The following account came to me today via a "Google News Alert". It shows how lucky we are to find information through Riobard. Jim McCarthy, Somerville, MA, USA ALFRED HISTORICAL SOCIETY LEARNS SECRETS OF COLONIES' PAST Bruce Tucker, the president of the Alfred Historical Society, shared research he recently conducted concerning Irish children stolen from their homeland to become indentured servants in the Colonies. In following up his research about the Scottish prisoners who were brought to the Colonies in 1651, Tucker found that several of them were marrying Irish women. He wondered where the Irish women came from and why there seemed to be few Irish men. In the early 1600s, it was common practice for merchants to import persons from all over the world to work in the ship yards, fisheries, lumber mills and other places where laborers were scarce. Richard Leader was one such merchant who made a great deal of money by importing Scottish prisoners to take some of these jobs. Oliver Cromwell, an English military and political leader who became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, set out to remove Irish Catholic peasantry from County Cork. Irish soldiers were first taken and sent to Spain and Poland. This left southern Ireland with few men and a large population of women and children. Later, in 1653, it was decided to move the Irish Catholics beyond the River Shannon. Earlier back in the Colonies, David Selic and friends in the Boston area pooled resources and decided to enter the business of shipping slaves to lucrative Portuguese and Dutch markets as well as local markets in Boston, Rhode Island and Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Later, he branched out, selling slaves to Virginia tobacco planters in Jamaica and Barbados. On learning that magistrates in Ireland wanted to get rid of Irish women and children, Selic and associates put two and two together and decided to make even more money by not having to purchase the slaves in the first place, Tucker explained. Merchants went in search of Irish citizens by sea and brought back several loads of people; one ship held 400 Irish children and another several Irish women and a few Irish men, most from County Cork. Irish children were routed from their beds and carried on board ships that set sail to the Colonies. Selic and other slave merchants became very wealthy as they sold these stolen children as indentured slaves to people in the New World. The children were to work for their "masters" for a period of seven years and then they were free to do whatever they wished. When Irish authorities began to protest abduction of the children, one ship set sail without water and provisions and most of the children died at sea. Selic and other businessmen felt that what they were doing was not wrong, for they were "doing this for the good of the children." The slave trade continued, although at least two Irish young men took their case to court in 1654 when their "master" required them to serve two additional years before releasing them as indentured slaves. The only fault the court found was that part of the original business deal concerning the slaves took place on Sunday. In 1660, more than 10,000 Irish children were brought to the Colonies and another 1,000 were taken to Jamaica and Barbados. It is interesting and rather ironic, Tucker noted, that some of these Irish people eventually settled on Block Island after serving their period of indenture and for a time pirated ships to make a living. Tucker explained that it is difficult to trace the Irish children, for often they took the name of the family for whom they were indentured or the spelling of their Irish names was changed.