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Servitude: Indentures, Serfs, Apprentices, etc. » MYTH: The Irish Were Slaves

21 Links

The links here are provided to help researchers to debunk a current myth about Irish slavery. While many Irish immigrants were indentured servants, they were not slaves. The very act of entering into an indenture is entering into a contract. Those that did so did it by choice and the contract had a finite period of time in which they served. Slaves were not given a choice and there was no contract. The time period was for their entire life, along with the lives of any offspring. They were considered property. While the two may seem similar, indenture was in a different category from slavery.

  • Were the Irish slaves? Frederick Douglass and his Irish awakening

    "But there was nothing like American slavery on the soil on which Douglass now stood. While he agreed that Irish people were oppressed, he did not believe that they were slaves. He went on to explain that the Irish, unlike slaves, had the freedom to marry, to protest, to move around and to emigrate."

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