THE SCOTS-IRISH
THEIR CHARACTER AND PATTERNS OF MIGRATION
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CHAPTER VIII | |||
THE SCOTS-IRISH |
(N:Monday 25 August 1997, 6:15:58) | ||
(R:Monday 7 December 1998 - 12:21:00) |
In the term "Scotch-Irish", or "Scots-Irish", the "Irish" is a place designation, not a nationality. The words mean nothing more than a convenient name for people whose an- cestors were Scots living in Ireland before they immigrated to the United States or Canada. They were "Ulster-Scots" while in Ireland. The term Scotch-Irish was probably first applied to them 200 years ago in America by Episcopalians and Quakers who did not intend the term to be complementary. 3
They were chiefly, but not exclusively, Presbyterians from Ulster. A considerable number were Episcopalians or Methodists, particularily among those who emigrated in the later 18th century and into the 19th century. The northern province of Ireland consisted of about 1/4th the area and population of Ireland. While it has been claimed they were not intermarried with the Irish, 4 there is considerable proof that they were indeed intermingled with Irish who had converted, as well as with English Episcopalians and Puri- tans, French Huguenots, and German Palatines. Never the less, by their numbers they gave a character to the entire population of Ulstermen.
They came to Ulster to better themselves economically, and to gain the comparative freedom of worship which existed in Ulster as opposed to 17th century Scotland. When first they arrived in Ireland, there was prosperity from lush har- vests of the fertile land and from the newly established woolen and linen weaving industries. The prosperous condi- tions ran counter to the interests of the English merchants and led to repressive measures by the British Parliament against the Irish wool trades. Additionally, each year from 1714-1719 was noted for having insufficient rainfall. The continuous drought ruined the crops which in turn ruined the linen industries. 5
Religious restrictions were imposed in Ireland in 1703, facing them with a renewal of the persecution they had expe- rienced in Scotland in the prior century. A great number of the Scots had arrived in Ulster in the 1690's, and had taken up 21 year or 31 year leases at attractive rates offered by the land lords to attract the Scots for the purpose of im- proving the lands and estates of the landlords. 6 At the ex- piration of the leases, the landlords either raised the rents exorbitantly (rent racking), or put the leases up for auction, causing many immigrants to leave. 7
In 1717, more that 5000 Ulstermen left for America. There followed five great waves of migration to the thirteen original American Colonies, in 1717-18; 1725-29; 1740-41; 1754-55; and 1771-75. In the period 1714-1720 alone, some 55 shiploads of immigrants sailed from Ireland to ports in New England. Each of the succeeding waves roughly coincided with the termination of lease terms: 8
1696 leases for 21 years terminated in 1717. 1696 leases for 31 years terminated in 1727.
1717 lease renewals for 21 years terminated in 1739. 1717 lease renewals for 31 years terminated in 1749.
1727 lease renewals for 21 years terminated in 1748. 1727 lease renewals for 31 years terminated in 1758.
1739 lease renewals for 21 years terminated in 1770. 1739 lease renewals for 31 years terminated in 1780.
1749 lease renewals for 21 years terminated in 1770. 1749 lease renewals for 31 years terminated in 1780.
All of the forgoing lease terminations, save the last, occurred prior to the American Revolution, and apparently re- sulted in a new wave of emigration to the colonies. 9.
Large numbers of "Irish" are known to have immigrated through the port of Boston and the Delaware ports in 1729. One estimate has it that 5,655 came in through Boston, and perhaps 10,000 through Delaware in that year. These numbers include those who emigrated from the south of Ireland, but it is clear that most were from the north of the country. Even among those who came from the south there were many Protes- tants, so it is clear that great numbers of Protestants were leaving Ireland. 10
Protestant emigration caused near-panic among the ruling classes in Ireland. The concern was that "No papists stir (up a rebellion)... The papists being already five or six to one, and being a breeding people, you may imagine in what condition we are like to be..." A memorial from "the noble- men and gentlemen of Ireland" to the lords justices on the subject of emigration expresssed fear of a "dangerous superi- ority of our inveterate enemies the papists, who openly and avowedly rejoice at this impending calamity and use all means and artifices to encourage and persuade the protestants to leave the nation, and cannot refrain from boasting that they shall by this means have again all the lands of this kingdom in their possession." 11
Historians estimate that more than 200,000 Scots-Irish landed at the American ports of Boston, Delaware (Philadelphia/Chester/New Castle); New York, Annapolis, Charleston, and the Virginia ports in the 18th century. R.J. Dickson estimated that the vast majority landed in Philadel- phia, and New York, followed closely by Charleston. 12. In the first census of the United States, in 1790, the Scots-Irish were the second largest nationality group, with the English being first and the Germans third. Studies of passenger lists available from the period reveal a consider- able number of Strongs arriving in these ports. 13 Records of Strongs gleaned from these sources are included in Appendix III, the IRELAND data base.
Through much of the 17th and 18th century, the practice of "indenturing servants" was used as a means of providing transportation of cheap labor to North America at a low cost for settlers who were willing to bid the highest price for individuals whose services were sold on the auction block in port cities. Indentured servants received, in return for passage, clothing, food and lodging. They became the prop- erty of the master for a specified term, lasting from five to fourteen years, after which freedom was granted. However, in some ways indentured servants were not much different from transported felons. Both were slaves and were part of the master's estate, to be bought and sold at will. 14
The headright system in Virginia enabled planters to claim 50 acres of land for every indentured servant they brought over. England practiced a long-standing and notori- ous practice of "spiriting"-- that is, kidnapping, inveigling and bribing youngsters onto ships bound for the labor-hungry colonies, where they could be sold at a good profit. As early as 1619, traders were rounding up vagrant children in London and shipping them to Virginia. 15
Certain "reforms" of the spiriting system were at- tempted. In 1654, the City Council of Bristol, an western English port enjoying a monopoly of trade with Virginia and the West Indies, passed an ordinance to discourage spiriting. It provided, "All boys, maids and other persons which for the future shall be transported beyond the seas as servants, shall, before their going on shipboard, have their covenants or indentures of service and apprenticeship inrolled (sic) in Council Books". There are several books treating the subject of bonded emigrants, 16, 17 , 18.
It would seem likely that similar spiriting practices prevailed in Ireland. However, according to R.J. Dickson, "spiriters" or kidnappers of youths sent to be sold into in- dentures were unknown in the north of Ireland. 19.
Indenturing was a common method for the laboring class to obtain passage to the colonies. The method most commonly used was to sign an indenture agreeing to serve the master of a ship or his assigns for an agreed period. On landing in America, the contract of indenture would be sold by the mas- ter to the highest bidder. Alternatively the emigrant could agree to pay the cost of passage with in a short time after arrival in the colonies, hoping to raise the necessary money eithr from friends or by indenting on the best teerms he could then secure. If the redemptioner failed to raise the cost of his passage within a prearranged time the ship's mas- ter could sell his services to the highest bidder similarily to that of the pre-indentured servants. 20.
It is known that one James "Schim" Strong, born in Ire- land, was indentured to Adam Ihmenheiser, of Pennsylvania, sometime between 1754 and 1763. Later marrying Ihmenhiser's daughter, Maria Magdalena, he founded a line of Strongs re- ferred to in APPENDIX I as the "York County, Pennsylvania Strongs". See CHART..... 21 (To be added later)
As early as the late 1600's Newfoundland received emigrants from the southeast of Ireland. Boys from the val- leys of the Nore and Suir had been taken there to serve in the fisheries; Waterford merchants and the traders of New Ross and Youghal indentured young servants for two summers and the intervening winter to catch and cure fish and prepare provisions for subsequent arrivals. As time went on, tempo- rary fishing stations became permanent communities, and as the British added Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to their do- mains, the flow of Irish and other British migrants quick- ened. 22 Both indentured and free settlers entered the colonies from Newfoundland to Georgia.
The greatest number of Scots-Irish arrived in the Delaware river ports of Philadelphia/Chester/New Castle. From there they headed west. The path they followed was de- termined by geography and circumstances. 23 The coastal low- lands were already settled; the vacant land laid to the west. The great Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania led west for a hundred miles. Then, blocked by the Allegheny mountains, they turned south into the Shenandoah Valley or the Valley of Virginia. From there the path led to the Piedmont regions of the Carolinas. The land lying along the "Great Wagon Road" that stretched from Philadelphia to the upper reaches of the Savannah River near Augusta, Georgia became the new home of the Scots-Irish in 18th century America. 24
Physically, the Scots-Irish were very fit for the tasks of pioneers. They were a strong, tough and hardy breed, somewhat tall in stature, strong-boned, heavily muscled, lean and sinewy. They were broad shouldered, robust, hard-handed and wiry. They did not shrink from the heavy labor of level- ing the forest, building their log cabin, and tilling the soil, or from the hardships and deprivations of the frontier. They had been toughened for the tasks ahead by their experi- ences in the Scottish Lowlands and Ulster. Later, when the French and Indian War began in 1754, they endured with com- parative ease the hardships of the military campaigns. The Indians apparently lived in some fear of the Scotch-Irish. 25
The mental and emotional qualities, as well as tem- perament and disposition, of the Scots-Irish stood out. They were a strong-minded group, with great common sense. They were practical, levelheaded, fearless, self-reliant, and resolute. They were serious in their outlook upon life, but had a good sense of humor and were fond of sports, and were by no means unsocial. Their rough exterior often covered a great tenderness of feeling, especially for animals. Their love of family was deep, strong, and enduring. Steadfast and loyal, they were hospitable to friends and unrelenting to foes. Prompt to resent an affront or to avenge an injury, their nature rebelled against anything that savored of injus- tice or deceit. Their thrift is proverbial, and it has been said, "the Scots-Irish keep the Commandments of God, and ev- ery other good thing they can get their hands on." 26
Along the Great Wagon Road are many unmarked graves of the great Scotch-Irish migration. The American West was ro- mantic only to people who write and read about it. There was nothing gentle about small log cabins with no windows, women dying of the black vomit of milk sickness, or a million pas- senger pigeons devouring one's hard-planted crops. Somehow this strange hybrid people-- part English, Irish and Teutonic as well as Scottish made it to Dixie. They liked to drink and brawl. They liked to fight and loved politics, which ex- plains a long list of Scotch-Irish soldiers and politicians such as John C. Calhoun, Jeff Davis, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, "Stonewall" Jackson, William McKinley, and Ulysses Grant, 27 in America, and others in Canada and Australia in later generations.
One old Indian fighter from North Carolina in the Revolution was General Griffith Rutherford. He beat the Cherokee in the big campaign of 1776, and George Washington gave him a silver snuff box. Rutherford was pretty typical of Ulster folk of the day. One writer called him uncultivated in mind or manners. Perhaps that makes sense. In 1776 he ordered the arrest of a man who was charged with being "an Enomy of Ammerican Liberty" and was thus ordered to be kept in a "Gale Till under furder Orders." 28.
The Scots-Irish cared little for the beautiful, with the exception of a beautiful Bible Story. They did not trim the edge of the roadways leading to the front door. Utility re- quired nothing of these things and utility was their law. With their great force of character, they were inclined to be dogmatic and inflexible in their views. They were great be- lievers in education, especially the trained ministry, and made large contributions to the ministry and educational in- stitutions. 29
Once they had completed their initial task of conquering the wilderness, they became politically active, with many en- tering politics. It is claimed that they did not bring lit- erature or art to the American continent, 30 but that can be disputed. Anyone who has spent much time pondering the roots of "country music" knows the debt it owes to the Scots-Irish. The foot-tapping rythyms of the country fiddler have their roots in the mountains of the Scottish Borders and in the melodys of Ireland. From merrymaking to melancholy, the per- vasive themes in "Country" come from across the sea, 31 and have their counterparts in the folk-music of rural Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario, also heavily settled in parts by the Scots-Irish. Today, the ballads of the Scots-Irish that travelled here during the eighteenth century are imitated and reproduced from Arkansas to Alberta, by singers like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers who have internationalized a style that once was confined to the hill country. 32
They have a great oral tradition, and are renowned as the best story tellers in the world. An example are the "Jack Tales" brought from Scotland and handed down from one generation to the next over centuries. Today they can be heard in the hills of the Carolinas. The rythms of their speech and the very words themselves, such as "cabin", "you-all", and "sook-cow", can be traced from Scottish roots to destinations as wide spread as Ontario, North Carolina, Washington State, Nova Scotia and Australia. 33 In Canada and Australia, they brought with them the Orange Lodges. There, and in the United States they have been stalwart members of Masonic Lodges, and have contributed to the organizating cul- tural impact these organizations have had on their communi- ties.
In the early 1900s, descendants of the Scotch-Irish left the depressed logging areas of North Carolina and Kentucky and moved to the North Cascades mountain area of Washington State. These "Tarheels" brought their families and culture with them, and their descendants are numbered among the fin- est families of Washington's Skagit Valley today. These were not drifting loggers, but family men who lived in the woods near the camps, worked during the day and went home to their rough cabins at night. Hard-working, family loving, and fiercely independent, these mountain men influenced the at- titudes that prevailed in the upper Skagit Valley, where citizens honored those who took care of themselves. 34
Along with their self-sufficiency, their homemade sau- sages and hams, the Tarheels brought with them another cus- tom, born in Scotland and carried through Ireland to the Carolinas... the traditional mountain moonshine still. "White Lightning" bubbled away in the back barn of many a re- mote farm, most of it consumed by the man's family and friends; but during prohibition, a few sold their alcoholic products to big-city runners. Cockfighting, also frowned upon by the law, flourished in clandestine meetings in the backwoods. 35
The Scots-Irish did not have the frontier to themselves. With them were the German Palatines who were mostly Lutherans. The two groups hop-scotched their way across the country. One can thumb a telephone book in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and see by the surnames where the German flow ebbed and the Ulster people kept on. 36 They generally stayed apart from each other at first. Contact between them was minimal during the first few years because of differences of language, religion, and customs. They eventually became closer, and intermarriages became more and more frequent. 37
Most of the Scots-Irish settlements in Pennsylvania were initially in the Philadelphia, Chester, Berks and Lancaster areas. By 1730 they included York County, and by 1740 they were into Adams county. There were settlements in Dauphin, Lebanon, Franklin, Fulton, Cumberland, and Perry Counties, with Bedford County being settled by 1750. They generally avoided the disputed borderland between protestant Pennsylva- nia and Catholic Maryland. After 1730, they spilled south- ward, across Maryland into the Virginia Valley, where they settled into what has been claimed to be one of the most Scots-Irish counties in the United States-- Rockbridge and Augusta Counties. 38
At the time of the Revolutionary War, the Scots-Irish tended to be ardent patriots. By contrast, those immigrants who came directly from Scotland were generally Loyalists, faithful to the Crown. 39 The difference was likely in the experiences they had had in the preceding 100 years. Those who had been in Ulster had suffered from the persecution of the English Crown under the Irish Test Act, etc., while those who had been in Scotland had experienced the economic ben- efits of the 1707 Act of Union, and freedom of religion. This broad generalization might further be disected into the Catholic Highland Scots, who were largely Jacobite Rebels un- til about 1760, and the Episcopalian High- and Lowlanders who were somewhere in the middle but tending toward Tory.
Toward the end of the Revolutionary War and thereafter, many of the new Americans who prior to that time had settled east of the Appalachian Mountains, now turned west. There is little doubt that the vanguard of the pioneers who settled in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the areas to the west were children of the Scots-Irish. This generation of pioneers was, how- ever, American. They did not place any great emphasis upon their Scots-Irish origin. They became known to themselves as North Carolinians, Pennsylvanians, or Virginians. Only near the middle of the 19th century did they revive the term "Scotch-Irish", in a deliberate attempt to distance them- selves from the Catholic Irish of the South of Ireland who were then arriving in great numbers because of the potato famine. 40
It can be said that because of the lack of emphasis upon origins of these people and their desire and intent to be Americans, they did not have any great consciousness of their history. Indeed, they may have been victims to some extent of attempts like that of the "American Irish Historical Soci- ety", organized in 1879, which devoted a great deal of time deflating what they called the "Scots-Irish Myth". The claim was made that the people who came to America from Ulster were Irish, not only geographically, but also in patriotism for Ireland. 41 The confusion engendered in many minds by this type of propaganda was encouraged by the negative attitude many of the Scots-Irish had against the British Crown. Sim- ply put, many of the Scots-Irish in America have forgotten their history, and do not understand what they do know of it.
The American Revolution brought the flow of immigrants from Ulster to America to a halt for a time. Then the Scots-Irish began immigrating to Canada and Australia. One can again begin to trace the flow of emigration to the termi- nation of leases. However this flow was rapidly overwhelmed in the 1840's and 1850's by the impact of the potato famines. Scots-Irish as well as Catholic Gaelic Irish fled Ireland in huge numbers.
Following the American Revolution, the number of Scots-Irish in Canada was not great. According to the Beards 42:
"The Scotch-Irish and Scotch were about one sixth of the population of the colonies, most of it having passed through Pennsylvania to Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and even Tennessee." The Scots-Irish formed no important part of the original Loyalist settlement in Canada and they did not be- gin to come in increasing numbers until the conclusion of the War of 1812."
There were few persons of Scottish background among the early settlers in Upper Canada largely because as Scotch-Irish they were much opposed to Britain and had fought against her during the Colonial War. This point of view is borne out by Hall 43:
"It has often seemed strange that the States that fought most fiercely to free the West from the influences of France, and to make the Mississippi Valley English, should thirteen years later have been not one bit behind New England in fighting England. The reasons lie largely in the influence of the Scotch-Irish group. When in 1719 the Scotch-Irish be- gan to come to America they were the bitter enemies of En- gland, and particularly of the Anglo-Catholic tradition of England as established in Ireland. It was French Catholicism that they fought in America, and when the battle was over they were as eager as ever to fight the English; especially when the threat of a bishop and a really active Anglo-Catholicism seemed to be on the horizon. For the Scotch-Irish grew up in bitter opposition to all Catholicism, in both its Roman and Anglican forms. It's hatred of the pa- pacy and of Episcopal Catholicism amounted to a passion...
"Without any doubt the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minis- try was almost to man on the side of the Revolution, and the General Synod that had been meeting since 1717 was in 1776 one of the most thoroughly interstate associations the colonies possessed."
Following the American Revolution, a number of Scots- and Anglo-Irish United Empire Loyalists were included particularily in those flowing to New Brunswick and Nova Sco- tia from New York, New England, and the Middle Colonies. However, for the three decades after the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists in Canada, emigration to British North America was insignificant. 44
In evaluating the situation of transportation of Scots-Irish "indentured servants" and forced laborers to America in the 17th - 18th centuries, it may be instructive to review late 18th and early 19th century convict transpor- tations to Australia. The first Irish convict ship, the "Queen", sailed from Cork in April, 1791, arriving at Sydney on 26 September, 1791. Of the 148 convicts on board, one-sixth, or 24, had been tried and convicted at assizes in the nine counties of Ulster. Ulster in the period of the 1790s was in a turbulent political and social disturbance. 45
The United Ireland movement flourished in Ulster from 1790 through the 1798 Rebellion, and had intellectual roots in the French Revolution. Of the estimated several hundred specifically political prisoners removed to Australia by the early years of the 19th century, and of the further group of estimated 1800 social rebels by 1815, there are sufficient identifiable individuals from Ulster to confirm the provinces's tempestuous decade of upheaval and disaffection. 46
The politically disaffected were not only in the north. Benjamin Dwight included a short discussion in an Appendix at the end of Volume II of his "History of the Strong Family", concerning "Brief Notices of other Families of Strongs not descended from Elder John Strong of Northampton". The dis- cussion concerning "John Strong of Albany, Ky", states that:
"John, Michael and William Strong, brothers were in- volved in the .... Rebellion in 1798, in Ireland. When that collapsed the three brothers escaped secretly and landed in 1799, in Philadelphia, and after tarrying in that city for a few months they separated from each other,... (John) never heard either from them or of them... (John)...was born in Cork, Ireland, but of English descent, was a Presbyterian, and an intense hater of popery. He claimed descent from some of the conquerors of Ireland, who came thither after the Lon- donderry massacre. He was merchant before coming to America. He was six feet two in height and his sons were each six feet high.... he was wise and just enough to implant the hatred of wrong in the minds of his children... None of us who bear the ancestral name have been given to strong drink, but are tee- totalers..." 47
Between the Irish rebellion of 1798 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, much of the rural disturbances and social crimes occurred elsewhere in Ireland than in Ulster. 48 Ex- pansion of the war economy reduced the demand for emigration. The hostilities required manpower that might have otherwise migrated abroad and the wartime risk to shipping drove up the price of passenger fares. Constraints on emigration impinged on all sides. While Irish soldiers were needed in Europe for wervice against Napoleon and while the rebellious conditions in Ireland crated employment outlets in the local militia units, there was little emigration. 49
However, while emigration was reduced as a result of the war conditions, the period brought a major change in the eco- nomic relationship between England and British North America. Demand for Ship timber and naval stores to replace tradi- tional sources in Scandinavia cut off by Napoleon led to de- velopment of a timber trade that would last for at least half a century. The forests of the Miramichi and Saint John river valleys spewed forth the needed timber. Irish labor contin- gents from Leinster, Ulster and the south made their way to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Quebec. When peace came in 1815, Canada was better known as a result of the letters home from laborers, and the demand for emigration grew. 50
The post Napoleonic Wars period resulted in severe eco- nomic slumps in Ulster. The region was, of all Ireland, most given over to tillage, so the post war fall in prices for foodstuffs affected the Ulster tenant farmer badly, all the more so since there was no commensurate fall in the levels of rents. 51 By 1818, trans Atlantic passenger fares began to fall drastically, and emigrants poured into the Irish ports. They were headed to familiar destinations. South-easterers went to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Miramichi valley in New Brunswick. Cork beople went to Halifax, Nova Scotia; Quebec; and Saint John, New Brunswick. Ulstermen generally avoided these places, favouring the Bay of Fundy and the St. Lawrence Valley. 52
Trips to Canada for timber across the Atlantic were taken in the spring and summer months. Most traders tried to avoid the winter seas. Barques, brigs, and schooners which plied European coastal waters during the winter picked up passengers and goods for the colonies in the spring and sum- mer in the expectation of returning with timber before the Atlantic winter gales. The passengers going out were in fact human ballast that enhanced the profitability of the timber. Such human ballast could be removed rather quickly, it paid a fare, and if it made it across the Atlantic letter home about safe arrival and perhaps the remittance of passage money would encourage another load next spring. As ballast, pas- sengers often received poor treatment and the conditions of passage were miserable. 53
Passengers provided most of their own provisions. About 175 pounds of basic foodstuffs were required for each person making the crossing to North America. Cooking facilities were provided in a makeshift "camboose" built on the upper deck. Most emigrants were below decks, between temporary decks with little headroom. They moved about in aisles be- tween the staked pallets upon which they slept. These were erected each time ships went out with passengers and were dismantled to open space for the timber coming back. Privacy disappeared. The conditions on many ships were bordering on the inhuman. Fetid water, rotten food, human waste, smoke and other rank odors made steerage in some timber ships a fearful fate. However it was a risk half a million Irish took. 54
The geographical spread of the likelihood of emigration among the Irish at home is illustrated by the case of the origin of emigrants arriving in the port of Saint John, New Brunswick. In 1818, about 75 per cent of the Irish arriving in Saint John embarked from the port of Derry, in Ulster. Less than 10 per cent left from Belfast. Fifteen years later, in 1833, Derry sent out about 40 per cent of Saint John's immigrants and Belfast only 11 per cent. Ulster was still the main source of emigrants, but other parts of Ire- land had become more important. In the 1840's, Cork was pre-eminent, contributing probably at least half of all those arriving during the Famine. Comparable changes occurred in Quebec. 55
Emigration to the North American colonies petered out as a consequence of shifts in trading patterns that saw the in- dustrialized city more closely linked to Europe. Waterford and the southeastern portion of Ireland were linked more tra- ditionally to destinations in the mid-Atlantic states of America than to the St. Lawrence region of British North America. As the Canadian economies stagnated and their settlement potential was fulfilled, there were few opportuni- ties for immigrants in either Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Consequently, the migrant flow turned away from the north and toward the Atlantic seaboard cities of the United States. 56
Quebec and Saint John still received immigrants in the 1840s because of their function as transfer points to the United States. Saint John functioned then primarily as a crossing point. Quebec still functioned as a distribution centre for the St. Lawrence valley and the Great Lakes region where there was still land to be occupied. By 1842, ap- proximately 400,000 Irish had arrived in the colonies of British North America, but the resident Irish born population was approximately only 160,000. Mortality undoubtedly con- tributed to the difference; however, trans-migration to the United States was probably the principal explanation. From the 1850's on, the majority of the immigrants to North America were Irish Catholics from the south of Ireland, most of whom went directly to the large cities of the United States, rather than to Canada. 57
The Irish contribution to the Canadian cultural mosaic persisted long after the main wave of immigration had ceased. In the Irish outports of Newfoundland, accents, folk tradi- tions and language dialects traceable to southeast Ireland are still recognizable, and although less obvious, Scots-Irish cultural traits are still to be found in the more ethnically heterogeneous provinces of mainland eastern Canada. There, family names, the network of Orange lodges, the sporadic distribution of Presbyterian and Catholic churches, and allied religious-political beliefs testify to an Irish origin despite a lack of collaborative evidence from material folk culture. Politics in Newfoundland, Ontario and New Brunswick are still affected by the party allegiances of Irish communities. 58
Occasionally, the transferred cultural traits are aug- mented by a settlement landscape bearing distinctively Irish nomenclature. Thus in western Ontario near the shores of Lake Huron, placenames such as Orangeville, Newry, Tralee, Listowel, Belfast, Dungannon and Donegal distinguish local towns, hamlets and villages, and suggest beginnings as Irish settlements. In general, Irish place names tended to be transferred to smaller settlements and minor physical fea- tures which the individual settler encountered in the process of staking out claim to the land. The names of the major territorial units of Canada: provinces, counties, parishes and townships, represented the territorial claims of the state and were rarely connected to the geographical back- ground of the majority of the settlers. 59 However, it will be noted that much the same divisions are to be found in Ire- land today, eg., provinces, counties, parishes, and town- lands.
These "Irish" met and mixed well with thousands of Low- land Scots settlers in a crazy-quilt pattern of communities across Ontario...places such as Ailsa Craig, Bruce, Kincardine, Dundalk and Barrie, Guelph, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, welcomed their Scots-Irish brethern. Admixed with German and Irish-German Palatine loyalists who came north following the American Revolution, and with French Hugenots (some of whom had also sojourned in Ireland), these people formed a new Canadian nation.
Many of the children and grandchildren of the immi- grants, firmly the mainstream of second and third generation Canadians, continued westward. As land became scarce and ex- pensive in the older central and eastern Canadian provinces, a new migration of Scots-Irish Canadians headed west in much the same way as their fathers had embarked on the Atlantic voyage a generation before. Settlers who had first come to the Bay of Quinte at the Lake Ontario end of the St. Lawrence river, moved west to the upper Canadian lake shores of lakes Ontario and Eire, and then on to the Huron peninsula. Subsequent generations moved even further west to Saskatche- wan, Alberta, British Columbia, and into the United States. Still, by the beginning of the twentieth century, two-thirds of the Scots and Irish were concentrated in their original Canadian heartland, Ontario. New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario are the homes of 83 per cent of the Canadian Irish. 60
Ulster's economy in the late 18th century had been as much based on the development of linen spinning and weaving as upon agricultural produce, and with a broader base than the agricultural south enjoyed a greater degree of prosper- ity. 61. This prosperity had seen a population increase whose "biological carry over" into the depressed years after 1815 created "the cauldron of social and economic pressures which characterize Ireland during these years." Against this back- ground of population pressure and economic depression, an in- creasing number of transportations from Ulster to Australia took place. 62
However, in spite of the image of the Australian colonies as being penal, an increasing number of Free Set- tlers began to flow from all of Ireland to Australia. By the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the flow of emigration was starting to increase again. It has been estimated that prior to the famine years, 1,000,000 Irish emigrated; perhaps 40 percent were Ulstermen, 63 and a large number of these went to New South Wales in Australia.
Again, following the 1848 Rebellion, there were a sig- nificant number of Ulstermen transported to Australia. Hap- pily, after serving their sentences in the Australian colonies, the male and female emancipated convicts made a strong contribution to the Australian settlement by becoming respectable citizens, skilled craftsmen, hard-working farm- ers, responsible wives and mothers. 64
The phenomenon of "chain migration" time and again led immigrants to America, and to Canada and Australia. 65 The process was one by which a pioneer immigrant encouraged out another family member, who encouraged out a friend, who en- couraged out her aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on. Various patterns have been discerned in the records: (1) one immi- grant bringing out one member of the family, and no more; (2) a complex chain through interrelated families stretching over many decades back to specific parishes from areas of emigrant concentration abroad; (3) the regrouping of whole families in the new land; (4) a colonial middleman "nominat- ing" a prospective emigrant from Ireland who would send him or her the required sponsorship money under the Remittance Regulations. 66
The Australian Remittance Regulations were a system of providing free passages, first introduced in 1848, whereby residents of the colony could pay a proportion of an immigrant's passage money in the colony and have their nominated friends or relatives brought out at government ex- pense. These immigration patterns had the effect of region- alizing concentrations of emigrants from Irish localities in the new lands. Chain migration functioned as a social mechanism, easing the immigrants' inevitable sense of exile and loss by making it possible to surround themselves with some familiar faces. 67
For the newly landed emigrant, friends, neighbors, and kin who had emigrated in the years before would be sought out, accommodation secured and advice obtained on land grants or employment opportunities. The emigrants were links in a social chain that bound certain regions and even parishes in Ireland with specific districts in the new world. The per- sistence of those ties with a sustained process of emigra- tion, the limited numbers of ports and avenues of arrival, and the relativerly restrcted set of settlement zones, in the United States and later in Canada and Australia, all served to reduce to meaningful proportions the scale and complexity of the new continent. They were not encountering the whole continent, only those parts of it that had already been spied out and surveyed by those who came earlier in the emigrant chains. 68
In the period 1820 to 1860 and later, there were compet- ing solicitations for emigrants to America, Canada, and Aus- tralia. From 1828 regular notices were inserted in the newspapers of Ulster by the Canada Company, whose London agent was A.C. Buchanen, a native of Co. Tyrone, advertising for farmers and labourers with families on the premise that family units would be a more stabilizing and reliable form of immigration than young mobile single people. 69 Under Buchanan's direction, and sometimes with financial assis- tance, the newcomers were encouraged to move out of the port city of Quebec, by-pass the growing commercial and manufac- turing metropolis of Montreal, and settle on the frontier of Upper Canada, which became the province of Ontario. 70
In 1854, one Vere Foster subtitled a pamphlet on emigra- tion to America "The advantages of emigration to America rather than to Australia." He listed such advantages as better prospects of work in the cities and the fact that the same money required for the passage of one person to Austra- lia was nearly sufficient to carry five to America. Adver- tisements for sailings to Australia took pains to assure readers that the waiting time for the departure of sailing ships was minimal in comparison to that for ships to America, a significant factor as there was considerable expense in- curred by immigrants in need of temporary housing, food and supplies while they waited in the port cities. 71
The social and economic difficulties of the 1840s saddled Ulster landlords and tenants alike for years with ar- rearages in rent. As was in an earlier chapter in the case of Rev. James Hamilton, of St. Ernan's in Co. Donegal, 72 it was not merely philanthropy which was behind the assistance offered to tenants on the Shirley estate in Co. Monaghan in 1849 when passages to South Australia were arranged. Major Shirley in Monaghan, Hamilton in Donegal, and Caledon in Co. Tyrone and others had in fact been assisting passages for tenants to Canada from the mid 1840s, even before the full onset of the Famine. 73
Indentured servants, political prisoners, ordinary fel- ons, tradesmen, already-established business and farming men, orphans and the rank and file of the migrant army poured from Ulster, the rest of Ireland, Lowland Scotland, and the north- ern Border counties of England to the new lands. 74 Amongst these migrants were many Strongs. In Appendix I we will try to capture what is known of their family histories and gene- alogy. (To be added Later)
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Footnotes:
1 Robert McCrum, William Cran, & Robert MacNeil, "The Story of English", Elisabeth Sifton Books/Viking, New York 1986, pp....... 2 Tom Connelly, "Scotch-Irish Heritage Explains Brooding Nature of Coun- try Music", The State and The Columbia Record, Columbia, S.C., Friday September 20, 1983, p.9-B. 3 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish' of North America", ABT-PAF Magazine published by the Capital Personal Ancestral File User's Group, Inc., P.O. Box 177, Bowie, MD 20715; Vol.2, No.4, Ju/Au/Se 1988, p.16. 4 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.16,17. 5 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.18,19. 6 John B. Cunningham, "William Conolly's Ballyshannon Estate, 1718-1727", The Donegal Annual,.................................p..... 7 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.18. 8 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.19. 9 compare R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America--1718- 1775"; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966; reprint Graham & Sons, Ltd., Omagh, Co.Tyrone, N.Ireland, 1988; pps.1-81 generally, and p.41. 10 R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 1718-1785",p.34. 11 R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America, 1718-1785",p.35. 12 compare R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America--1718- 1775"; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966; reprint Graham & Sons, Ltd., Omagh, Co.Tyrone, N.Ireland, 1988. 13 See P.William Filby and Mary K. Meyer, "Passenger and Immigration Lists Index", Gale Research Company, Book Tower, Detroit, MI 48226. 14 Myra Vanderpool Gormley, "Records trace indentured servants", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Thursday, October 20,1988, p.C2 15 Myra Vanderpool Gormley, "Records trace indentured servants", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Thursday, October 20,1988, p.C2 16 See Peter Wilson Coldham, "The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686"; "The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1607- 1660"; and "The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775";* 17 * (continued from previous footnote) Genealogical Publishing Company, 1001 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21202. 18 Myra Vanderpool Gormley, "Records trace indentured servants", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Thursday, October 20,1988, p.C2 19 R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America--1718- 1775"; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966; reprint Graham & Sons, Ltd., Omagh, Co.Tyrone, N.Ireland, 1988; p. 119. 20 compare R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America--1718- 1775"; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966; reprint Graham & Sons, Ltd., Omagh, Co.Tyrone, N.Ireland, 1988. 21 Grace Williams, Strong Family Association of America Associate Histor- ian for York County Strongs, letter to David B. Strong dated ...1988. For an alternate version, see Benjamin Dwight, Vol.II, p.1532-3. 22 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,8. 23 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.19. 24 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.19. 25 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20. 26 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20-21. 27 Tom Connelly, "Scotch-Irish Heritage Explains Brooding Nature of Coun- try Music", The State and The Columbia Record, Columbia, S.C., Friday September 20, 1983, p.9-B. 28 Tom Connelly, "Scotch-Irish Heritage Explains Brooding Nature of Coun- try Music", The State and The Columbia Record, Columbia, S.C., Friday September 20, 1983, p.9-B. 29 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.21. 30 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.21. 31 Tom Connelly, "Scotch-Irish Heritage Explains Brooding Nature of Coun- try Music", The State and The Columbia Record, Columbia, S.C., Friday September 20, 1983, p.9-B. 32 Robert McCrum, William Cran, & Robert MacNeil, "The Story of English", p.161. 33 Robert McCrum, William Cran, & Robert MacNeil, "The Story of English", p.159-160. 34 JoAnn Roe, "The North Cascadians", Madrona Publishers, Seattle, WA, (1980), p.81. 35 JoAnn Roe, "The North Cascadians", Madrona Publishers, Seattle, WA, (1980), p.81. 36 Tom Connelly, "Scotch-Irish Heritage Explains Brooding Nature of Coun- try Music", The State and The Columbia Record, Columbia, S.C., Friday September 20, 1983, p.9-B. 37 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20. 38 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20. 39 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20. 40 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.20,16. 41 George W. Page, "The 'Scotch-Irish'", p.16. 42 Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, "The Rise of American Civilization", The MacMillan Company, New York, 1927; Vol.I, p.83 ff. 43 Thomas Cuming Hall, "The Religious Background of American Culture", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1930; p.125. 44 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,9. 45 Trevor Parkhill, "'That Infant Colony': Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860"; Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2 No.3 1987, p.57-68. 46 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 47 Benjamin Dwight, "The History of the Descendents of Elder John Strong of Northampton, Mass." Vol.II, p.1534-5. 48 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 49 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,9. 50 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,10. 51 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 52 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,11. 53 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,12. 54 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,13. 55 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,12. 56 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,12. 57 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,12. 58 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,20. 59 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,20. 60 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,19. 61 R.J. Dickson, "Ulster Emigration to Colonial America--1718- 1775"; Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1966; reprint Graham & Sons, Ltd., Omagh, Co.Tyrone, N.Ireland, 1988; p.8-11. 62 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 63 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 64 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 65 Richard Reid, "Green Threads of Kinship!--Aspects of Irish Chain-Migra- tion to New South Wales, 1820-1886"; Familia, Ulster Genealogical Re- view, Vol.2, No.3, 1987; p.47-56. 66 Richard Reid, "Green Threads of Kinship!--Aspects of Irish Chain-Migra- tion to New South Wales, 1820-1886"; Familia, Ulster Genealogical Re- view, Vol.2, No.3, 1987; p.47-56. 67 Richard Reid, "Green Threads of Kinship!--Aspects of Irish Chain-Migra- tion to New South Wales, 1820-1886"; Familia, Ulster Genealogical Re- view, Vol.2, No.3, 1987; p.47-56. 68 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,14. 69 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 70 C.J. Houston and W.J. Smyth, "The Geography of the Irish Emigration to Canada", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2, no.4, (1988) p.7,16. 71 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 72 E.C. White, "Sixty Years Experience as An Irish Landlord", .... 73 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. 74 Trevor Parkhill, "Aspects of Ulster Emigration to Australia 1790-1860", Familia, Ulster Genealogical Review, Vol.2,No.3, p.57-68. <>
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