The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America

An "indentured servant" isn't quite a slave. They were not viewed as un-human and there were mechanisms through which they could become free again. For the most part, indentured servitude was a sort of judicial sentence, and it had an expiration date.

Some indentured servants WERE treated very badly, but on the whole they were still considered citizens of the Crown. Black African slaves were non-citizens, non-humans, considered uncivilized and uneducable. Cattle had more rights, more status.

I didn't read Kopypasta's copy-and-paste, but that story has circulated around here before. It is utter bullshit.

The *overwhelming* number of Irish, English, and other Europeans arrived here in the early years as indentured servants. Between half and two-thirds of the immigrants to the 13 colonies were indentured. The large majority used the indenture mechanism to pay their passage to America; they weren't here because of legal sentences.

Otherwise, it's as you described.

He's trying to sell an "equivalence" ... of the "2+2=22" variety in this case.

The indentured DID have it bad sometimes, but they weren't seen in the same light as African slaves ... they were still "people", "British subjects", and could regain their freedoms and rights after a period and live normal lives. Many an ex-indentured became successes afterwards.

As for those that died ... LOTS of people died young in the Americas at that time - it was a wild frontier and what little useful medical knowledge existed was spread out pretty thin. Quite a number of our Founders suffered dead wives and children - it was the norm.

Correct - work-4-passage, a sort of business arrangement. Not that they had it *easy* though ... workers of every kind got the short sticky end of the stick back then, and the indentured were not free men, considered to be of the lowest rank in a class-conscious culture.

Also, while a "majority" probably met the above description that leaves a rather large minority that WERE pressed into servitude because of legal problems (maybe real crimes but also maybe just "being Irish" or of very low social rank and thus ideal to exploit for cheap colonial labor). The Brits were pretty smart (in a wicked way) about colonialism ... success often counted on the sheer NUMBER of people there. It's why deportation to Australia became so popular.

The estimates are 50,000 people were transported to America, mostly to Virginia and Maryland until 1776 when the prison ships were turned away. Australia became the next dumping ground.

Not exactly a "dumping ground" - it was "nation building". Put a bunch of people somewhere, even if they don't WANT to be there, and they'll quickly develop a vested interest in the place - and anyone who can defend them against foreign enemies. All those Brit prisoners were STILL Brits .... and acted accordingly.

Were I torn from friends and family and sent halfway around the world on a prison ship to be worked as a slave, I would consider Britain to be the foreign enemy. I've never understood the fondness of the US upper crust for Britain but then I'm not a Brit.

Blood is thicker than water. When push comes to shove, you'll fall in line with people of your own race and language. That's why Americans of British descent put Americans of Japanese, German and Italian descent in WWI and WWII into internment camps.

Roosevelt was Dutch, you moron.

Please list the WWI internment camps.

Please list the German and Italian WWII internment camps.

Right here ---->

"There are fewer poor people in the world because socialism has worked in China, Klausie. " -Stalin Apologist and Socialist History Revisionist "Wannabe," October 14, 2015

On 7/29/2017 10:55 AM, Klaus Schadenfreude wrote:

OK:

The internment of German Americans refers to the detention of German nationals and German-American citizens in the United States during the periods of World War I and of World War II. During World War II, the legal basis for internment was under Presidential Proclamation 2526, made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the authority of the Alien and Sedition Acts.[1]

With the US entry into war, German nationals were automatically classified as "enemy aliens."

At the time of WWII, the United States had a large population of ethnic Germans. Among residents of the USA in 1940, more than 1.2 million persons had been born in Germany, 5 million had two native-German parents, and 6 million had one native-German parent.[citation needed] Many more had distant German ancestry. During WWII, the United States detained at least 11,000 ethnic Germans, overwhelmingly German nationals.[2] The government examined the cases of German nationals individually, and detained relatively few in internment camps run by the Department of Justice, as related to its responsibilities under the Alien and Sedition Acts. To a much lesser extent, some ethnic German US citizens were classified as suspect after due process and also detained. Similarly, a small proportion of Italian nationals and Italian Americans were interned in relation to their total population in the US. The United States had allowed immigrants from both Germany and Italy to become naturalized citizens, which many had done by then. In the early

21st century, Congress considered legislation to study treatment of European Americans during WWII, but it did not pass the House of Representatives. Activists and historians have identified certain injustices against these groups.

World War I[edit] Civilian internees[edit] President Woodrow Wilson issued two sets of regulations on April 6,

1917, and November 16, 1917, imposing restrictions on German-born male residents of the United States over the age of 14. The rules were written to include natives of Germany who had become citizens of countries other than the U.S.; all were classified as aliens.[3] Some 250,000 people in that category were required to register at their local post office, to carry their registration card at all times, and to report any change of address or employment. The same regulations and registration requirements were imposed on females on April 18, 1918.[4] Some 6,300 such aliens were arrested. Thousands were interrogated and investigated. A total of 2,048 were incarcerated for the remainder of the war in two camps, Fort Douglas, Utah, for those west of the Mississippi, and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for those east of the Mississippi.[5]

The cases of these aliens, whether being considered for internment or under internment, were managed by the Enemy Alien Registration Section of the Department of Justice. From December 1917 this section was headed by J. Edgar Hoover, then not yet 23 years old.[6]

Among the notable internees were the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt and

29 players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[7] Their music director, Karl Muck, spent more than a year at Fort Oglethorpe, as did Ernst Kunwald, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.[8] One internee described a memorable concert in the mess hall packed with 2000 internees, with honored guests such as their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."[9]

Most internees were paroled in June 1919 on the orders of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.[10] Some remained in custody until as late as March and April 1920.[11]

Merchant marine vessels[edit] Until the U.S. declared war on Germany, German commercial vessels and their crews were not detained. In January 1917, there were 54 such vessels in mainland U.S. ports and one in San Juan, Puerto Rico, free to leave.[12] With the declaration of war, 1,800 merchant sailors became prisoners of war.[13]

Over 2,000 German officers and sailors were interned in Hot Springs, North Carolina on the grounds of the Mountain Park Hotel.[14]

Military internees[edit] Before the U.S. entered the war, several German military vessels were docked in U.S. ports; officials ordered them to leave within 24 hours or submit to detention. The crews were first treated as alien detainees and then as prisoners of war (POWs). In December 1914 the German gunboat Cormoran, pursued by the Japanese Navy, tried to take on provisions and refuel in Guam. When denied what he required, the commanding officer accepted internment as enemy aliens rather than return to sea without sufficient fuel. The ship's guns were disabled. Most of the crew lived on board, since there were no housing facilities available. During the several years the Germans were detainees, they outnumbered U.S. Marines in Guam. Relations were cordial, and a U.S. Navy nurse married one of the Cormoran's officers.

As a result of U-boat attacks on U.S. shipping to Britain, the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Germany on February 4, 1917. U.S. officials in Guam then imposed greater restrictions on the German detainees. Those who had moved to quarters on land returned to the ship. Following the U.S. declaration of war on Germany in April 1917, the Americans demanded "the immediate and unconditional surrender of the ship and personnel." The German captain and his crew blew up the ship, taking several German lives. Six whose bodies were found were buried in the U.S. Naval Cemetery in Apra with full military honors. The surviving

353 German service members became prisoners of war, and on April 29 were shipped to the U.S. mainland.[15]

Non-German crewmen were treated differently. Four Chinese nationals started work as personal servants in the homes of wealthy locals. Another 28, Melanesians from German New Guinea, were confined on Guam and not accorded the rations and monthly allowance that other POWs received.[16] The crews of the cruiser Geier and an accompanying supply ship, which sought refuge from the Japanese Navy in Honolulu in November

1914, were similarly interned, becoming POWs when the US entered the war.[17]

Several hundred men on two other German cruisers, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm, unwilling to face certain destruction by the British Navy in the Atlantic, lived for several years on their ships in various Virginia ports and frequently enjoyed shore leave.[18] Eventually they were given a strip of land in the Norfolk Navy Yard on which to build accommodations. They constructed a complex commonly known as the "German village", with painted one-room houses and fenced yards made from scrap lumber, curtained windows, and gardens of flowers and vegetables, as well as a village church, a police station, and cafes serving non-alcoholic beverages. They rescued animals from other ships and raised goats and pigs in the village, along with numerous pet cats and dogs.[19] On October 1, 1916, the ships and their personnel were moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard along with the village structures,[20] which again became known locally as the "German village." In this more secure location in the Navy Yard behind a barbed wire fence, the detainees designated February 2, 1917 as Red Cross Day and solicited donations to the German Red Cross.[21] As German-American relations worsened in the spring of 1917, nine sailors successfully escaped detention, prompting Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to act immediately on plans to transfer the other 750 to detention camps at Fort McPherson and Fort Oglethorpe in late March 1917,[22] where they were isolated from civilian detainees.[23] Following the U.S. declaration of war on Imperial Germany, some of the Cormoran's crew members were sent to McPherson, while others were held at Fort Douglas, Utah, for the duration of the war.

World War II[edit] In the 1940 US census, some 1,237,000 persons identified as being of German birth; 5 million persons had both parents born in Germany; and 6 million persons had at least one parent born in Germany.[24] German immigrants had not been prohibited from becoming naturalized United States citizens and many did so. The large number of German Americans of recent connection to Germany, and their resulting political and economical influence, have been considered the reason they were spared large-scale relocation and internment. The West Coast Japanese Americans numbered about 120,000 and were expelled from the coast and incarcerated for years in camps.[24]

Shortly after the Japanese strike on Pearl Harbor, some 1,260 German nationals were detained and arrested, as the government had been watching them.[25] Of the 254 persons not of Japanese ancestry evicted from coastal areas, the majority were ethnic German.[26] During WWII, German nationals and German Americans in the US were detained and/or evicted from coastal areas on an individual basis. Although the War Department (now the Department of Defense) considered mass expulsion of ethnic Germans and ethnic Italians from the East or West coast areas for reasons of military security, it did not follow through with this. The numbers of people involved would have been overwhelming to manage.[27]

A total of 11,507 people of German ancestry were interned during the war. They comprised 36.1% of the total internments under the US Justice Department's Enemy Alien Control Program.[28] Of the 254 enemy aliens evicted from coastal areas (excluding Japanese Americans), the majority were German.

By the outbreak of World War II, the Nazi party's foreign countries organization (NSDAP/AO) sought to organize German citizens abroad, and managed to enroll between 3% and 9% of the German nationals in the Americas.[29] Though it was disappointed by this low participation, by promoting public activities of uniformed members, the NSDAP/AO gained a perception of being more influential than it was in fact.[29] Inaccurate and fearful United States media reports contributed to a public perception of high feeling for the Nazis among German nationals in the Americas.[29]

By contrast, an estimated 110,000-120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment camps in the interior run by an agency of the Department of Defense. Some Japanese Americans were investigated and later detained in DOJ camps under its Enemy Alien program.[30]

Deportation of Germans from Latin America[edit] In addition, the US accepted more than 4,500 German nationals deported from Latin America, detaining them in DOJ camps. During the early years of the war, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had drafted a list of Germans in fifteen Latin American countries whom it suspected of subversive activities. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US demanded deportation of these suspects for detention on US soil.[31] The countries that responded expelled 4,058 people.[32] Some

10% to 15% were Nazi party members, including approximately a dozen who were recruiters for the NSDAP/AO, which acted as the overseas arm of the Nazi party. Just eight were people suspected of espionage.[33]

Also transferred were some 81 unfortunate Jewish Germans who had fled persecution in Nazi Germany and found refuge in Latin America.[33] Many of the Germans had been immigrants and residents of Latin America for years, some for decades.[33]

In some instances, corrupt Latin American officials took the opportunity to seize the property of Germans. Sometimes financial rewards paid by American intelligence led to a person's identification as German and expulsion.[33] Several countries did not participate in the program, namely, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico.[33]

The following nations set up their own detention facilities for enemy

Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as in the Panama Canal Zone.[33]

The U.S. internment camps that held Germans from Latin America included:[34][33]

Texas Crystal City Kenedy Seagoville Florida Camp Blanding Oklahoma Stringtown North Dakota Fort Lincoln Tennessee Camp Forrest Some internees were held as late as 1948.[35]

Studies and review[edit] Since the late 20th century, detainees from the DOJ camps began to work to gain recognition of their trials. US citizens of ethnic European groups (German and Italian) which had been considered enemy aliens during the war, and some of those aliens argued that their civil rights had been violated and asked for reparations.

In 2005, activists formed an organization called the German American Internee Coalition to publicize the "internment, repatriation and exchange of civilians of German ethnicity" during World War II. It is seeking U.S. government review and acknowledgment of civil rights violations.[36][citation needed]

The TRACES Center for History and Culture, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, travels the United States in a "bus-eum" to educate citizens about treatment of foreign nationals in the U.S. during World War II.[37]

Legislation was introduced in the United States Congress in 2001 to create an independent commission to review government policies on European enemy ethnic groups during the war. On August 3, 2001, Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) sponsored the European Americans and Refugees Wartime Treatment Study Act in the U.S. Senate, joined by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Joseph Lieberman. This bill created an independent commission to review U.S. government policies directed against German and Italian aliens during World War II in the U.S. and Latin America.[38]

In 2007, the U.S. Senate passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act, which would examine the treatment of ethnic groups targeted by the U.S. government during World War II. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions opposed it, citing historians from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum who called it an exaggerated response to treatment of enemy aliens.[39] In 2009, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law passed the Wartime Treatment Study Act by a vote of 9 to 1,[40] but it was not voted on by the full house and did not become law.

The internment of Italian Americans refers to the government's internment of Italian nationals in the United States during World War II, similar to that of the Internment of Japanese Americans and Internment of German Americans. As was customary after Italy and the US were at war, they were classified as "enemy aliens" and some were detained by the Department of Justice under the Alien and Sedition Act. But in practice, the US applied detention only to Italian nationals, not to US citizens, or long-term US residents.[1] Italian immigrants had been allowed to gain citizenship through the naturalization process during the years before the war, and by 1940 there were millions of US citizens who had been born in Italy. Ethnic Italians were the largest group in the United States among nationals and ethnic descendants of the three peoples represented by the three Axis powers.[citation needed]

In 1942 there were 695,000 Italian immigrants in the United States. Some

1881 were taken into custody and detained under wartime restrictions; these were applied most often by the War Relocation Authority to diplomats, businessmen, and Italian nationals who were students in the US, especially to exclude them from sensitive coastal areas. In addition, merchant seamen trapped in US ports by the outbreak of war were detained. Italian labor leaders lobbied for recognition as loyal (and not enemy aliens) those Italian Americans who had initiated naturalization before the war broke out; they objected to blanket classification of Italian nationals as subversives.

In 2001 the US Attorney General reported to Congress on a review of treatment by the Department of Justice of Italian Americans during World War II. In 2010, the California Legislature passed a resolution apologizing for US mistreatment of Italian residents during the war.[2]

The term "Italian American" does not have a legal definition. It is generally understood to mean ethnic Italians of American nationality, whether Italian-born immigrants to the United States (naturalized or unnaturalized) or American-born people of Italian descent (natural-born U.S. citizens).

The term "enemy alien" has a legal definition. The relevant federal statutes in Chapter 3 of Title 50 of the United States Code, for example par. 21,[3] which applies only to persons 14 years of age or older who are within the United States and not naturalized. Under this provision, which was first defined and enacted in 1798 (in the Alien Enemies Act, one of the four Alien and Sedition Acts) and amended in 1918 (in the Sedition Act of 1918) to apply to females as well as to males, all "...natives, citizens, denizens or subjects..." of any foreign nation or government with which the United States is at war "...are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as alien enemies...."[4]

At the outbreak of World War II, for example, all persons born in Italy living in the United States, whether US citizens, lawful full-time or part-time residents, or as members of the diplomatic and business community, were considered by law "enemy aliens." However, applying the standard to all persons including US Citizens became problematic given the huge numbers of Italian immigrants and the even larger numbers of their descendants. Accordingly, the government most often applied the term to Italian-born persons who were not United States citizens, but especially to Italian diplomats, Italian businessmen, and Italian international students studying in the United States; all were classified as "enemy aliens" when Italy declared war on the United States. In some cases, such temporary residents were expelled (such as diplomats) or given a chance to leave the country when war was declared. Some were interned, as were the Italian merchant seamen caught in U.S. ports when their ships were impounded when war broke out in Europe in 1939.

The members of the ethnic Italian community in the United States presented an unusual problem. Defined in terms of national origin, it was the largest ethnic community in the United States, having been supplied by a steady flow of immigrants from Italy between the 1880s and

1930. By 1940, there were in the United States millions of native-born Italians who had become American citizens. There were also a great many Italian "enemy aliens", more than 600,000, according to most sources, who had immigrated during the previous decades and had not become naturalized citizens of the United States.

The laws regarding "enemy aliens" did not make ideological distinctions?treating as legally the same pro-Fascist Italian businessmen living for a short time in the U.S. and trapped there when war broke out, anti-Fascist refugees from Italy who arrived a few years earlier intending to become U.S. citizens but who had not completed the process of naturalization, and those who had emigrated from Italy at the turn of the 20th century and raised entire families of native-born Italian Americans but who had not become naturalized. Under the law they were all classified as enemy aliens.

Before United States entry into World War II[edit] In September 1939, Britain and France declared war against Nazi Germany after Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. In a show of support for Britain and France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, to compile a Custodial Detention Index of those to be arrested in case of national emergency. The Axis powers allied with Germany included Fascist Italy and the Japanese Empire. More than a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Department of Justice began to list possible saboteurs and enemy agents among the German, Japanese, and Italian populations.[5]

In 1940, resident aliens were required to register under the Smith Act.

War relocation centers[edit] A distinction must be made between:

Italian Americans designated "enemy aliens" (non-U.S. citizens) as defined by Title 50 of the United States Code[6] Italian Americans who were evacuated and interned under the War Relocation Authority. This authority was based on Executive Order 9066 (issued February 19, 1942) and Executive Order 9102 (issued March 18,

1942). These orders authorized the "removal from designated areas of persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security."[7] That authority did not distinguish between native-born Americans and citizens of other nations living in the United States; the orders simply said "persons." This was the same basis upon which Japanese Americans were interned, an effort much larger in scale than Italian American internment. Both foreign-born and native-born Japanese Americans and both citizens and non-citizens were interned, though nearly two thirds were native-born U.S. citizens.[8][9][10] Italian Americans interned under the War Relocation Authority were not arrested under the Enemy Alien Act, but were simply "persons" removed under the War Relocation Authority. Di Stasi[11] cites a number of such cases of mistreatment and internment of "Italian Americans", although he apparently defines "Italian American" as anyone within the Italian community, whether native-born U.S. citizens or Italian-born non-U.S. citizens.

1941 to 1943[edit] Chronology of events regarding the treatment of enemy aliens and the reaction in the Italian community.

On December 11, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States. The United States reciprocated and entered World War II. Beginning on the very night of the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and before the US officially declared war against Italy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a handful of Italians.[12] By December 10, 1941, nearly all the Italians, about 147 men, that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover planned on arresting before the official declaration were in custody.[13] By June 1942, the FBI had arrested a total of 1,521 Italian aliens.[11] About 250 individuals were interned for up to two years in the WRA military camps in Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, in some cases co-located with interned Japanese Americans. The government targeted Italian journalists, language teachers and men active in an Italian veterans group.[2] In late December 1941, enemy aliens throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were required to surrender hand cameras, short-wave radio receiving sets and radio transmitters not later than 11 p.m. on the following Monday.[14] They were subject to curfew and movement restrictions, and later were forced to move out of certain areas. These restrictions were enforced more in the San Francisco area than in Los Angeles, and much more on the West Coast than on the East Coast, where Italians were residents in much greater number and made up a much higher percentage of the population, especially in major urban centers.[2] In January 1942, all enemy aliens were required to register at local post offices. As enemy aliens they were required to be fingerprinted, photographed, and carry their photo-bearing "enemy alien registration cards" at all times. Attorney General Francis Biddle assured enemy aliens that they would not be discriminated against if they were loyal. He cited Department of Justice figures: of the 1,100,000 enemy aliens in the United States, 92,000 were Japanese, 315,000 were German, and

695,000 were Italian. In all, 2,972 had been arrested and held, mostly Japanese and Germans. Only 231 Italians had been arrested.[15] On January 11, 1942 the New York Times reported that "Representatives of 200,000 Italian-American trade unionists appealed to President Roosevelt yesterday to 'remove the intolerable stigma of being branded as enemy aliens' from Italian and German nationals who had formally declared their intentions of becoming American citizens by taking out first papers before America's entry into the war."[16] A few weeks later, the same newspaper reported that "Thousands of enemy aliens living in areas adjacent to shipyards, docks, power plants and defense factories prepared today to find new homes as Attorney General Biddle added sixty-nine more districts in California to the earlier list of West Coast sections barred to Japanese, Italian and German nationals. These were areas defined as within the Exclusion Zone. Japanese Americans were much more affected by this ruling than were German Americans and Italian Americans.[17] The WRA established about a 50-mile wide Exclusion Zone on the West Coast that adversely affected Italian Americans who had been working as longshoremen and fishermen, causing many to lose their livelihoods. Those in California were most severely affected. Perhaps because the Italians were more numerous and politically strong on the East Coast, there was never such an Exclusion Zone delineated. Italian Americans in the East did not suffer the same restrictions.[18]

A key difference is that German NATIONALS were subject to interment but American CITIZENS of German decent were not really bothered with. My father was German, the third generation from the original immigrant and was heavily involved in production of critical war time materials.

However, American citizens that were third and fourth generation descendents of Japanese immigrants WERE rounded up and kept for years.

The workers at the M-1 Garand plant in St Paul were nearly all of German extraction. As were the workers at the Half -track assy plant. Many of the Marines that Island hopped in the Pacific were of German extraction also.

>

It wasn't specifically against Germans but with the Montana sedition law having an opinion while German was dangerous. Wilson liked the law so well it was adopted by the US almost verbatim.

Where I grew up was heavily German and there was an attempt to rename things. It confused by as a kid because there was a concrete bridge abutment that labeled Snyder's Lake as Aries Lake. Of course, nobody every called it Aries Lake. The town of Berlin was a little more difficult although the local pronunciation was BURL-in. The Liberty Cabbage thing didn't stick and salisbury steak instead of hamburger faded away. Hot dog for a frankfurter probably preceded the war.

During WWII the family German Shepherd became a Police Dog for the duration.

My father was a Fleet Marine on the Oklahoma when it escorted Wilson to France to be fleeced by the French and Brits. Neither he nor my uncle mentioned any problems.