Reviews for White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America

The average rating for White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-10-29 00:00:00 James Neal Every time I think I have a fairly reasonable understanding of American history, a book like this comes along and makes me feel gloriously ignorant. This is a fantastically detailed history of white indentured servitude in the early colonial period. Needless to say, it wasn't at all like we were taught in school and astonishingly brutal. I don't want to give away the ending, but I do want to say that I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-16 00:00:00 Jane Scifleet During the early centuries of the British colonies hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were shipped from England and Ireland to serve as forced labor, many of them enslaved. Some of the children were mere toddlers, the parents hoping for a better life for them. The adults were either convicts, vagrants, or Catholics. Many of them were kidnapped. Ir is thought that " black slavery emerged out of white servitude," the only difference being that those white servants who survived the brutality of their servitude may see freedom many years later. Cheap bodies to people the new colonies and toil in the fields were drastically needed, but no one volunteered. The majority of them died within months of landing. Food was scarce. Brutal punishment was prevalent. It wasn't until the suppression of Bacon's Rebellion that white supremacy was engendered. Their "daily condition was little different from that of Africans", but whites were now taught that they were superior and were segregated, but brutality was equal. Importation of white servants into America did not stop until about 1785. Our first president, George Washington, was a prosperous slave owner. For more on this read Not Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. It's naive to believe that our country was solely founded on the backs of free men. We need to recognize the slave labor that built, toiled, and tilled this great land. 2017 Lenten nonfiction Buddy Reading Challenge book #34