Irish Slavery Topics

The transportation of Irish people to slavery in the Americas predates Oliver Cromwells reign with the first Irish political prisoners being sent to Virginia in 1620 under the reign of James I.

In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell succeeded in capturing the island of Jamaica from the Spanish and was keen to colonise it and put it to work for England. It was a much larger island than any other previously colonised in the Caribbean and required a new approach to populate it and make it viable. The initial plan was to offer freedom to indentured Irish slaves on the island of Barbados and elsewhere or to take more rebellious Irish slaves and transport them to Jamaica where they would be offered their freedom and 30 acres of land to work.