Front cover image for White cargo : the forgotten history of Britain's White slaves in America

White cargo : the forgotten history of Britain's White slaves in America

Drawing on letters crying for help, diaries, court and government archives, this book demonstrates that the brutalities associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with American independence, but the British still tried to sell convicts in their former colonies
Print Book, English, ©2007
Mainstream Pub., Edinburgh, ©2007
History
320 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9781845961954, 1845961951
173509669
INTRODUCTION IN THE SHADOW OF THE MYTH11
CHAPTER ONE A PLACE FOR THE UNWANTED21
Elizabethan adventurers dreamed of an American empire that would give them gold and glory.
Others saw the New World as a dumping ground for England's unwanted poor.
CHAPTER TWO THE JUDGE'S DREAM33
A highwayman who became Lord Chief Justice planned to colonise America with criminals.
He began to empty England's gaols and set a precedent.
CHAPTER THREE THE MERCHANT PRINCE47
The mastermind behind the first successful English colony in America was reputedly Britain's richest man.
He kept a fledgling Virginia going and paved the way for the first white slaves.
CHAPTER FOUR CHILDREN OF THE CITY75
The Virginia Company wanted youngsters to work in the tobacco fields.
The burghers of London wanted rid of street children.
So a bargain was struck and hundreds of children were transported.
CHAPTER FIVE THE JAGGED EDGE89
The New World was a magnet for the poor.
To get there, they had to mortgage their labour in advance.
They were not to know that they had contracted into slavery and might well die in bondage.
CHAPTER SIX 'THEY ARE NOT DOGS'99
Virginia was run by planters who pushed through laws that relegated 'servants' and 'apprentices' to the status of livestock.
Notionally they had rights but planters were literally allowed to get away with murder.
CHAPTER SEVEN THE PEOPLE TRADE113
In the 1630's, almost 80,000 people left England for the Chesapeake, New England and the Caribbean, most of them indentured servants.
A ruthless trade in people developed in which even a small investor could make money.
CHAPTER EIGHT SPIRITED AWAY127
Untold numbers were kidnapped or duped onto America-bound ships and sold as servants.
The 'spiriting' business became as insidious and organised as the cocaine racket today.
Even magistrates took a cut of the proceeds.
CHAPTER NINE FOREIGNERS IN THEIR OWN LAND137
Ethnic and religious cleansing in Ireland became a model for Native Americans being cleared from the Chesapeake.
During the Cromwell era, still more were displaced and Ireland became a major source of slaves for the New World.
CHAPTER TEN DISSENT IN THE NORTH155
Until the 1650's, Scotland fought shy of transporting its unwanted to any English colony.
Then religious and political dissent were made punishable by transportation to the Americas.
Sometimes more died on the way than ever reached the New World.
CHAPTER ELEVEN THE PLANTER FROM ANGOLA169
The idea that Africans were Virginia's first slaves is revealed as a myth through the story of one who became a planter himself and went on to own whites as well as blacks.
CHAPTER TWELVE 'BARBADOSED'177
In the 1640's, Barbados became the boom economy of the New World.
The tiny island's sugar industry would outperform all its rivals in profits �� and in its ruthless use of slave labour.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE GRANDEES193
A planter aristocracy emerged in the Chesapeake.
Its members dealt in men, land and influence, creating dynasties that dominated America for centuries.
But stories of brutality deterred would-be settlers from emigrating.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN BACON'S REBELLION205
The planters' nightmare of a combined uprising by blacks and whites came true when a charismatic young aristocrat turned an Indian war into a campaign against his own class, the English grandees.
Swearing never again, the grandees set out to divide the races.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN QUEEN ANNE'S GOLDEN BOOK213
Bogus promises of free land persuaded hordes of Europeans to sell up and leave for America.
They began a nightmare journey that left some so impoverished they sold their children to pay the fare.
But some outfoxed their exploiters.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN DISUNITY IN THE UNION227
Scottish clansmen were sold as servants in the Americas while their chieftains were allowed a comfortable exile in France �� two different fates for Jacobites after 1715.
Merchants made fortunes selling the clansmen in six different colonies.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN LOST AND FOUND233
The tide of kidnapping continued under the Hanoverians.
In two famous instances, victims returned, as if from the dead, to denounce their abductors.
One claimed to be heir to an earldom, kidnapped by the man who stole his birthright.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 'HIS MAJESTY'S SEVEN-YEAR PASSENGERS'247
After 1718, England subsidised the convict trade and America was deluged with British jailbirds.
Paranoia grew, with soaring crime rates and epidemics blamed on convicts.
Only employers were happy: a convict servant was half the price of an African slave.
CHAPTER NINETEEN THE LAST HURRAH271
Having won their liberty in the War of Independence, Americans had no intention of allowing their country to serve as a penal colony ever again.
Britain had other plans and an astonishing plot was born.
NOTES283
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY301
INDEX313