Redleg
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "other uses". Redleg is a term used to refer to poor whites who live or at one time lived on Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada and a few other Caribbean islands. Their forebears were sent from Ireland, Britain and Continental Europe as indentured servants, forced labourers, or peons.[1][2]
Etymology
According to folk etymology, the name is derived from the effects of the tropical sun on the fair-skinned legs of white emigrants, now known as sunburn. However, the term "Redlegs" and its variants were also in use for Irish soldiers who were taken as prisoners of war in the Irish Confederate Wars and transported to Barbados as indentured servants.[3]
In addition to "Redlegs", the term underwent extensive progression in Barbados and the following terms were also used: "Redshanks", "Poor whites", "Poor Backra", "Backra Johnny", "Ecky-Becky", "Johnnies" or "Poor Backward Johnnies", "Poor whites from below the hill", "Edey white mice" or "Beck-e Neck" (Baked-neck). Historically, anything besides "poor whites" were used as derogatory insults.[4][3]
History
Many of the Redlegs' ancestors were transported by Oliver Cromwell after his conquest of Ireland.[5] Some were sent from England by the Bloody Assize following Monmouth's rebellion against James II.[6][7] Others had originally arrived on Barbados in the early to mid-17th century as indentured servants, to work on the sugar plantations.[3][8] Small groups of Germans and Portuguese prisoners of war were also imported as plantation labourers.[9]
By the 18th century, indentured servants became less common. African slaves were trained in all necessary trades, so there was no demand for paid white labour. The Redlegs, in turn, were unwilling to work alongside the freed black population on the plantations.[1]
Because of the deplorable conditions under which the Redlegs lived, a campaign was initiated in the mid-19th century to move portions of the population to other islands which would be more economically hospitable. The relocation process succeeded, and a distinct community of Redleg descendants live in the Dorsetshire Hill District on St. Vincent as well as on the islands of Grenada around Mt. Moritz and Bequia.[4]
The term "Redleg" is also used in South Carolina, where Barbadians had settled.[3]
See also
Lua error in mw.title.lua at line 404: bad argument #2 to 'title.new' (unrecognized namespace name 'Portal').
- Béké
- Buckra
- Conch (people)
- Zoreilles
- White Caribbean people
- History of South Carolina
- Irish immigration to Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Irish immigration to Barbados
- Irish people in Jamaica
- Irish indentured servitude
- Red Strangers - a novelized account of the arrival and effects of European settlers to colonial Kenya
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sheppard, Jill (1977). The "Redlegs" of Barbados, their origins and history. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-527-82230-9.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Haines, Lindsay (February 25, 1973). "Poor, Backward and Adamantly White in a Black World". The New York Times. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ^ a b c d The Redlegs of Barbados. Edward T. Price, 1957 (archived on 28 dec 2007)
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Keagy, Thomas J. (1972). "THE POOR WHITES OF BARBADOS". Revista de Historia de América (73–74).
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Fraser, Henry (1990). A-Z of Barbadian heritage. Kingston, Jamaica: Heinemann Publishers (Caribbean). p. 90. ISBN 978-976-605-098-6.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Bloody Assize". Somerset County Council. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Swingen, Abigail Leslie (2015). Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire. Yale University Press. p. 21.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.O'Callaghan, Sean (2000). To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland. Brandon. ISBN 1847175961 – via Google Books.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Beckles, Hilary (1986). "Black men in white skins': The formation of a white proletariat in West Indian Slave society". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 15 (1): 5–21. doi:10.1080/03086538608582726.
External links
- Poor Scots who became white trash, Rebels, Covenanters - all sorts of 'redlegs' were shipped to Barbados over the centuries. The Sunday Times, 6 March 2005 (archived 10 Apr 2013)
- Barbados and the Melungeons of Appalachia. L.E. Salazar, The Multiracial Activist, 2002
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Navbox/configuration' not found. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Navbox/configuration' not found.
