Tells the little-known story of the Seventeenth Century Irish slave trade

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Product Description

The previously untold story of over 50,000 Irish men, women and children who were transported to Barbados and Virginia.
Between 1652 and 1659 over 50,000 Irish men, women and children were transported to Barbados and Virginia. Yet until now there has been no account of what became of them.

The motivation for the initial transportation of the Irish was expressed by King James 1 of England: "Root out the Papists and fill it [Ireland] with Protestants."

The author’s search began in the library of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and its files on Irish slaves. Sean O’Callaghan for the first time documents the history of these people: their transportation, the conditions in which they lived on plantations as slaves or servants, and their rebellions in Barbados.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31519 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Sunday Tribune
A fascinating read.

Irish Examiner
Essential reading.

Irish World
Hell or Barbados is such a valuable book.

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Customer Reviews

Hell on Earth
This is one of the most harrowing books I have read for years. Sean O`Callaghan is to be thanked for bringing this history to light.
Anyone from England reading this would have a re-think on their countrys history, no wonder this horror was hidden, not so in Ireland, this was featured in an Armagh history Annual many years ago.
This was only one episode of Englands rule in Ireland throughout the centuries, this book should be included in every school library in Britain.

Man's inhumanity to man painstakingly documented
In an era when "ethnic cleansing" has become a sad cliche, the historical enmity between English and Irish occasioned not only Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, in which he satirically suggested eating Irish newborn, but also a wholesale forced emigration of "redundant" Irish men and boys to the sugar plantations of Barbados, where their treatment and living conditions were often barbaric. The author vividly and unforgettably resurrects a shameful chapter of British history that many have sought to suppress. This work should be required reading for any committed student of religious and ethnic strife.

A vivid account of the Irish slave trade
To Hell or Barbados describes the fate of the thousands of Irish sold into slavery in the West Indies and Virginia after Cromwell's invasion in the Seventeenth Century.

As someone from an Irish background, I have to confess that, although I knew about the slave trade before, reading about the fate of my own countrymen and women gave the subject a new immediacy for me.

The book illustrates the links between Cromwell's policies in England, the invasion of Ireland and the 'Western design' in the Carribean. Irish rebels and English dissidents were sold into slavery along with millions of Africans.

It conveys a strong impression of an era whose legacy is still with us today. That is partly down to the power of O'Callaghan's description of the colonial West Indies. It is a vivid, not to say lurid account, of a society of exploitation and cruel debauchery maintained by systematic violence.

This is a powerful book, well worth reading for anyone interested in West Indian, American, Irish or English history