America’s International Slave System
By James Donahue
Slavery has left its ugly mark on American history. Of course it involves the black Africans who were subjected to humiliating enslavement all through the South. But it also included the sale of the Chinese and the Irish into bondage throughout most of the rest of the nation. Our history books seem to exclude this part of the story.
When we get right down to it, most of the bull-work of harvesting crops, building highways, railroad lines and skyscrapers was accomplished by slave labor. Many of the workers; especially the Irish and the Chinese, voluntary sold themselves into bondage just for the right to come to America to make their home. But they were slaves, none-the-less.
My own Irish heritage is somewhat clouded but it is very possible that my ancestors were among the hard working men who swung the heavy hammers that built the great cities and road systems that still stand today. All I know about my father is that he was born in a covered wagon while the family was moving from Texas to Kansas at the turn of the century and my Grandfather Peter Donahue passed when Dad was a young boy.
The Irish made their way to America among a large number of emigrating Europeans seeking an escape from the brutal poverty they experienced under the thrones and land barons of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Because of their poverty they sold themselves into indentured servitude or chattel slavery, promising to work a certain number of years to finance their crossing of the Atlantic.
But there were cases of forced slavery among the Irish as well. I suspect it was much like the old “Shanghai system” of capturing imbibed men for service in the king’s navy. To provide the number of bodies needed to sail the ships of the English Navy, many a young man found himself trapped for months, sometimes for years aboard an English ship at sea after awakening from a drunken night on the town.
The English custom of providing migrant voyages to the New World was somewhat better since it allowed for voluntary servitude. Either the traveler agreed to a system of apprenticeship or husbandry to work his or her way across that great ocean. Yet in the end, it still amounted to a form of enslavement.
The cost of riding squeezed below deck on a rolling sailing ship at sea was not cheap. The emigrants were often packed like sardines, without adequate food and water or good air to breathe. Sickness and sometimes shipwreck took lives. Those that arrived safely were usually committed to work sometimes up to seven years to pay off the cost of their trip.
The emigrants often came in on “slave ships” that anchored either in the West Indies or Virginia. There the captain of the ship sold his human cargo to contractors who bid in human auctions for their service. Big strapping man and healthy young women brought the best payment, usually in amounts of cargo like tobacco, sugar or other commodities that would be shipped back to Europe.
Once an indentured servant’s term of service was over they received what was called “freedom dues” which was about ten pounds in sterling. They were then “free” with cash in their pocket and turned loose. From there they could buy land, migrate to other colonies, or hire out to other employers.
Some of the indentured emigrants were lucky and were bought by colonists who treated them well. Others were not so lucky. Under various colonial laws in existence at the time, some chattel slaves were treated like livestock. Their stories were similar to some of the horror stories that emerged from the black slave colonies of the south. There was sometimes little difference.
The stories involving the Chinese emigrants who were brought to the West Coast to help built the railroad were perhaps even more brutal. Stories were told of laborers dying in large numbers while tunneling through the Rocky Mountains for the railroad and laboring for long hours under the hot sun.
The point to all of this is that slavery has been the rich man’s way of building empires at the snap of a whip or the end of a shotgun. It has been going on for centuries. It was only in the Twentieth Century, when workers conducted a bloody fight for unions, that the working people began sharing some of the fruit of their labor. They forced their bosses to provide paid sick days, vacation time off, eight-hour work days, five-day work weeks and paid health insurance as well as better wages. Thus was born the so-called “Middle Class” of America.
We are today watching a return of the old system of servitude and indentured slavery as new trade agreements allow for employers to move their factories and businesses overseas in search of non-union labor. They are seeking out the poor and impoverished countries where people are willing to work long hours for low wages just to have a job.
When good paying jobs are in short supply and college graduates are forced to work on part-time jobs for minimum wages, employers tend to treat workers like cattle once again. If they have a problem with one worker, let him go. There is a line-up of people just outside the door willing to take the job.
Beware! We are rushing back into the old slave system the Irish, Chinese and Africans worked so hard to get away from only a century ago.
By James Donahue
Slavery has left its ugly mark on American history. Of course it involves the black Africans who were subjected to humiliating enslavement all through the South. But it also included the sale of the Chinese and the Irish into bondage throughout most of the rest of the nation. Our history books seem to exclude this part of the story.
When we get right down to it, most of the bull-work of harvesting crops, building highways, railroad lines and skyscrapers was accomplished by slave labor. Many of the workers; especially the Irish and the Chinese, voluntary sold themselves into bondage just for the right to come to America to make their home. But they were slaves, none-the-less.
My own Irish heritage is somewhat clouded but it is very possible that my ancestors were among the hard working men who swung the heavy hammers that built the great cities and road systems that still stand today. All I know about my father is that he was born in a covered wagon while the family was moving from Texas to Kansas at the turn of the century and my Grandfather Peter Donahue passed when Dad was a young boy.
The Irish made their way to America among a large number of emigrating Europeans seeking an escape from the brutal poverty they experienced under the thrones and land barons of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Because of their poverty they sold themselves into indentured servitude or chattel slavery, promising to work a certain number of years to finance their crossing of the Atlantic.
But there were cases of forced slavery among the Irish as well. I suspect it was much like the old “Shanghai system” of capturing imbibed men for service in the king’s navy. To provide the number of bodies needed to sail the ships of the English Navy, many a young man found himself trapped for months, sometimes for years aboard an English ship at sea after awakening from a drunken night on the town.
The English custom of providing migrant voyages to the New World was somewhat better since it allowed for voluntary servitude. Either the traveler agreed to a system of apprenticeship or husbandry to work his or her way across that great ocean. Yet in the end, it still amounted to a form of enslavement.
The cost of riding squeezed below deck on a rolling sailing ship at sea was not cheap. The emigrants were often packed like sardines, without adequate food and water or good air to breathe. Sickness and sometimes shipwreck took lives. Those that arrived safely were usually committed to work sometimes up to seven years to pay off the cost of their trip.
The emigrants often came in on “slave ships” that anchored either in the West Indies or Virginia. There the captain of the ship sold his human cargo to contractors who bid in human auctions for their service. Big strapping man and healthy young women brought the best payment, usually in amounts of cargo like tobacco, sugar or other commodities that would be shipped back to Europe.
Once an indentured servant’s term of service was over they received what was called “freedom dues” which was about ten pounds in sterling. They were then “free” with cash in their pocket and turned loose. From there they could buy land, migrate to other colonies, or hire out to other employers.
Some of the indentured emigrants were lucky and were bought by colonists who treated them well. Others were not so lucky. Under various colonial laws in existence at the time, some chattel slaves were treated like livestock. Their stories were similar to some of the horror stories that emerged from the black slave colonies of the south. There was sometimes little difference.
The stories involving the Chinese emigrants who were brought to the West Coast to help built the railroad were perhaps even more brutal. Stories were told of laborers dying in large numbers while tunneling through the Rocky Mountains for the railroad and laboring for long hours under the hot sun.
The point to all of this is that slavery has been the rich man’s way of building empires at the snap of a whip or the end of a shotgun. It has been going on for centuries. It was only in the Twentieth Century, when workers conducted a bloody fight for unions, that the working people began sharing some of the fruit of their labor. They forced their bosses to provide paid sick days, vacation time off, eight-hour work days, five-day work weeks and paid health insurance as well as better wages. Thus was born the so-called “Middle Class” of America.
We are today watching a return of the old system of servitude and indentured slavery as new trade agreements allow for employers to move their factories and businesses overseas in search of non-union labor. They are seeking out the poor and impoverished countries where people are willing to work long hours for low wages just to have a job.
When good paying jobs are in short supply and college graduates are forced to work on part-time jobs for minimum wages, employers tend to treat workers like cattle once again. If they have a problem with one worker, let him go. There is a line-up of people just outside the door willing to take the job.
Beware! We are rushing back into the old slave system the Irish, Chinese and Africans worked so hard to get away from only a century ago.