Banishment did not solve the problem entirely, so James II encouraged selling the Irish as slaves to planters and settlers in the New World colonies. In 1612, t he first Irish slaves were sold to a settlement on the Amazon River in South America. More accurately,

the first “recorded” sale of Irish slaves was in 1612

, because the English, who were noted for meticulous record keeping, simply did not track anything Irish, neither goods nor people, unless such was being shipped to England. The disappearance of a few hundred or a few thousand Irish was not a cause for alarm, but rather for rejoicing. Who cared what their names were anyway, they were gone. The Proclamation of 1625 ordered Irish political prisoners be transported overseas and sold as laborers to English planters settling the islands of the West Indies. This officially established a poli cy that was to continue for two centuries. In 1629, a large group of Irish men and women were sent to Guyana. By 1632, Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat in the West Indies. A 1637 census showed 69% of the total population of Montserrat wer e Irish slaves. There were not enough political prisoners to supply the demand, so slaver gangs combed the Irish country sides to kidnap people to fill quotas. Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for Englis h merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white. Few people, today, are aware that throughout the entire 17

th

century, from 1600 to 1699, far more Irish were sold as slaves than Africans. Africans were better suited to work in the semi-tropical climates of the Caribbean but they had to be purchased. The Irish were free for the catching, so to speak. Ireland became the biggest source of livestock for the English slave trade. In 1641, Ireland's popul ation was 1,466,000 and in 1652, 616,000. According to Sir William Petty, 850,000 were wasted by the sword, plague, famine, hardship and banishment during the Confederation War 1641-1652. At the end o f the war, vast numbers of Irish men, women and c hildren were forcibly transported to the American colonies by the English government. These people were rounded up like cattle, and, as Prendergast reports on Thurloe's State Papers(Pub. London, 1742), "In clearing the ground for the adventurers and soldiers (the English capitalists of that day)... To b e transported to Barbados and the English plantations i n America. It was a measure beneficial to Ireland, which was thus relieved of a population that might trouble the planters; it was a benefit to the people removed, which might thus be made English and Christians ... a great benefit to the West India sugar planters, who desired men and boys for their bondsmen, and the women and Irish girls... To solace them." In 1641, the Confederation War broke out in Kilkenny as the Irish attempted to throw out the English yet again; something that seemed to happen at least once every generation. In 1649, Cro mwell landed in Ireland, slaughtering some 30,000 Irish living in the city of Drogheda. Cromwell reported,

“I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped

with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Bar

bados.”