'Lowly laborers': Race, class, and identity in Montserrat, 17th-19th centuries

During the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell forcibly resettled thousands of Irish Catholic men and women to the Americas in response to ethnic and religious tensions between England and Ireland. Pushed into indentured servitude, a number of these emigrants nevertheless discovered new economic, political and social opportunities on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where the Irish grew to become the majority population. Through an analysis of the Irish Catholic population in Montserrat, this work reveals the extent to which hierarchies were in flux in the early modern Caribbean, demonstrating that racial categories were not the sole arbiters of difference in the early English Americas. Yet as enslaved Africans grew in number on the islands, previous distinctions between religion, ethnicity, and culture decreased in importance among white Europeans, allowing even a once lowly Irish laborer to rise to the position of island planter.