William Shields, II

William Shields was born in 1600, at Lough Neagh in County Armagh, and killed in County Antrim in 1655. He had four sons, William, James, Daniel, and John.

The Shields Family Name: The Siadhail clan moved from the European mainland to Ireland perhaps 1000 years before Christ, and moved from Meath to Ulster prior to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The name was Anglicized to Shields sometime before William Shields was born in Antrim.

William was married to ? 1619-1645

In an address 28 August 1928 at a reunion of the Shields-Winslow family, John A. Shields of Seymore, Indiana said "at a comparatively early date" a branch of the Shields family moved from Ireland to Northern Ireland, settling in County Tyrone. William Shields was born on the shore of Lough Neagh in County Armagh, he lived in Armagh and Coot Hill. He supposedly suffered under Cromwell's persecution and was killed in County Antrim in 1655. For generations, the Shields family were people of poverty, education, and consideration, living in Cranfield, County Antrim.

England's treatment of Ireland is one of the most shameful stories of all history, and Oliver Cromwell's part in it is more shameful than the rest. He treated the Irish as if they were not merely intruders, but outlaws on their own land It required six years and 600,000 lives for him to establish his policy in Ireland. Cromwell, fresh from victory in the civil war against King Charles I, set out to quell the Irish rebellion, which had been dragging on for more than 10 years. He arrived in Ireland in August 1649 with an army of 17,000. His objective was threefold: Elimination of all military resistance, removal of all priests and landowners who were in any way implicated in the rebellion and eradication of Roman Catholicism. Within eight months, most of the military opposition was crushed, and Cromwell returned to England to pursue the other two objectives.

In 1653, Parliament passed an act providing that all Irish natives, under penalty of death, before May 1, 1654, were to move from wherever in Ireland to the wastes of Connacht, there to inhabit a small reservation in a desolate tract between the Shannon River and the sea, of which it has been said by one of the Commissioners engaged in enforcing the decree, "there was not fuel enough to warm, water enough to drown, or earth enough to bury a man." They must not go within two miles of the river or four miles of the sea, a cordon of soldiers being permanently stationed with orders there to kill anyone overstepping the limits. Any Irish who, after the date named, were found outside the appointed area were to suffer death. Despite piteous pleas for time to collect a few comforts and provide for food and shelter, at the blast of the trumpet, urged on by bayonets, the wretched tide of humanity, men, women, children, the infirm, the sick, high and low, prince and peasant, poured into Connaught to share starvation and banishment. The fate of those left behind was even worse. Those who were not executed were driven upon slave ships and taken to foreign lands, most of them to be heard from nevermore. William Shields lost his life during the enforcement of this inhuman decree, for no crime other than that of being an Irishman.

The vacated land and properties were assigned to Cromwellian soldiers and to persons in England who had financed the conquest of Ireland. Catholic priests were hunted down and killed or imprisoned.

As a provision of the articles of peace, Irish soldiers were allowed to enter the army of any power friendly to England, and many did. Exceptions to the resettlement order were allowed for certain artisans and laborers needed to tend the holdings of the new landowners. Many able-bodied citizens were deported. During the next several years, more than 30,000 young persons were shipped into slavery in the American colonies and the West Indies.

William Shields had four sons, William, James, Daniel, and John. Willliam's 2 eldest sons, William and James, were deported by Cromwell to Barbados in 1655 on charges of loyalty to Charles I. It is not known if they were sold into slavery or just banished. They may have been conscripted to serve in the invasion of Spanish America at "the "Western Design" that collapsed at Hispaniola in that year. They arrived in Barbados about 1655 and in 1658 secured passage on a chattel (slave) ship bound for Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1658 as indentured servants, James and his descendants became tavern-keepers. Shields Tavern is a restored public house in Colonial Williamsburg. John Shields, the gunsmith of the Lewis and Clark expedition was of this line as was United States President John Tyler through his mother. William migrated to Kent County, Maryland where he gave rise to the prominent Tennessee political clan, the New Orleans family of white jazz musicians. The third brother, Daniel was a Catholic partisan who would die in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. His son, one of the Wild Geese, was associated with the Spanish and would up in Cuba as governor-general. Other descendants include the Civil War General James Shields, who would become U.S. Senator in three different states. The youngest of the four sons, John (born 1650), died on his voyage to America in 1732. His son William Shields was fostered by the Kent County, Maryland cousins and would found Emmitsburg, Maryland.

In 1653, Parliament passed an act providing that all Irish natives, under penalty of death, were to move from wherever in Ireland to the wastes of Connacht. No Irish person was to be found east of the River Shannon after 1 May 1654. The vacated land and properties were assigned to Cromwellian soldiers to persons in England who had financed the conquest of Ireland. Catholic priests were hunted down and killed or imprisoned. As a provision of the articles of peace, Irish soldiers were allowed to enter the army of any power friendly to England, and many did. Exceptions to the resettlement order were allowed for certain artisans and laborers needed to tend the holdings of the new landowners. Many able-bodied citizens were deported. During the next several years, more than 30,000 young persons were shipped into slavery in the American colonies and the West Indies. William and James Shields, sons of William Shields b.1600, were transported to Barbados on charges of loyalty to Charles I. It is not known if they were sold into slavery or just banished. They arrived in Barbados about 1655 and in 1658 secured passage on a chattel (slave) ship bound for Williamsburg, Virginia.