All right, the above plea aside, I'm dead serious: for the last five days, I've been agonizing over the issue of the Puritan treatment of the Irish during the Interregnum. I have been struggling to find good, reliable source material on the subject, but almost every writer involved has a (usually pro-Irish, pro-Catholic) agenda up their sleeve. For instance, John Patrick Prendergast, whose history of the Cromwellian occupation of Ireland describes the rounding up of people considered delinquents (including children in hospitals!) and the wholesale shipping of them as indentured servants to the West Indies!

The Cromwellian settlement of Ireland - Google Books

Unfortunately, being a 19th-century historian, he provides no source material for this claim. The bottom-line is, I can't quite tell how involved the Puritans truly were in the "Irish slave trade" or how much of what was really going on involved non-Puritan, English (and oftentimes illegal) slave-stealing and selling. An interesting clue can be found in this court case here: Salem Quarterly Court, Master Samuel Symonds against Irish slaves

I suppose that the reason that all of this interests me is because I can't quite reconcile the image of the Puritans who esteemed God so highly, with such a ruthless governmental program on hand. I feel as though some of them at least would have spoken against it and/or had no actual, involved partnership in it. Any perspectives on this, at any rate, would be welcome.

__________________
Christabella Warren
Fourth Presbyterian Church
Bethesda, MD
========================
These evils I deserve, and more . . . . Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon, Whose ear is ever open, and his eye Gracious to re-admit the suppliant. -- John Milton's Samson Agonistes

Puritans, as a group, are like any other group: some good, some not so good. Don't let your own bias interfere with truth. Cromwell was a politician and a mixed bag; I'm not a fan.

In general though, we have glamorized the puritans. God providentially used many of them to produce some wonderful resources for the church. As a political faction, I am not impressed.

__________________
Jon Peters
Member, Reformation Fellowship (OPC) (Roseville, CA)
Folsom, CA

I haven't read this, but it is another source at Google Books:
Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum

__________________
Jim
1689 LBCF
Independent Bible Church
North Texas, USA

One very valid solution is to wonder precisely how Puritan Cromwell really was.
He certainly profited from Puritan allegiances and he had a Puritan chaplain. But I think it is at least easy to see that his army was decidedly less than Puritan.

Feel free to educate me if you disagree.

__________________
Wayne Sparkman, Th.M.
Director, PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, MO
Blogs: The Continuing Story and PCA History Blog

Whether one agrees with him or not, there is little doubt that Cromwell was a Puritan. One has only to read his letters and many of his private actions to be assured of that. Yes, he was a mixed bag and there are certainly some very important things in his administration that I disagree with, but there are also some decided improvements that England enjoyed because of the Interregnum as well. One wonders, though, what the Protectorate would have been like had John Milton taken Cromwell's place.

That aside, I actually tend to agree with the Puritans as a political party. They were persecuted relentlessly by the English government and when Parliament, acting as a body of magistrates, chose to take control over the King, I believe that it was within their right as they were acting as magistrates who had been given the power by God to make such a choice before the English government gave way entirely to episcopality and prelacy. Keep in mind as well that part of what pushed the English Puritans over the edge was the idea of being forced to fight against their Scottish Calvinist brethren in order to force them to use the Book of Common Prayer (King Charles and Archbishop Laud's idea). Can one really blame them for having had enough?

But since this thread doesn't deal with that issue, I'm not going to pursue this topic; especially as I know that there will be many here who don't agree with my justifications of the English Civil War. My question is quite simple: is there anyone who knows anything about the influence of the Puritans on the Irish, about the indentured servitude imposed upon some of the Irish, and whether there are any good (and fair) books on the subject?

I truly wish I were knowledgeable enough to provide the answer or resources you are seeking.

On the other hand, you've given me a whole new potential insight into why someone like Irish immigrant Alexander McLeod would have been so fervently anti-slavery, to the point of refusing a call to pastor a church in New York where slave-holders were among the membership, and so prompting his denomination [the Reformed Presbyterians] to unanimously decide that slave-holders could not be members in good standing.

I'll have to look back now through his treatise, "Negro Slavery Unjustifiable" to see if there is reference to Irish slavery, or if he builds arguments from the evil of one practice to the evil of the other (as if they were separable!).

That treatise is here:
http://www.pcahistory.org/findingaid...od-Slavery.pdf
and the background story is here:
http://www.pcahistory.org/ebooks/mcleod/c4.pdf

Thank you so much for the links. I would guess that you are right and that Mr. McLeod may have been influenced somewhat by the mistreatment of the Irish. Also, quick historical update: it seems that Parliament was very divided about the Irish issue. There were some that supported quite brutal tactics, others who suggested leniency. Those two were mixed together and the outcome was what resulted in the odd behavior of the English to the Irish during the Interregnum. Certainly not all the Puritans and English magistrates were heartless thugs. Even those who were hard-hearted were apparently influenced by the harrowing accounts of the Protestant massacres perpetrated by the Irish in Ulster as well as the Waldensian Massacres perpetrated by Irish mercenaries who aided the Spanish by murdering Protestants in Nimes.

All in all, a lot of brutality on both sides, but certainly not all accountable to the Puritans. Also, to clarify, none of the Irish were actually sold as slaves but as indentured servants, so their servitude in all events would have been only temporary.

A search on Amazon turned up some (apparently) credible resources. Scholarly at least. The premise of the Irish slave trade seems a rather well established, albeit neglected, fact.

My perusal of Amazon led to to several books that I am going to read, so thank you:

Amazon.com: Capitalism And Slavery: Eric Williams: Books

Amazon

Have you read The Protecter by D'Aubigne? I have not, but from what I understand he wrote this book to correct what he saw as some of the misconceptions people had of Cromwell. I hear it is a good read.

__________________
Brian Eschen
Ruling Elder, PCA
Pleasanton, California

Any historian with either Catholic or Protestant sympathies, British or Irish allegiances are united on the butchery of Cromwell in Ireland and in particular the towns of Wexford and Drogheda.

In a defence of sorts, it may be said he lived in a totally different era. No Geneva convention, war crimes tribunal or UN peacekeepers back then. Indeed his actions would remind you of OT commands for the Israelites to kill all the inhabitants of the various Caananite cities. There was a different outlook to war then and the church/state question would be more to the fore.

Cromwell is a problem of history but then in our evangelism we proclaim Christ, not Cromwell.

__________________
Stuart
Elder, Lambeg Baptist, Northern Ireland, UK

In Him the fulness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form and in Him you are complete (Col 2.9-10)

The Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God. (RM M'Cheyne)

I think this whole issue has HUGE implications as to whether we hold to the original WCF or the 1788 American Revision.

__________________
Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

You are, of course, right; though it has been argued recently by some historians that much of the slaughter that occurred in Drogheda was subsequently exaggerated by revisionist historians. But I still believe that as Protestants, it is important to know the history behind the English Civil War, if only so that we can understand not only the mistakes but the benefits that were bestowed upon England.

Why? It is not like the post-1788 years did not have its fair share of arguably worse atrocities.

__________________
Benjamin P. Glaser, M. Div, Licentiate, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Member Fairmount ARP Church
Pittsburgh, PA

Deo Vindice

I would be interested to hear of those worst atrocities done by Protestants post-1788.

Let's start with kidnapping/slavery and work from there...

There arose the infamous saying during Cromwells time "To hell or Cannaught" meaning be killed or exiled to the west of Ireland. It was based on the law

''Under penalty of death, no Irish man, woman, or child, is to let himself, herself, itself be found east of the River Shannon.''

- A 1654 order from the parliament of England.

This was to make room for Cromwells armies and the subsequent settlers to quell further rebellion.

The town I used to live in, Clonmel in County Tipperary, was a walled city that was once surrounded by Cromwell. There was a bit of a ruse at one end allowing many of the towns folk to escape at the other end. Or Clonmel too could have been added to the list.

This was on the decline during those years. It was worse before.

Apart from Irish RC slaves being sold off to the colonies, did not the trade in African slaves to America originate with Sir Francis Drake? (basically a respectable pirate, but hardly a Christian) Also it was the influence of Christian parlimentarians such as Wilberforce who finally put a stop to it.

There is the mix of equating Protestant with Christian. People are born Protestant or Catholic, they have no choice in the matter. But people become Christians and thereafter act accordingly

Slaughter of Native Americans through Abortion-On Demad...

-----Added 6/25/2009 at 08:07:37 EST-----

Well yes. But Pergy was asking for post-1788 by American Protestants.

Ben: Abortion on demand is not being advocated by Protestants. What are you driving at?

That worse atrocities have occurred in America post-1788.

But not by those identified as "Puritan" or Christian.

The slaughter of the Native Americans and their exiling to Oklahoma (and other reservations) was defended by Christians and Presbyterians.

Brethren:
This previous exchange is fruitless and has nothing to do with what I asked. My question was very specific and if there is no one here who has a pertinent reply, then please refrain from replying to it. I am certainly not trying to claim that Cromwell was an angel, nor that he was a godless brute. I am merely trying to get at specific information on a particular policy of England during that period.

This would be interesting for another thread. Thanks for your thoughts.

Christabella.......is your church 'Old North Church', THE Old North Church dating back to the Revolutionary War...."one if by land, two if by sea"?

__________________
"Be killing sin or it will be killing you."--John Owen

Tim Goerz
Weatherford Presbyterian(PCA)
Alvord, Texas