Irish indentured servants

Irish indentured servants were Irish people who became indentured servants in territories under the control of the British Empire, such as the British West Indies (particularly Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands), British North America and later Australia.

Indentures agreed to provide up to seven years of labor in return for passage to the New World and food, housing, and shelter during their indenture. At the end of this period, their masters were legally required to grant them "freedom dues" in the form of either land or capital. An indentured servant's contract could be extended as punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female servants, becoming pregnant.^[1]

Those transported unwillingly were not indentures. They were political prisoners, vagrants, or people who had been defined as "undesirable" by the English state.^[2] Penal transportation of Irish people was at its height during the 17th century, during the Cromwellian conquest and settlement of Ireland (1649–1653).^[2] During this period, thousands of Irish people were sent to the Caribbean, or "Barbadosed", against their will.^[3] Similar practices continued as late as the Victorian period, with Irish political prisoners sent to imperial British penal colonies in Australia.^[4] Indentures and transportees have been conflated, though they were different.