Redleg

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Redleg is a term used to refer to poor whites that live or at one time lived on Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada and a few other Caribbean islands. Their forebears were sent from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Continental Europe as indentured servants, forced labourers, or peons.<ref name="Sheppard">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Etymology

According to folk etymology, the name is derived from the effects of the tropical sun on the fair-skinned legs of white emigrants, now known as sunburn. However, the term "Redlegs" and its variants were also in use for Irish soldiers who were taken as prisoners of war in the Irish Confederate Wars and transported to Barbados as indentured servants.<ref name=" Price-1957">The Redlegs of Barbados. Edward T. Price, 1957 (archived on 28 dec 2007)</ref>

In addition to "Redlegs", the term underwent extensive progression in Barbados and the following terms were also used: "Redshanks", "Poor whites", "Poor Backra", "Backra Johnny", "Ecky-Becky", "Johnnies" or "Poor Backward Johnnies", "Poor whites from below the hill", "Edey white mice" or "Beck-e Neck" (Baked-neck). Historically, anything besides "poor whites" were used as derogatory insults.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=" Price-1957"/>

History

Many of the Redlegs' ancestors were transported by Oliver Cromwell after his conquest of Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Others had originally arrived on Barbados in the early to mid-17th century as indentured servants, to work on the sugar plantations.<ref name=" Price-1957"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Small groups of Germans and Portuguese prisoners of war were also imported as plantation labourers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> After the Monmouth rebellion, one thousand two hundred rebels were sold as slaves for the Barbados plantations.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

By the 18th century, indentured servants became less common. African slaves were trained in all necessary trades, so there was no demand for paid white labour. The Redlegs, in turn, were unwilling to work alongside the freed black population on the plantations.<ref name="Sheppard" />

Because of the deplorable conditions under which the Redlegs lived, a campaign was initiated in the mid-19th century to move portions of the population to other islands which would be more economically hospitable. The relocation process succeeded, and a distinct community of Redleg descendants live in the Dorsetshire Hill District on St. Vincent as well as on the islands of Grenada around Mt. Moritz and Bequia.<ref name=":0" />

The term "Redleg" is also used in South Carolina, where Barbadians had settled.<ref name=" Price-1957"/>

See also

• Béké
• Buckra
• Conch (people)
• Zoreilles
• White Caribbean people
• History of South Carolina
• Irish immigration to Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Irish immigration to Barbados
• Irish people in Jamaica
• Irish indentured servitude
• Red Strangers - a novelized account of the arrival and effects of European settlers to colonial Kenya

External links

• Poor Scots who became white trash, Rebels, Covenanters - all sorts of 'redlegs' were shipped to Barbados over the centuries. The Sunday Times, 6 March 2005 (archived 10 Apr 2013)
• Barbados and the Melungeons of Appalachia. L.E. Salazar, The Multiracial Activist, 2002