Introduction
British and Irish immigration to North America superseded Immigration movements in the nineteenth to the twentieth century. From the year 1820 t0 1930, around 4.5 million Irish and 3.5 British migrated to America. Most Irish immigrants before 1845 were Protestants. However, after 1845 Irish Catholics started entering America in multitudes due to the Great Famine. Not only this, but Irish people were also forced to migrate because of various prevailing religious, political, and economic factors reluctantly. Emigration to America was due to artificial reasons because of poverty and harsh British rules, especially in Ireland (Takaki, 140). During the period of transition from the 19th century to the 20th century, Britain was one of the countries which had high emigration rate. This was mainly steered by low living standards and harsh political situations. This paper seeks to establish the cause of UK and Ireland emigration to North America and why these people ideally chose their destination.
Emigration of Irish to North America
Between the late 19th century and 20th century, over 4 million citizens departed Ireland in search of greener pastures in the New World. The post-Great Famine effects were substantially finished, but a large number of emigrants were still fleeing, their number was almost five times the number of those who died as a result of the famine. This number also doubled that of any other European emigration rate. As a result, the population of Ireland declined from 6.5 to 4.4 million between 1851 to 1911. Poverty, low wages, inadequate opportunities to acquire smallholding, and large family sizes were some of the reasons that contributed to these movements. This emigration commenced after the war in 1812 and mainly by the Catholic Irish peasants because of political oppression, religious intolerance, and degrading social gradations. Irish peasants were legally democratic, but they lived like slaves in their own land. British officials manipulated their political views. The settlers conquered the agrarian economy.
The British landlords were so cruel that they physically assaulted Irish peasants as a form of punishment, and they could also rape them (Sowell 19). Deprivation of fundamental rights, oppression such as the Penal Laws, and a struggling Irish economy due to the end of a period where Ireland’s agriculture was flourishing lead to mass migration into America and Canada. The Irish population had drastically increased to about 8 million by 1850, and the Irish population in the rural settlements was rendered poorer. In addition, the production of textiles was moved to Northern Ireland, and this left many people jobless. The joblessness affected mainly the youths who did not even have an inheritance, leaving them to make a choice whether to stay at home or go abroad. After the mass migration, things even got tighter since the elderly were left on their own to endure the difficulties that their son and daughters could not. People also were optimistic about new opportunities away from home.
Then the start of the Great hunger began in 1845 was caused by a P. infestans, a disease, which affected crops, especially potatoes, which had become a staple food for the Irish. This led to Irish leader to petition the Queen to repeal the “Corn Laws “and tariffs which had rendered food such as bread and corn to be prohibitively expensive. However, the changes could not curb the potato blight problem. Many farmers failed to produce ample food even for their own consumption, cost of living rose, multiple casualties succumbed to starvation, and many more from diseases associated with malnutrition. To make matters worse, Ireland carried on with the exportation of large amounts of food such as livestock products during the era of potato blight. During the famine, almost a million Irishmen perished, and a tantamount of them escaped the Island due to poverty and Starvation. Takaki states that “By the thousands, Irish were leaving for America, where there was ‘room for all – employment for all and success for many.’ Letters from friends and family in the United States glowingly described riches ‘growing like grass’ and the boundlessness of a country where there was no tyranny or oppression from landlords.
As a result of the famine, and the restrictions that supported the continuation of British colonization to Ireland, life expectancy dropped dramatically close to half, to a little over 19 years. After the Great Famine, a lot of Irish families became part of migrants languishing in poverty, working in harsh environments in textile factories in North West of England. Irishmen also did casual work by digging and constructing canals, roads, docks, and railways; they were commonly referred to as “navvies.” They traveled all over the country working. These casual workers settled around ports in small communities like Cardiff and South Shields and worked in trading ships. This tough life faced by many poor Irishmen was echoed by the high-end racism they faced. Irish people were portrayed as savage and barbaric in cartoons, newspaper articles, popular jokes, and political speeches. This is also some of the reasons that brought divisions between English and Irish; the Irish people supported the idea that they could rule themselves, The Englishmen felt that the Irish had come to disrupt their wages by agreeing to work at lower wages `and religion since most Irish immigrants were Catholics while England and Scottish were Protestants.
From 1890 to 1914, the number of migrants entering the United States from Ireland was proportionally more than two thirds more than the total. In each of those years, the percentage of emigrants to the US to America exceeded 90 percent of the total, and the peak year was 1893 with93.9 percent. These emigrants were leaving Ireland to try out their fortune as agricultural laborers or farmers in another country, and they preferred British colonies, especially Canada.
Emigration in Britain
Emigration rates in the UK fluctuated greatly, but they rose over the 19th century until post First World War when the number of emigrants drastically declined. Emigration was at its peak between 1900 and 1910, when 8.7 per thousand in England and Wales, and 18.7 per thousand in Scotland emigrated. The majority of Britain emigrants, more than half, settled in the United States of America, while the rest migrated to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, East and West Indies, and other parts of the world in minute numbers.
Up to the 1850s, many British emigrants were craftsmen, farmers, farm laborers, or skilled artists; the majority emigrated in small family gatherings and were from rural areas. After the 1850s, this pattern began to evolve, where many emigrants began moving to urban settlements, and this was mainly young male casual workers. Additionally, with the introduction of the steamship transport in the late 19th century most of the emigrants returned to Britain. Thus, the nature of immigration changed anonymously in Britain, turning from family to labor migration.
In the 19th century, emigration was basically triggered by relative wages and higher employment rates in their destinations. Emigrants were lured by better income and higher living standards abroad. Economic and other factors are some of the reasons which people considered when deciding whether to emigrate or where to emigrate while putting in mind the cost of emigrating and the presence of close relatives abroad. Often, most emigrants made it on their own. America was accessible easily due to its close proximity to Europe; hence it was cheap and affordable to most immigrants.
For a good part of the 19th-century, emigration was a gradual and discreet process, but on a timely basis, it was an issue of political and public discussion. Malthusian ideas became saturated in the 19th century, and there was a commotion that Britain’s population was drastically increasing. Emigration was then seen as a vessel in which Britain could utilize to save itself from the redundant yet eminently dangerous excess population: the Britain government-designed programs to assist rapid emigration.
During the late 19th century, economic depression was a major concern for lobby groups who called for state-assisted emigration to resolve unemployment problems. During this time, Britain Imperialism was on the rise, and it was urged that emigration would benefit by strengthening its under-populated dominions and colonies. In the 1880s, people were migrating in large numbers to find luck abroad while lobby groups were calling on state-assisted emigration. By this time, emigration had become a trend as it was a matter of discussion in newspapers, editorial and letter to the editor people encouraging emigration and talking about how beneficial it was. The result was high emigration rates, and the government was forced to intervene in the matter.
Why Most Emigrants Chose North America
Emigration to North America commenced as early as 1585, with the first settlement at Jamestown 1607. Emigrants were deployed in Virginia to mainly work in tobacco plantations as indentured servants to their masters. America was Britain’s first penal colony; hence women, men, and children from Scotland, English, Ireland, and Wales sentenced for transportation in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were short sentences usually 10 to 15 years, although many would not make it back home.
Transportation to America halted in 1776 when America got its independence, although emigration to Canada and America extended all along the 19th and 20th centuries. Canada was made the main British colony to cater to emigration and transportation. In particular, the migration of children with over 80,000 child emigrants from the UK between 1870 and 1914.
It is estimated that between 1830 and 1930, emigrants totaling to around nine million were sailing from Liverpool searching for a brand-new life in the “New World” countries such as Canada, United States, and Australia. Liverpool was strategically placed and had become very popular among emigrants since it had established transatlantic links for exportation of cotton and timber to Canada and America. Due to its strategic place, Liverpool received majority emigrants from all-over North-Western Europe, because they could access Hull by ship then board a train to Liverpool. In the early 20th century, Southampton turned to a main departing port to Cunard liners and other sailing ships to America.
There were three main reasons why people emigrated to North America. Some were escaping struggles of poverty and unemployment, for instance, over 1 million Irish emigrated between 1845 and 1851 as a consequence of the Great Hunger. Other emigrants were fleeing from tough political and religious conflicts, for example, the disagreement between the Catholics of Irish and Protestants of the UK. These emigrants were in pursuit of religious freedom. Others were not even facing any hardships or conflicts, but they were lured by the probability of better living standards in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the new world. The “Gold Rush” in America motivated people to emigrate and find their treasures.
Often, emigrants would stay ten or more days, anticipating a ship in a lodging house in Liverpool. These lodges were overcrowded, unpleasant, and inhospitable. Emigrants in the 1850s also faced harassment in Liverpool; sometimes, fraudulent officials could snatch there bag in exchange for a huge bounty. Beginning 1860s, things started improving as the sail was replaced by steam across the Atlantic route. The steamship companies supported the emigrants and looked after them once...
