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In their previous blog posts, my classmates referenced the Ask A Slave web series to address the common misconceptions and general lack of knowledge surrounding slavery in this day and age. The author of Ask A Slave’s Critique of the American Education System goes so far as to suggest the ignorant inquiries presented in the series reveals a fundamental flaw in the way American history is taught. He even claims that these uninformed assumptions need to be corrected. However, the institution of slavery is not the only subject in American history where greater understanding needs to be achieved. As Dee Dee Joyce publicizes in Charleston’s Irish Labourers and Their Move into the Confederacy, a significant (yet far less important) misconception also surrounds the considerable percentage of Irish Catholics that constituted the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. According to Joyce, Irish workers “were not hapless pawns of slave owners” they are often portrayed to be. “Nor did they incorporate pro-slavery ideologies as fashioned by the Southern elite.” Instead, Joyce claims that “Irish labourers were self-motivated actors who took constrained actions to place themselves in positions of best advantage within existing social networks.”
Joyce explains that the Irish support of the Confederacy is puzzling because it presents an important paradox: many Irish Catholics – most of whom were property-less – willingly joined a fight that seemingly did not concern them. However, Joyce asserts that the Civil War did concern them. Her first argument revolves around the Nativist Know-Nothing party’s racial attack on the Irish as inferior beings. Noting that the Nativist party received little support in the South, Joyce claims the Irish made a calculated decision in supporting the South because they “knew that social inclusion mattered as much in America as it had in Ireland.” Another argument Joyce makes concerns religion. The Southern Catholic Church’s validation of slavery alleviated suspicions of Irish Catholic involvement with abolitionism and combatted Nativist party attacks. Finally, Joyce claims Irish immigrants had a direct influence on the South Carolina legislature’s attempts to restrict slaves and free blacks from working jobs that Irish laborers desired. Ultimately, Irish Catholics supported the Confederacy in order to gain a better social position than African Americans.
Overall, Joyce does a great job of explaining the motives behind the Irish Catholic support of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. However, it is still important to note the work of James R. Barrett and David Roediger. They claim that many immigrants “conceived Americanization in racial terms: becoming American meant becoming white.” It was more important to the Irish Catholics to embrace their “white heritage” and turning against African Americans than fighting for their individual rights. In doing so, they gained an important social advantage; one that explains their support of the Confederacy.