Tea at Trianon: Red Legs in Barbados

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Red Legs in Barbados

I recently read To Hell or Barbados by Seán O'Callaghan about the ethnic cleansing of Ireland under Oliver Cromwell in the mid-17th century. Cromwell wanted to clear as many Irish Catholics from Ireland as possible and make it a Puritan "godly" nation. It is a carefully researched book based upon primary sources in Ireland, England and Barbados. The Irish slave trade did not last long since the Irish slaves ignited too many slave rebellions. Plus they suffered from horrible sunburn, hence the nickname "Redlegs." In later year they mostly came as indentured servants, which in itself was pretty terrible, as families could be separated and woman and children were often sexually abused. I was interested to read that of the thousands of Irish men, woman and children sold into slavery in Barbados there are descendants there to this day, still called "Red Legs." Recalcitrant Scots were shipped off to the Caribbean to work as slaves and /or indentured servants as well. According to The Irish Times:

I WAS DELIGHTED that Caroline Walsh focused on the plight of Ireland's lost tribe, the Red Legs, in her article a couple of weeks ago on Barbados. This group, made up of the descendants of 50,000 Irish men and women who were sold into the white slave trade between 1652 and 1659, have been largely ignored, apart from in Seán O'Callaghan's wonderful To Hell or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland, published almost 20 years ago.
They were innocent Irish people who were rounded up from across the country by teams of Oliver Cromwell’s “man-catchers”, bound in chains and shipped to Barbados to work on sugar plantations. Their descendants are still there today – some of them in absolute poverty – isolated, unassimilated and uneducated. It is about time we acknowledge them, our beleaguered kinsmen, innocent victims first of British injustice, then of landlord cruelty and now of our lack of interest. I’ve wanted to go out and visit them for a long time, and perhaps make a documentary about them, but I was warned off by O’Callaghan’s stories of outsiders being driven away with hoes and pitchforks from the isolated, rundown settlements in which they live.
Thankfully, a braver group, Moondance Films, has made a documentary.... I’ll be intrigued to find out what it learned. So little known is about the Red Legs. Like any oppressed people, they were too focused on survival to have had the luxury of documenting their history. Their connection with Ireland was cut off many centuries ago; their surnames were taken from them and they were forbidden to practise their faith. Perhaps all that remains is their red hair, freckles and blue eyes. (Read more.)

More HERE. And HERE.