The Irish Slaves At the beginning of the 17th Century, in the reign of James I of England, England faced a problem: what to do with the Irish. They had been practising genocide against the Irish since the regin of Elizabeth, but they couldn't kill them all. Some had been banished, and some had gone into voluntary exile, but there were still just too many of them. So James I encouraged the sale of the Irish as slaves to the New World colonies, not only America but Barbados and South America. The first recorded sale of Irish Slaves was to a settlement along the Amazon in South America in 1612. However, before that there were probably many unofficial arrangements, since the Irish were of no importance and details of how they were dealth with were not deemed necessary. In 1625, the King issued a proclamation that all Irish political prisoners were to be transported to the West Indies and sold as slave labour to the planters there. In 1637, a census showed that 69% if the inhabitants of Monsarrat in the West Indies were Irish Slaves. The Irish had a tendency to die in the heat, and were not as well suited to the work as African slaves, but African slaves had to be bought. Irish Slaves could be kidnapped if there weren't enough prisoners, and of course, it was easy enough to make Irish prisoners by manufacturing some petty crime or other. This made the Irish the preferred 'livestock' for English slave traders for 200 years. In 1641, one of the periodic wars in which the Irish tried to overthrow the English misrule in their land took place. As always, their rebellion eventually failed. As a result, in the 12 years following the revolt, known as the Confederation War, the Irish population fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. Over 550,000 Irishmen were killed, and 300,000 were sold as slaves. The women and children who were left homeless and destitute had to be dealth with, so they were rounded up and sold to.
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thanks for sharing it with us Louise 
but its good to read history so we never do this to another group of people again. I am part Irish and proud. 
