Irish people were slaves just like Africans
| Irish people were slaves just like Africans | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "Irish people were enslaved in the American colonies and the Caribbean in the same way as Africans; the "Irish slaves" were treated worse and were forgotten." | |
| Domain | Immigration & Migration |
| Tactic | False Context Propaganda Technique |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2000s |
| Origin | Self-published books and white nationalist websites, spread widely through social media memes in the 2010s |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-29 |
| Further reading: books on Immigration & Migration | |
The Irish slaves myth claims that Irish people were chattel slaves in the British Atlantic colonies, often in numbers rivaling or exceeding enslaved Africans. Historians agree that many Irish people were sent to the colonies as indentured servants, prisoners of war or convicts and were often treated brutally. But their status was different from hereditary, race-based chattel slavery. The myth is frequently used to dismiss the history and legacy of African slavery.
The claim
Memes say "the first slaves were Irish," often with mislabeled photographs, and use the claim to argue that Black Americans should "get over" slavery.
What the evidence shows
- Different legal status. Indentured servitude had a fixed term and did not pass to children. Chattel slavery was lifelong, inherited and based on race.
- Mislabeled images. Many photographs used in the memes show other people or events.
- Scholarly rebuttal. Historian Liam Hogan and others traced how the myth spread from a few unreliable books into extremist circles.
Why it persists
It turns a real history of Irish suffering into a tool for minimizing slavery.
Sources
- Liam Hogan, Laura McAtackney and Matthew C. Reilly, "The Irish in the Anglo-Caribbean: servants or slaves?" History Ireland 24, no. 2 (2016).
- Wikipedia, "Irish slaves myth."