White Slavery, what the Scots already know

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 plantation.

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!!!

White 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 lists.

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 Englishmen.’

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 perpetual.”

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 wealth.”

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 themselves.

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
middle 1800’s.

Slavery 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.