Right-wing actor James Woods shares outrageously false claim about slavery

James Woods is spreading a widely-debunked claim about slavery.

The conservative actor has a history of promoting conspiracy theories and was briefly suspended from Twitter last year for sharing a meme which falsely claimed Democrats were trying to stop men from voting.

Yesterday, Woods shared an image which falsely claimed that the first slaves shipped to America were 100 white children from Ireland.

What he's claiming is completely untrue.

The "white Irish slaves" story has been challenged by scholars of American and Irish history for years.

Historian Liam Hogan explained why it was so wrong last year:

In short, 100 poor English children (not Irish) were sent to Virginia in 1619.

Those children came to America as indentured servants, which was a bad life but not the same as slavery.

They were considered legally human and their servitude was limited, in this case to when they reached the age of 21.

The claim that the first slaves were sent to American colonies in 1619 is also untrue, as there were black slaves well before that date.

As well as being wrong, the claim has been used by white nationalists and Neo-Nazis to diminish the significance and impact of black slavery.

Twitter users were quick to reply to Woods’ tweet, telling him that he was, once again, taking about something he didn’t understand.

Also, that photo in the tweet? Well, there weren’t any photographs in the 1600s - they weren't invented until the 1800s.

And James II came after Charles I and Oliver Cromwell…

So the post isn't even close to being accurate.

If Woods learned to fact-check literally anything, maybe he’d spend less time posting on Twitter.