Editing Redleg

{{Short description|Term for White Caribbeans}}
{{Other uses|Redlegs (disambiguation)}}
'''Redleg''' is a term used to refer to [[poor white]]s  that live or at one time lived on [[Barbados]], [[Saint Vincent (island)|St. Vincent]], [[Grenada]] and a few other [[Caribbean]] islands. Their forebears were sent from [[Kingdom of England|England]], [[Kingdom of Scotland|Scotland]], [[Kingdom of Ireland|Ireland]], and [[Continental Europe]] as [[indentured servant]]s, forced labourers, or [[Peon|peons]].<ref name="Sheppard">{{Cite book | last = Sheppard | first = Jill | title = The "Redlegs" of Barbados, their origins and history | publisher = KTO Press | date = 1977 | location = Millwood, N.Y. | page = 18 | isbn = 978-0-527-82230-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/25/archives/poor-backward-and-adamantly-white-in-a-black-world-culture-doomed.html|title=Poor, Backward and Adamantly White in a Black World|last=Haines|first=Lindsay|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 25, 1973|access-date=June 12, 2019}}</ref>

== Etymology ==
According to [[folk etymology]], the name is derived from the effects of the [[Tropics|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 [[Prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] in the [[Irish Confederate Wars]] and transported to [[Barbados]] as [[indentured servant]]s.<ref name=" Price-1957">[https://web.archive.org/web/20071228234215/http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/CARIBBEAN/2001-04/0986680712 ''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">{{cite journal |last1=Keagy |first1=Thomas J. |title=THE POOR WHITES OF BARBADOS |journal=Revista de Historia de América |date=1972 |issue=73–74}}</ref><ref name=" Price-1957"/>

== History ==
Many of the Redlegs' ancestors were [[Penal transportation|transported]] by [[Oliver Cromwell]] after his [[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland|conquest of Ireland]].<ref>{{Cite book | last = Fraser | first = Henry | title = A-Z of Barbadian heritage | publisher = Heinemann Publishers (Caribbean) | date = 1990 | location = Kingston, Jamaica | pages = 90 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e7HfAAAAMAAJ&q=the+orders+of+Oliver+Cromwell | isbn = 978-976-605-098-6}}</ref> Others had originally arrived on Barbados in the early to mid-17th century as [[indentured servants]], to work on the [[sugar plantation]]s.<ref name=" Price-1957"/><ref>{{cite book |isbn=1847175961 |title=To Hell or Barbados: The ethnic cleansing of Ireland |first=Sean |last=O'Callaghan |year=2000 |publisher=Brandon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iGyNAwAAQBAJ |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> Small groups of [[Holy Roman Empire|Germans]] and [[Kingdom of Portugal|Portuguese]] prisoners of war were also imported as plantation labourers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Beckles |first1=Hilary |title=Black men in white skins': The formation of a white proletariat in West Indian Slave society |journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |date=1986 |volume=15 |issue=1|pages=5–21 |doi=10.1080/03086538608582726 }}</ref> After the [[Monmouth Rebellion|Monmouth rebellion]], one thousand two hundred rebels were sold as slaves for the Barbados plantations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Churchill |first=Winston |title=Marlborough, His Life and Times Vol I |date=1967 |publisher=Sphere |pages=P192}}</ref>

By the 18th century, indentured servants became less common. [[Atlantic slave trade|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 [[Free person of color|freed black population]] on the [[plantation]]s.<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 [[Saint Vincent (island)|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==
{{Portal|Caribbean}}
*[[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 [[Kenya Colony|colonial Kenya]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://archive.today/20130410124434/http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES/2005-03/1112078348 ''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)
*[http://multiracial.com/index.php/2002/02/01/barbados-and-the-melungeons-of-appalachia/ ''Barbados and the Melungeons of Appalachia.''] L.E. Salazar, The Multiracial Activist, 2002

{{Ethnic slurs}}
{{White people}}

[[Category:Ethnic groups in the Caribbean]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Grenada]]
[[Category:European diaspora in Barbados]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines]]
[[Category:History of the Colony of Barbados]]
[[Category:Poverty in North America]]
[[Category:European diaspora in the Caribbean]]
[[Category:Working class in North America]]