Turned Inside Out: Black, White, and Irish in the South

Even Irish nationalist hero Wolfe Tone dreamed of an Ireland that might become a colonial power in the Sandwich Islands, and instances where the Irish played the colonial game to their favor, or the ends against the middle, are not counterfactual fancy, but are exampled in history.5 Now, as the whiteness studies paradigm begins to recede, scholars are more interested in framing the discussion in terms of movement and contact. Because the Atlantic slave trade ended (in principle if not in fact) in 1807-1808-a period when Irish immigration was on the rise-it is indeed useful to think about the loops of these currents, and the continuing contact they established.