British Emigration To British North America

In 1928 Miss Cowan published in the series "University of Toronto Studies, History and Economics" her first work on population movements: British Emigration to British North America, 1783-1837. This study has remained a standard reference on its subject and for some time has been available for purchase only through second-hand channels. In the intervening years Miss Cowan maintained an active interest in this field of history; for the present volume she has revised the earlier study in the light of her own and others' investigations and has expanded her discussion to include another quarter-century. The book is an attempt to give students and general readers something of the story of the outpouring of British subjects who peopled British North America in the years before Confederation. Economic dislocations coincident with the Napoleonic Wars and the industrial and agricultural revolutions were causing a vast uprooting of population. At the same time, the beginning of political and humanitarian reform brought a demand for assistance in poor relief, for land, labour and other improvements at home and for government aid in emigrating to the colonies. The author describes the various policies of governments on emigration, the activities of timber, mercantile and land companies which became greatly interested in the flow of population overseas, and the efforts of individual and societies to held the needy who took part in this epic movement.

First published in 1913, this valuable and scholarly work is an account of the flow of population from the British Isles to the United States and Canada during the nineteenth century and the author's extensive researches into government reports and papers has brought together a great deal of material which gives his book an important place as an authority on British emigration. The work begins with a short historical survey in which the author discusses the causes of emigration before treating the subject topically as a series of political and economic problems. He gives a detailed account of the transport and reception of emigrants, of emigration restrictions and colonisation schemes, and of the emigration of women and children, and presents with much force the conflict of interests that grew up between England and her colonies respecting migration. This must still be regarded as an authoritative work on the subject and its bibliography will be of great value to all students of the period.

First published in 1913, this valuable and scholarly work is an account of the flow of population from the British Isles to the United States and Canada during the nineteenth century and the author’s extensive researches into government reports and papers has brought together a great deal of material which gives his book an important place as an authority on British emigration. The work begins with a short historical survey in which the author discusses the causes of emigration before treating the subject topically as a series of political and economic problems. He gives a detailed account of the transport and reception of emigrants, of emigration restrictions and colonisation schemes, and of the emigration of women and children, and presents with much force the conflict of interests that grew up between England and her colonies respecting migration. This must still be regarded as an authoritative work on the subject and its bibliography will be of great value to all students of the period.

This is a revisionist account of Highland Scottish emigration to what is now Canada, in the formative half century before Waterloo.