Whilst doing research for the ‘Caribbean through a lens‘ user participation project, a chance phone call from a community group in Birmingham led to the uncovering of a remarkable hidden history of Irish servants or indentured labour being employed on English owned plantations in the Caribbean. At The National Archives, we have unique documentation that demonstrates the sale of indentured labour before, during and after the English Civil War of the 17th century. 1 Many thousands of dispossessed Catholic Irish men, women and children were transported either willingly or unwillingly in this period to work on new sugar and tobacco plantations in Barbados, Jamaica and the smaller Caribbean islands including St Kitts, Nevis, Antigua and Montserrat.
‘Unloading cane at the Searle Estate’, Barbados. (catalogue reference INF 10/44/6)
Notes:
- 1. See HCA 30/636, CO 1/21 and CO 1/42. ^