This is a short piece of historical fiction from a series of pieces I did about Cromwell's orders to send Irish girls to Barbados. While this in no way compares to the systematic enslavement of Africans across many generations, there is evidence that a handful of boats did make the trip from Ireland to the Caribbean with orders to bring Irish girls for the fields and the houses. For the most part, Irish were indentured servants who moved to the mainland after their contract had been fulfilled.
Mary-Margaret
Dublin 1637
“They are going to come back for her. Or snatch her when she’s running errands.”
“No. She stays here.” My mother’s voice is less determined that it had been last week, last month. So many months, and the Captains are getting more aggressive.
They have their orders.
The first set of orders took my Da, took all of the men that could stand upright long enough to be punched through with a bayonette. Cromwell sent them to Spain and Sicily and that is where they stayed. My Ma took up with the landlord. She was lucky he was too old to fight.
“We’ve held on a good, long time, Mar. Good Lord knows they’ll drag my dead body out of this house. But her. She’s young. She’s smart, you saw to that. We put her on that boat, maybe she has a chance. She’ll work for awhile, earn her freedom. She stays here, they’ll kill her. Or worse.”
There is little difference between hope and justification.
I’m about to turn sixteen. I’ve been trading kisses with the shopkeeper’s son, Paidrig. At first, it was just to get gossip, but now he says his parents are sending him up north and west to his uncle’s farm near Roscommon to hide him as long as they can. He wants me to come with him. He’ll be old enough to fight soon.
Ireland keeps trying to hide her children.
Paidrig says he’s got a bit of coin stashed, and some from his parents. The priest will marry us, though God knows the English don’t care about Catholic vows. We’ll hide on a wool cart as long as it’s safe, travel by foot when it’s not. Paidrig is keen and practical. I’d like to think I’d marry him even if they weren’t stealing Irish girls for plantation masters’ beds.
I’ve not told my Ma all the gossip I’ve heard.
Once an Englishman from a crew just back from Barbados came into the shop. I was in back helping Paidrig’s Ma spin yarn. His had been one of the first ships to take Irish over as indentured servants. T’was common enough now to hear of fellows indenturing themselves to the New World.
“Well the men, aye, indentured off, though there weren’t many men on that ship. The plantation masters, they want pale girls for their beds.” He cackled to his son and slapped him on the back. “The politicians, too. They take the pretty ones up to the house.”
“An the ones that ain’t so pretty?” his son asked.
“Well them they put out in the fields, mate them up with the African slaves, just like they was breeding cattle. I suppose they are indentured too, but they ain’t likely to leave a little one, are they?”
“No, sir. Don’t suppose.”
“Where they gonna go, anyway? Cromwell’s ordered us to round up s’many young Irish girls as we can find. If they can’t make babies here, he says them Irish’ll be gone from this land soon enough.” The Englishman looked Paidrig’s Da up and down, spat at him and walked out with some pipe tobacco and a half sack of flour.
My Ma and the Landlord don’t know I’m home, listening.
“There has to be something we can do.” Ma says, again, as she has said for weeks. I can hear that she is giving up.
“We’ll figure out something. I’m too old to move, but we can get some money together and send you both west…” his voice trails off as my Ma starts sobbing again.
God bless her, I think. My Ma is a good woman, soft spoken and kind, but utterly incapable of independent thought. She’s not made for these times.
“Ma!” I call out, determined and cheerful. I am all the independence she isn’t. I will not get on that boat. I enter the kitchen, my shawl tight around my head, place four coins in her hands, press her knuckles to my lips.
“What’s this?” she blinks, looking from her palm to my face. She’s never held four coins together in her hands at one time.
“That is a dowry.” I say with a wink. “Now, I need your help.”
I whip the scarf off my head and my mother gasps. I knew she would. I’ve sold my hair, my beautiful, dark auburn hair. I’ve sold nearly everything of value. Nearly.
“Help me braid a crown round my head so it doesn’t look like I’ve cut it all off, and I’ll tell you about this dowry.”
As my mother works, the landlord gathers what little I have and puts it in a sack. I tell them about Paidrig and Roscommon. We’ll be married by the priest tonight, we’ll be to his uncle’s farm by the end of the week. I’ll get a message to her within a fortnight by way of Paidrig’s dad’s shop. The land is poor, and it will be hard work, but it will be our work and if they can hold out ‘til spring, I tell them, we can arrange to bring them out to the farm. The further from England you are, the better, I joke. We are almost excited. My Ma is visibly relieved that someone else has solved this dilemma.
**
It’s dusk and I am in front of the church. I am early, but careful. I’ve kissed my Ma and thanked the landlord. I can do this, I remind myself. The alternative is unthinkable, something I can’t even conjure in my brain. The sky to the west is a violent red and as the sun sinks out of view, the church is cast into a sickly pink glow. I know that this is wrong, and that it is too late. I turn to see a British soldier picking Paidrig up off the ground. He is slumped. I am stupid because I scream and it echoes. I am stupid because I don’t run, I don’t want to run, I want to die right here. I am stupid because I know they will not kill me, but as their hands and arms whip like ropes around me I kick and I bite and I scream and scream and scream. I want to die on the steps of this church. They stake me to this stone. No one hears me though, even as they tear at my skirts, even as my vocal chords tear, my body tears. I scream until my throat bleeds. When I am torn, in tears, I stop screaming. There is nothing left in my body to make a sound. A British soldier unknots himself from my frame, knocks me hard-fisted right in the head and I pray until the darkness swallows me. Aimean.
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