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Speaker 1: to sugar. These plantations also needed a lot more labor.

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Speaker 1: Sugar production was difficult and dangerous. Many of the planters

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Speaker 1: and overseers developed a reputation in Barbados for being particularly

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Speaker 1: cruel to the workers, including the indentured servants. Laws specifically

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Speaker 1: targeted indentured workers behavior, with punishments for most infractions involving

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Speaker 1: time being added on to their indenture, but some punishments

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Speaker 1: included being whipped or pilloried. All this meant that fewer

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Speaker 1: people in Europe were choosing to come to Barbados voluntarily,

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Speaker 1: and whether they came voluntarily or involuntarily, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them were leaving the island when their indenture ended. This

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Speaker 1: just led to a lot of turnover and a general

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Speaker 1: shortage of labor. English law at this point didn't really

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Speaker 1: differentiate between voluntary and involuntary indentures, and it didn't really

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Speaker 1: differentiate among English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish indentured workers. It did, however,

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Speaker 1: increasingly differentiate between indentured and enslaved workers. And we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk more about that in just a bit. At

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the sixteen forties, so at the same

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Speaker 1: time as this sugar transition was happening, events in Europe

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Speaker 1: dramatically affected the indentured labor force in Barbados as well

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Speaker 1: as in other parts of the Caribbean, and we will

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Speaker 1: get to that after a quick sponsor break. The use

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Speaker 1: of Irish indentured labor in Barbados, as well as in

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Speaker 1: other English colonies, was directly tied to English subjugation of

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Speaker 1: Ireland during the seventeenth century, which of course had roots

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Speaker 1: going back much further. Briefly, England took control of a

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Speaker 1: portion of Ireland in the twelfth century. As part of

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Speaker 1: the island under direct English control became known as the Pale,

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Speaker 1: and over the next few centuries, England repeatedly tried to

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Speaker 1: expand its influence and its territory beyond that region. This

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Speaker 1: included a series of plantations or resettlements of English people

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Speaker 1: into Ireland, and it was also complicated by religious divisions

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Speaker 1: following the Protestant Reformation. Between sixteen thirty nine and sixteen

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Speaker 1: fifty one, there was an interconnected series of violent conflicts

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Speaker 1: in England, Scotland and Ireland, which are sometimes grouped together

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Speaker 1: as the War of the Three Kingdoms. One piece of

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Speaker 1: this was the Irish uprising in sixteen forty one, also

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Speaker 1: called the Ulster Rebellion, and that followed on the heels

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Speaker 1: of the Ulster Plantation of sixteen o nine. This rebellion

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Speaker 1: led to massive sectarian violence and the deaths of at

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Speaker 1: least twelve thousand people. Another of the conflicts was the

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Speaker 1: English Civil War, but when the royalists who supported the

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Speaker 1: monarch Charles the First and the parliamentarians, who the name

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Speaker 1: suggests supported Parliament. There were a lot of factors involved

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Speaker 1: with this war, and one of them was that the

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Speaker 1: king raised an army against the wishes of Parliament in

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Speaker 1: order to deal with this rebellion in Ireland. Prior to

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Speaker 1: all of this, most indentured workers sent to the America's

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Speaker 1: had either gone voluntarily or had been convicted of a

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Speaker 1: specific crime. But during and after the war, political prisoners

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Speaker 1: were increasingly indentured and deported as well. For example, the

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Speaker 1: parliamentarians deported people for serving in the Royalist army, although

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Speaker 1: there was an exception for people who were compelled to

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Speaker 1: fight rather than having joined the Royalists voluntarily. After the

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Speaker 1: Battle of Worcester, which was the last major battle of

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Speaker 1: the war, in sixteen fifty one, at least ten thousand

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Speaker 1: people were deported, including people from Britain and Ireland, as

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Speaker 1: well as people from Germany. Although these indentures were supposed

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Speaker 1: to be temporary, the deportation was permanent, with those deported

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Speaker 1: quote not returning at any time to the prejudice of

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Speaker 1: this kingdom. Although this wave of mass deportations in the

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Speaker 1: seventeenth century has become most associated with Ireland, the first

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Speaker 1: wave of people to be deported were Scottish Royalists. Parliament

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Speaker 1: ordered this first wave of mass deportations in sixteen forty eight,

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Speaker 1: and it's not clear exactly how many people were deported.

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Speaker 1: Estimates ranged from the hundreds to the thousands. English Royalists

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Speaker 1: Sir Edmund Verney described it as saying, quote, I think

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Speaker 1: they mean to transplant the whole nation of Scots. The

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Speaker 1: deportation of Scottish Royalists and other people from Scotland continued

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Speaker 1: after the sixteen forty order, although they were more often

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Speaker 1: sent to New England instead of to the Caribbean. The

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Speaker 1: next year, mass deportation began in Ireland. On September three,

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Speaker 1: sixteen forty nine, Oliver Cromwell's forces lay siege to Drada,

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Speaker 1: finally breaching the city's walls on September ten. What followed

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Speaker 1: was a massacre, with Cromwell's forces killing Catholic priests and

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Speaker 1: monks on site and burning Catholic churches. At least two

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Speaker 1: thousand people were massacred, with accounts of English soldiers killing

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Speaker 1: one in every ten of the surviving Irish force and

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Speaker 1: sending the rest to Barbados. Soon, so many people were

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Speaker 1: being sent to Barbados and other Caribbean islands that the

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Speaker 1: name became a verb meaning to send a prisoner to Barbados.

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Speaker 1: Parliament's deportations to Barbados paused briefly in sixteen fifty because

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Speaker 1: the colony's government had Royalist sympathies, but they resumed in

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Speaker 1: sixteen fifty two. That same year, Parliament passed the Act

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Speaker 1: for the Settlement of Ireland, which confiscated Irish land from

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Speaker 1: people who had participated in the Rebellion of sixteen forty one,

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Speaker 1: redistributed that land to Cromwell's supporters, and it also penalized

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Speaker 1: people who had participated in the uprising in any way,

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Speaker 1: this involved still more people being deported to Barbados. As

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Speaker 1: we said earlier, Eish people had also been subject to

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Speaker 1: involuntary indentures. One reason was that England had a very

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Speaker 1: broad law that authorized the transport of quote rogues, vagrants

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Speaker 1: and sturdy beggars in England to the colonies in the

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Speaker 1: America's As all of this was going on, this law

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Speaker 1: was also applied to Ireland, with authorities given incredibly broad

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Speaker 1: authority to deport any Irish person who was believed to

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Speaker 1: be quote dangerous to the Commonwealth. By the time this

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Speaker 1: law was applied to Ireland, King Charles the First had

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Speaker 1: been beheaded, the parliamentarians had won the Civil War, so

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Speaker 1: people who were dangerous to the Commonwealth included Catholics, Royalists,

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Speaker 1: poor people, and Oliver Cromwell's personal enemies. In general, the

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Speaker 1: English thought that the Irish were uncivilized barbarians. They disapproved

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Speaker 1: of Irish people's religion and dress and sexual morays and culture.

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Speaker 1: This is especially true of Irish people who had retained

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Speaker 1: strong connections to Celtic customs. So it's very likely that

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Speaker 1: some of the people who were deported were deported simply

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Speaker 1: for being Irish. It is not clear exactly how many

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Speaker 1: people were deported during these years. Estimates range from as

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Speaker 1: low as ten thousand to as high as fifty thousand

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Speaker 1: Irish people between sixteen forty and sixteen sixty, when King

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Speaker 1: Charles the Second was restored as monarch and rolled back

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Speaker 1: some of Cromwell's policies. These forced deportees were arriving as

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Speaker 1: Barbados was shifting its system of agriculture from a variety

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Speaker 1: of exports to just sugar, meaning that Barbados saw a

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Speaker 1: huge influx of Irish indentured labor, and unlike in earlier

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Speaker 1: years of English colonization of the island, a lot of

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Speaker 1: these people had been indentured against their will. Although the

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Speaker 1: law recognized clear differences between indentured and enslaved workers, they

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Speaker 1: generally ate similar food, lived in similar housing, and did

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Speaker 1: similar work. A critical difference between the indentured and enslaved

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Speaker 1: workers was at the indentured people's bondage was temporary. As

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Speaker 1: we've noted, there were certainly cases where people were not

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Speaker 1: freed when they were supposed to be, or otherwise did

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Speaker 1: not live to the end of their indenture. But it

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00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:13,240
Speaker 1: is also clear that there were more and more formally

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Speaker 1: indentured Irish people living in Barbados as time went on,

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Speaker 1: some of whom didn't want to work on sugar plantations anymore,

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Speaker 1: but also didn't have a means to leave. By late

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Speaker 1: sixteen fifty seven, there were reports of large numbers of landless,

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Speaker 1: unemployed Irish people in Barbados who were roaming the countryside,

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Speaker 1: causing mischief and supporting themselves through theft. In September of

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Speaker 1: that year, Governor Daniel Searle issued a public proclamation requiring

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Speaker 1: Irish indentured workers to have permission slips to leave their plantations.

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Speaker 1: He also ordered that Irish people who had no fixed

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Speaker 1: address and couldn't really explain what their purpose was when

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Speaker 1: questioned could be forced to work on a plantation for

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Speaker 1: a year. He also made it illegal to sell weapons

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Speaker 1: and amy into Irish people, and any Irish person found

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Speaker 1: in possession of weapons could be whipped and jailed. If

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Speaker 1: you have studied u s history at all, this probably

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Speaker 1: sounds a little like the freedom papers that free black

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Speaker 1: people were required to carry to prove that they were

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Speaker 1: not really enslaved, and like the laws that restricted free

278
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Speaker 1: people's behavior and movement, and while there is some similarity there,

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Speaker 1: there are also some key differences between the indenture of

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Speaker 1: Irish people and the enslavement of Africans in Barbados. And

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Speaker 1: we're going to get into all of that after we

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Speaker 1: first paused for a sponsor break. Although indentured service SUDE

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Speaker 1: was common in British territory in the seventeenth century, there

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Speaker 1: were some discussions happening about whether this was something English

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Speaker 1: people should be subjected to. In sixteen fifty nine, two

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Speaker 1: english Men named Marcellus Rivers and oxen Bridge Foil published

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Speaker 1: England Slavery or Barbados Merchandise, and that compiled various correspondents,

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Speaker 1: along with a petition that they presented to Parliament quote

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Speaker 1: on behalf of themselves and three score and ten more

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Speaker 1: free born Englishmen sold uncondemned into slavery. In their account,

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Speaker 1: those three score and ten men had been arrested following

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00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 1: an uprising in Salisbury in sixteen fifty four, but they

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00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:25,800
Speaker 1: claimed that some of them had never been to Salisbury

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Speaker 1: or borne any kind of arms. Rivers and Foil also

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00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,360
Speaker 1: claimed they had been sent to Barbados without any sort

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Speaker 1: of fair trial, where they were sold quote as the

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00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:40,199
Speaker 1: goods and chattels of Martinel. They described, quote grinding at

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Speaker 1: the mills and attending at the furnaces, or digging in

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Speaker 1: this scorching island, having not to feed on, notwithstanding their

300
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:51,560
Speaker 1: hard labor, but potato roots, nor to drink but water

301
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Speaker 1: with such roots washed in it, besides the bread and

302
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:59,000
Speaker 1: tears of their own afflictions, being bought and sold still

303
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Speaker 1: from one planter to another, or attached as horses and

304
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Speaker 1: beasts for the debts of their masters, being whipped at

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Speaker 1: the whipping posts as rogues for their master's pleasure, and

306
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Speaker 1: sleeping in sties worse than hogs in England, and many

307
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:18,600
Speaker 1: other ways made miserable beyond expression or Christian imagination. Sir

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Speaker 1: Martin Noel gave his own testimony that merchants on Barbados

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Speaker 1: had asked him to bring back artificers, and that these

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00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:28,399
Speaker 1: artificers were indentured for five years and then given a

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00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:31,399
Speaker 1: year's salary. He said that the work was hard, but

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Speaker 1: that the workers were treated civilly, and that the most

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Speaker 1: odious work was quote mostly carried on by the negroes.

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Speaker 1: This testimony about conditions in Barbados was not particularly honest

315
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:46,960
Speaker 1: or forthcoming. This was somebody whose livelihood involved transporting large

316
00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:50,639
Speaker 1: numbers of indentured workers across the Atlantic, So Noel was

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00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:55,200
Speaker 1: definitely protecting his own interests by minimizing conditions for indentured

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Speaker 1: workers on Barbados. And the debate in Parliament that followed

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Speaker 1: this petition had not touch on the larger question of

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00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:06,359
Speaker 1: whether slavery was wrong, just whether it was wrong to

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00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:11,280
Speaker 1: subject Englishmen to it, even temporarily. They didn't reach a

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00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:15,680
Speaker 1: satisfactory answer to this question, in part because chattel slavery

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Speaker 1: had become deeply established in Barbados by the time Rivers

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Speaker 1: and Foil filed their petition, and it was replacing indentured

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00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 1: servitude as the primary form of labor. Barbados was shifting

326
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Speaker 1: from a society that had slaves to a true slave society,

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Speaker 1: one in which slavery was the primary source of labor,

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Speaker 1: with the society itself focused on maintaining and defending slavery.

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Speaker 1: You should also know this petition is one of the

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00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:44,919
Speaker 1: sources for like how bad conditions were for Irish indentured labors,

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Speaker 1: but like to be clear, they were English and they

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Speaker 1: were filing it on the behalf of English people. Not Irish.

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Speaker 1: So although slavery as a practice was well established in

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Speaker 1: Barbados by the time that Parliament heard this petition, it

335
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:02,800
Speaker 1: wasn't really encoded in law. That changed in sixteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: when Governor Humphrey Walhon signed an Act for Better Ordering

337
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Speaker 1: and Governing of Negroes. It outlined a series of increasingly

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00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 1: severe and horrifying corporal punishments if an enslaved person quote,

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00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 1: offered any violence to any Christian, while also stating quote,

340
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:23,360
Speaker 1: and it is further enacted and ordained that if any

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Speaker 1: Negro or other slave, under punishment by his master, unfortunately

342
00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:31,280
Speaker 1: shall suffer in life or member, which seldom happens, no

343
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,840
Speaker 1: person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine. There For,

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00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 1: in other words, it was legal to kill an enslaved

345
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 1: person as punishment. This sixteen sixty one law was the

346
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: first comprehensive slave code in English territory, and it became

347
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,200
Speaker 1: the template for other slave codes in the English colonies.

348
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,879
Speaker 1: It used the words negro and slave interchangeably, use the

349
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,639
Speaker 1: word Christian more often than it referred to like a

350
00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: specific nationality, because at this point, like the idea of

351
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: Negro meaning all Africans, like that was used in the

352
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: language a lot, but like the idea of white at

353
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,440
Speaker 1: least like whiteness existed in terms of how it was

354
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 1: influencing society, but it had not made its way into

355
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 1: language in the way that people use it today. Really.

356
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 1: On the same day that he signed this sixteen sixty

357
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:23,479
Speaker 1: one Law about the Ordering and Governing of Negroes, uh,

358
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Speaker 1: the Governor also signed the Act for Good Governing of

359
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: Servants and Ordering the Rights between Masters and Servants. Unlike

360
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: the Act for Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes, this

361
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 1: act granted specific rights to indentured workers, including that justices

362
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,960
Speaker 1: of the Peace had to hear disputes over how much

363
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,400
Speaker 1: time and an indentured person had served, and a ban

364
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:50,400
Speaker 1: on indenturing English children under the age of fourteen. It's

365
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 1: not totally clear if English is meant to include Irish

366
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: and Scottish children in this law. The law also required

367
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: masters to care for servants who became ill, and it

368
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:05,400
Speaker 1: required married indentured workers to be sold together. Enslaved Africans

369
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: had none of these protections together. These two laws established

370
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 1: a legal difference between being an indentured servant and being

371
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 1: a slave. Servants being under English law were entitled to

372
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: being tried before a jury of their peers if charged

373
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: with a crime, but enslaved people explicitly were not. Servants

374
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:28,920
Speaker 1: and enslaved people both needed tickets, which were essentially permission

375
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 1: slips to leave their plantations, but servants were required to

376
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: get them from their masters, while masters were required to

377
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: issue them to enslaved people. Slave owners were required to

378
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 1: capture and whip escaping slaves, but there was no similar

379
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: provision requiring the capture and punishment of indentured servants who

380
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: left before their indenture was up. For most but not

381
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,400
Speaker 1: all crimes, Punishments for indentured people involved adding time onto

382
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: their contract, although in some cases the law allowed for

383
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: indenture people to be lashed or pilloried. Punishments for enslaved people,

384
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 1: as we referenced earlier, involved this series of increasingly severe

385
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: disfiguring and just horrifying corporal punishments ending in execution. By

386
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 1: the time these two laws were passed, enslaved Africans had

387
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: become the majority of the population of Barbados. By the

388
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,920
Speaker 1: mid sixteen seventies, the island had about thirty three thousand

389
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans and their descendants and twenty one thousand, five

390
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: hundred total Europeans, both free and indentured, and about one

391
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: thousand enslaved indigenous men from Northeast North America. Most of

392
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,879
Speaker 1: the planters on the island were English, although some were Irish,

393
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,679
Speaker 1: Scottish or Welsh, some of whom had arrived in Barbados

394
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: as indentured workers. Definitely was not possible for every indentured

395
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: person to move into the planter class, but there were

396
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: definitely people who did. The shift and population both created

397
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: and solved some problems from the answers point of view.

398
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: As we said earlier, the system of indenture had involved

399
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: a lot of turnover and labor shortages as people stopped

400
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: coming to the island voluntarily and as they left at

401
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: the end of their contracts. This of course did not

402
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: happen with enslaved workers, who were enslaved for life and

403
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: whose enslavement was passed down to their children through their mother.

404
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: But since so many former indentured workers were leaving Barbados

405
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: at the end of their contract, there also just were

406
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: not enough white people on the island to maintain the militia. Consequently,

407
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: the Barbados Assembly passed a series of laws to encourage

408
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: planters to hire more white labor, and to encourage white

409
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: laborers to stay on the island after their indentures were over.

410
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: This included the Act for the Encouragement of White Servants,

411
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: which gave white servants the right to bring complaints of

412
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: severe or harsh usage before the court. It's likely that

413
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 1: there were people who didn't bring such complaints because of

414
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 1: a fear of retaliation, but there were also indentured workers

415
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: who were freed by court order because of mistreatment under

416
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: this law. The law had no such provision for enslaved Africans.

417
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 1: These legal differences between enslaved and indentured people continued to

418
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: grow through subsequent laws. For example, an indentured worker could

419
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: testify against the person who held their indenture and court,

420
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: but enslaved people in Barbados could not testify against any

421
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: white person Until eighteen thirty one. It was illegal to

422
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: murder an indentured servant, but the murder of an enslaved

423
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: person was legal until eighteen eighteen. While it was true

424
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: that indentured people could be bought and sold as property

425
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: during the term of their indenture, once that indenture was

426
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: over they were free, while not only were enslaved people

427
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: property for life, but as we noted, their children were

428
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: also property from the time they were born, based on

429
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: the enslaved status of their mother. Although indentured servitude declined

430
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: steadily through the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Barbados,

431
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: slavery wasn't abolished in Barbados until eighteen thirty four. We

432
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: should note that at various points in the seventeenth and

433
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:13,679
Speaker 1: eighteenth centuries, Irish indentured workers were involved in uprisings against

434
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: Barbados planter class, both on their own and as part

435
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,239
Speaker 1: of uprisings that were planned and carried out primarily by

436
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans. But the differences between the two groups were

437
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: present even in the way colonial authorities responded to these uprisings. Overwhelmingly,

438
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: Africans were executed for their role or even just alleged

439
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: role in uprisings, Irish workers often received no punishment. For example,

440
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 1: one Set two plan involved indentured Irish workers getting English

441
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 1: officials drunk ahead of the uprising. After the plan was uncovered,

442
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: ninety two enslaved people were executed. More than twenty others died,

443
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: either from injuries they had sustained or from other causes.

444
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: The Irish were ers who were arrested were ultimately released

445
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: with no punishment. After this, landowners started petitioning not to

446
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: be sent any more Irish laborers. So, to be very clear,

447
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: England oppressed Ireland systematically and violently for centuries, and Irish

448
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: people were involuntarily deported to Barbados and other colonies in

449
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: massive numbers as indentured servants. And in the first years

450
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: of English presence on Barbados, most of the workers were

451
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: indentured Europeans and not enslaved Africans. But there are real

452
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 1: and meaningful differences between indentured servitude and slavery and in

453
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: how these two populations fared in Barbados and elsewhere in

454
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: the decades and centuries that followed. The sources that people

455
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: generally cite to back up the idea of Irish people

456
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: being the first slaves generally conflate and dentured servitude and

457
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: slavery as the same thing. One book called to Hell

458
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: or Barbados uses the word slavery very broadly and applies

459
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: descriptions like actual historical descriptions of the mistreatment of enslaved

460
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: Africans to Irish indentured workers even when there's no evidence

461
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: to back that up. The book White Cargo, The Forgotten

462
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: History of Britain's White Slaves in America, similarly conflates chattel

463
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: slavery and indentured servitude, and the words of the authors

464
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: quote slavery is not defined by time, but by the

465
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: experience of the subject. The biggest online source for the

466
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: idea that Irish people were the first slaves is a

467
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: two thousand eight article called the Irish Slave Trade the

468
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: Forgotten White Slaves that was published by the Center for

469
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: Research on Globalization, which PolitiFact describes as quote, a Canadian

470
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: website that bills itself as an alternative news source but

471
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like nine eleven,

472
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: vaccines and global warming. A lot of the claims put

473
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: forth in that article are demonstrably untrue, including that there

474
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: was a forced breeding program between indentured Irish people and

475
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans. There is just no evidence for any of this.

476
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: There are also lots of viral images and memes purporting

477
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: to be about the realities of Irish slavery in the Caribbean,

478
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: and these posts frequently use pictures that have nothing to

479
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: do with seventeenth century Barbados. Many of them are photos

480
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: that are at least two hundred years more recent, showing

481
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: people in a completely different place and time. And some

482
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: of them really do depict actual historical injustices and atrocities,

483
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: like prisoners of war who were liberated from a Japanese

484
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: camp in World War Two, or child laborers working in

485
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: a coal mine in nineteen eleven. This does a disservice

486
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: to those people and that history, and to the people

487
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: in history of the Caribbean. If you want to see

488
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 1: a lot of examples of this, of just pictures that

489
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: are being used to supposedly be about Irish slaves that

490
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: are really about something completely different. Liam Hogan, who we

491
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, has collected a

492
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: ton of them with references to what is really shown

493
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: in the picture. Lastly, in addition to conflating indentured servitude

494
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: and slavery and using imagery dishonestly and distorting the history

495
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: of both Ireland and Barbados, memes about Irish slavery are

496
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: often shared in a way that tries to shut down

497
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: conversations about the real systemic oppression that black people in

498
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: the United States and elsewhere, including Ireland, but the US

499
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: is where we have experienced with this, where that's happening

500
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: every day. The tone is often along the lines of

501
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: Irish people were the first slaves and they slash We

502
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: aren't asking for some kind of reparations. This deflection is

503
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: another disservice to everyone involved, but especially to black people.

504
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: It glosses over the centuries of sustained and systemic racism

505
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: that black people really have faced, including hundreds of years

506
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: of hereditary race based chattel slavery, discriminatory black codes that

507
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: were passed after the US Civil War, gem Crow segregation, lynching,

508
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: massive waves of racist anti black mob violence, and housing

509
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: and lending discrimination, all of which we have talked about

510
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: on the podcast before. That also glosses over some things

511
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about but are on the list to

512
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: be talked about at some point in the future, like

513
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: the way Black Americans were excluded from a lot of

514
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: the programs involved with the New Deal during the Great Depression,

515
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: and excluded from many elements of the g I Bill.

516
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: It really goes on and on. It also glosses over

517
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: the real discrimination that Irish people have faced, both in

518
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: Britain and Ireland and in the US, especially as Irish

519
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: immigration to the US peaked after the Great Famine in

520
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, Irish people did face prejudice, housing discrimination

521
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: and job discrimination both were being Irish and in the

522
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: case of Irish Catholics because of their religion. And the

523
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: use of these memes and the way they are implemented

524
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 1: in these conversations derails an honest discussion of how Irish

525
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: American communities in the nineteenth century took an active part

526
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: in perpetuating slavery and racism. That's been touched on a

527
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: bit in the archive and our episode on the New

528
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: York Draft Riots, in which a predominantly Irish mob attacked

529
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: black communities for four days, burning down the homes of

530
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: black people and abolitionists, as well as the Colored Orphan Asylum,

531
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: but that was not an isolated incident. There were definitely exceptions,

532
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: but as a group, Irish Americans in the nineteenth century

533
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: were vocally against the abolition of slavery, in part because

534
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: free black and Irish workers would then be competing for

535
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: the same jobs, but also because of perceptions that abolitionist

536
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: organizations were focused on the needs of Africans and their

537
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: descendants instead of on the suffering of Irish people affected

538
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: by the famine. In reality, a lot of abolitionist organizations

539
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: also raised money for famine relief that in the years

540
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: leading up to the Civil War, there was a movement

541
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: in Ireland to repeal the Act of Union that had

542
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: made Ireland and England to line Kingdom. And one of

543
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: the most vocal proponents of this repeal movement was also

544
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: an ardent abolitionist, and the thread of anti abolitionism in

545
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,240
Speaker 1: Irish American communities was so strong that abolitionists like William

546
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison suspected that their strong support of the repeal

547
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: movement was basically like, if we can get this repealed,

548
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: that guy will have no more platform and maybe he

549
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: will shut up about this whole slavery thing. Also, all

550
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: of this feeds into the path that Irish Americans took

551
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: to move out of being second class citizens in the US,

552
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: both through local, state, and federal politics and through moving

553
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: into civil service jobs, including becoming firefighters and police, which honestly,

554
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: that feels like a subject for a whole different episode.

555
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: That's why nobody talks about the Irish slaves. I resisted

556
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 1: the temptation to just say, because that wasn't a thing

557
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: for half an hour. Um, I'm laughing only at your

558
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: temptation resistance, not at the subject. Uh. Do you have

559
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,399
Speaker 1: listener mail for U? S? Tracy? I do have listener mail.

560
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: This listener mail is from Thomas, and Thomas says, I'm

561
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: conscious that what I am writing about is possibly a

562
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: misspoke moment rather than an error in the script. But

563
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: the figure you used early in the episode, that episode

564
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,800
Speaker 1: being about what Tyler's rebellion early in the episode of

565
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: sixty thousand in England pre plague is a very low estimate,

566
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: and so much lower than any I've ever heard. I

567
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: had a double take attached to the paper calculating it,

568
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 1: page twenty two. The figure is given from what estimate

569
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: is four point eight one million, just before the plague. Obviously,

570
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: calculating the exact number of people in historical eras is

571
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: a really contentious topic, a is there are so many variables,

572
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: but I've never known a source to put England's population

573
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: so low and recorded history, which for England is traditionally

574
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: from Julius Caesar's invasion. I wonder if you found a

575
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: figure for a county and assumed it meant England. I'm

576
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: gonna pause here and say, I don't know how I

577
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: made that error. Usually, when we get an email about

578
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: an error, like I try to figure out where that

579
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: error got introduced into the show, because maybe there's something

580
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: I could do in my own process that would prevent

581
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:22,399
Speaker 1: a similar error from happening in the future. In this case,

582
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 1: I have no idea. It's likely that paper was talking

583
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: about a specific county or a specific town and like,

584
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 1: and I misread it and thought that it was talking

585
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: about all of England. But at this point I tried

586
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: to go back through my sources and I was like, wow,

587
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Um, so that number was way

588
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: too low. U to return to the email. It was

589
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: a great episode as ever, and the line about bad

590
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: takes about the plague made me cackle like an old witch.

591
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,919
Speaker 1: In my schooling, we were taught at the plague ended

592
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: serfdom in England, introducing a wage economy, but not that

593
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: it caused the rent of signs. As an aside, it's

594
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: often said that my home county of Norfolk didn't regain

595
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: its pre plague population. We have a number of churches

596
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: without villages to this day. Though the overall population has

597
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: recovered greatly in the last century and exceeded pre plague

598
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: at last. There are still many churches that stand alone

599
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: in the fields or with a single farm for their

600
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: whole parish. Some of the latter still hold a church

601
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: service at harvest, but the otherwise are kept as historical

602
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: relics by the church's conservation trust or have become ruins.

603
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: In Devon, Yorkshire and other places, you can often see

604
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: ridge and furrow on the uplands, now mostly sheep grazing.

605
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 1: This is often where marginal land pre plague was farmed,

606
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: and after the plague was abandoned to livestock since there

607
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 1: weren't enough folk to farm marginal land. This is most

608
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: obvious from the air. Spend some time on Google Earth

609
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 1: over Dartmoor or x More and you could probably spot them.

610
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: This goes on with some additional details UM about medieval

611
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: villages in the area UH and a local legend about

612
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:08,799
Speaker 1: where plague victims were buried at dead Man's Hill in Norfolk. UM.

613
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: Just a lot of ways that you can still see

614
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: evidence of the plague in the area today. So UH.

615
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a longer email. I'm just

616
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: gonna skip to the end, which is keep up the

617
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: good work. Podcasts are currently a great tonic and break

618
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 1: from the present. Yours, sincerely, Thomas. Thank you Thomas for

619
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 1: this note. Again, I have no idea now I made

620
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: that error. Um. I kind of wish I did, because

621
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: that's a very significant number between what I put into

622
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: script and what existed in reality. My theory is that

623
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: it is probably something as simple as Yeah, I can

624
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: sort of visualize in my head a PDF with the

625
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: number sixty in it. Um. Uh. But like I, my

626
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: attempts to go through uh the sources like to, they

627
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: did not yield the answer. Um, but also a typo

628
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: as a possibility if you would like to write to

629
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: us about this or another podcast or history podcast at

630
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. But we're all over social media

631
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: at missed in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook

632
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: and Pinterest, on Twitter and Instagram, and you can subscribe

633
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: to our show on iHeart radio app and Apple podcasts

634
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed

635
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio.

636
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the I heart

637
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

638
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: favorite shows