Cromwell and the Irish slave trade

I read your report (Jan 29) on an article by John Martin of the Center for Research and Globalization in Montreal, Canada on a part of our history that is not on the national consciousness yet, like the Great Famine. But it is getting there.

His essay The Irish Slave Trade — The Forgotten White Slaves is about the 100,000 Irish people and probably far more, sent as slave labour to the new British colonies in the 1650s to 1660s. It began in 1625 when James 11 issued a proclamation that 30,000 Irish political prisoners be sent to the Caribbean. It escalated 25 years later under Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. By his death in 1658 from pneumonia safe in his England home, the Irish population of 1.5 million was down to an estimated 600,000.

What happened to the rest? They were killed in battles, resisting his well-armed force, large land thefts by his supporters leading to starvation and famines. His was the most successful of English conquests. It led to more men, women and children being shipped to Liverpool port and to the British colonies of the Americas and Caribbean islands.