James Shields Sr. (abt. 1645 - abt. 1738)

Born about 1645 in County Armagh, Ireland

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1738 at about age 93 in Virginia [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Margaret Summitt [send private message]

Biography

Research Notes

John Shields (here called "the immigrant" because the name John Shields is so often repeated) was born in Ireland, the son of William Shields, born on the shores of Lough Neagh, in County Antrim, where he died in 1655, a victim of the Cromwellian persecution.

Oliver Cromwell, William Shields and his son John Shields form the nexus of the genealogy of the Shields family in America.

John Shields, the immigrant, had four sons:

• William Shields Sr.,
• James Shields,
• Daniel Shields, and
• John Shields, Sr,.

Their descendants comprise the largest of the American Shields families.^[1]

Historical Context

(In an address 28 August 1928 at reunion of Shields-Winslow family, John A. Shields of Seymore, Indiana told this story.)

William Shields ( the father William, James, Daniel and John) was born on the shore of Lough Neagh in County Armagh, he lived in Armagh and Coot Hill. He 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. Oliver Cromwell and the English Parliament made their lives untenable.

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.

John's father, William Shields, lost his life during the enforcement of this inhuman decree, for no crime other than that of being an Irishman.

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. During the next several years, more than 30,000 young persons, likely including James and his brother William, were shipped into slavery in the American colonies and the West Indies.

Their brother, Daniel, was a Catholic partisan who would die in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, fighting on behalf of the deposed King James II of England and Scotland. Daniel's son, one of the Wild Geese, associated with the Spanish and would up in Cuba as governor general. Other descendents include the Civil War General James Shields, who would become U.S. Senator in three different states.

John's Deportation to Barbadoes with James

John and James were deported by Oliver 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. Three years later, in 1658, they secured passage on a chattel (slave) ship bound for Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg, Virginia.

Shields in Colonial 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 a descendant, as was United States President John Tyler through his mother.

William Sr. died on his voyage to America in 1732. William's son William Shields Jr. was fostered by the Kent County, Maryland cousins and would found Emmitsburg, Maryland. William Shields Jr. married Mary Hannah Carrington (Shields) in 1692. They had three children in 38 years. He died in October 1737 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, at the age of 69.

Sources

1. ↑ "Irish Origins of the Shields Family," by John Edgar Shields, April 1975. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-9218, page 71