Gypsies Were Slaves As Well

Gypsies have always been subjected to constant and endless hatred, prejudice and racism from the authorities.

The Romani are believed to have first shown up in England in the 14^th or 15^th century, and there’s no doubt they had a tough time of it. The Egyptians Act (1530) made it illegal for Romani to enter the country and made it compulsory for those already living here to leave within two weeks. And if they didn’t, all their property was confiscated, they were imprisoned and deported. In 1554 the act was amended, and if the Romani promised to give up their "naughty, idle and ungodly life and company" and chose to take on a ‘settled’ way of life then they would no longer be punished. On the other hand, however, if they didn’t then they’d face the gallows. In 1564 a new law presented Romani who were born in the UK with the opportunity of becoming British subjects if they integrated into the local community.

They didn’t.

So, in 1596 106 men and women were sentenced to death at York, just for being Romani. 97 of them could prove that they had been born in England, but 9 of them were executed.

England started deporting Romani people as early as 1544 and those who endured the hardship of being packed like sardines into a small wooden ship (rolling and rocking at the mercy of the sea, and the abhorrent agony and despair of the foul odours, fumes, seasickness, vomiting, headaches, mouth rot, fever, diarrhoea, constipation, abscesses, scurvy, hallucinations, hysteria and madness, all as a result of eating rotten meat, drinking fetid water and being crammed so tightly together, thus spreading disease quickly)  ….. those who survived this passage were sold as slaves and unbelievably continued as best they could the expression of the Romani culture. Somehow the social fabric of their lifestyle prevailed.

In the 17^th century Oliver Cromwell consigned British Romani to work on the cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations of the American South. There is authenticated documentation of English Gypsies being owned by freed black slaves in Louisiana, Cuba, Barbados and Jamaica.

And not a lot of people know that.

Their ability to step aside from the rest of the world has given the Gypsies a lot of survival skills to match their really dark sense of humour, and for that they deserve credit.