Migration and settlers Flashcards
Early views on migration
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
ARGUMENT
18th Century emigration was “social excretion” ie convicts being exiled
EVIDENCE
George Washington: “savages…our own white Indians”
Changing attitudes to emigration
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
ARGUMENT
Wakefield’s precursors, and later Wakefield himself, changed the negative image of emigrants. Yet they had limited impact
EVIDENCE
Robert Wilmot Horton, repeal of emigration restrictions in 1824. –> 11000 transferred to Canada/Cape Colony
“Wakefield was riding the wave of public opinion, not creating it.”
800 000 move 1815-20, but Wakefield writing in 1829?
ARGUMENT
It is difficult, but not impossible, to map changing attitudes to emigration
Evidence
EVIDENCE
- Wakefieldian ‘colonist’ was organised and genteel, not labouring-class and disorganised
- Also Immigrant
- New language, ie relocate approx 1815
- Settler had common usage in Britain, good connotations in Aus. Was above a low, labouring emigrant and carried connotations of permanence
ARGUMENT
The ideology of settlerism is discernible in the growth of booster literature, and in notions of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ settlerism
EVIDENCE
- “paradise complex” of booster literature
- Class divides, but fewer conflicts
- horses and home ownership…
- Affluence and abundance ie in meat
- Formal stresses fruits of labours, Informal stresses “abundance without work”
Explosive colonisation
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
ARGUMENT
There followed “explosive colonisation”
EVIDENCE
170,000 in the period 1815–20
1819 Scheme for African colony oversubscribed by 80 000
1810-1814. no publications for emigrants. But 1815-19, 20.
1815-1820, 800 000 moved “on both sides of the Atlantic”
Utopian dreams
From James Bellich, Replenishing the Earth, The Settler Transition:
Very few, except the Germans, emigrate simply to find better and cheaper lands.’ Others were influenced by poetry, dreams, and hopes. ‘This influence of the imagination has no inconsiderable agency in producing emigration.’ - J. Bellich on Timothy Flint
Religion
- Methodism in 1740s, transition from Calvinist pre-determinism to arminian salvation
Demographics of migration
% of migrants from UK in Aus and travelling to empire
% leaving from ports for empire, and in what years?
from Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
But British and Irish passengers going to British North America, Australia, and New Zealand made up a substantial 38 per cent of the gross total between 1853 and 1860
71 per cent left UK ports for empire destinations between 1920 and 1929
Great Britain and Ireland were the birthplaces of over 52 per cent of the non‐aboriginal population of Australia in 1861
Migration to Canada, Demographic change
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
Demographic change:
90,000 in 1775, rising to around 457,000 by about 1806
Canada (confederated in 1867) plus Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island to 3,816,134 by 1871
Assisted migration
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
WHY
- Prompted by economic problems in the UK. An ipetus to “relieve social and economic distress at home” -Migration and Empire Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
- Can use example of Australian convicts easing pressure on uk
HOW
- Popular after WW1: 1922 “Empire Act” to lessen British unemployment and grow dominion economies
- 186,524 selected migrants were granted assisted passages to emigrate to Canada between 1922 and 1936, about 46 per cent of those aided under the Act,
BUT
- Dependent on desirability of the place:
- Alfred Miner’s schemes failed: 400 000 British but only 2000 accept placements. - Empire and Globalisation - Gary B. Magee And Andrew S. Thompson.
- Dependent on health of economy to fund schemes
Give a list of motivations…
SOCIAL
- Family
- Social networks - Empire and Globalisation - Gary B. Magee And Andrew S. Thompson.
- Overpopulation
- “Social” as well as “Material” betterment. Ie Unions in Aus rejected assisted migration to establish themselves as the superior workforce (Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine)
INDIVIDUAL
- Utopian dreams of abundance
- Adventurous people
- “…the new world spelt liberty.” - Nial Ferguson
- John Locke, if you’ve laboured on land, you can own it
RELIGIOUS
- Escaping persecution
- Escaping popery
ECONOMIC
- Land (people wanted to move abroad due to enclosure acts) - A. Jackson.
- Seasonal work for indentured labourers
- Urban prospects: In Canada, urban towns and cities>land Empire and Globalisation - Gary B. Magee And Andrew S. Thompson.
- Cheap plots of 50 acres –> Tobacco grown, export up, price down, migrants attracted - Nial Ferguson
- Going was “last resort” for those who couldn’t find work at home (c.f. account of John Harrower)
Why was ‘identity’ more of an issue for some migrants than for others?
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
- Only 15 per cent of UK immigrants in Canada by the early 1960s had joined ethnic associations, compared with 40 per cent of those from the Benelux countries and 25 per cent of Eastern European refugees.
- Canada was British-majority country, so no need to define selves against other ethnicities
Migrants as a workforce
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
- Both in Aus and Can, Harper and Constantine note that indigenous peoples were an inadequate workforce
Migration to Australia: Demographics
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
POPULATION BEFORE BRITISH SETTLERS:
- Aboriginal population, 40 000+ yrs old, approx. 315 000
DEMOGRAPHICS
- January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip, first migrants at Botany Bay
- 1861: NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South/Western Australia and Tasmania= 1,349,000, 52% born overseas
- Economic depression/world wars = >10% of population in 1947. But 23% in 1991
- But by 1991, only 31% of the population
What problems did migrants face?
- The ‘tyranny of distance’. Canada took 6 months and was a hard journey
- Jamestown, Virginia 38/100+ left afterr 1 year from diseases like Malaria and Yellow fever
- “Odds of surviving a year in Jamestown were roughly 50/50”
- Nial Ferguson
- Geoffrey Blainey
Migration to Australia: The deportation of convicts and why it ended?
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
CONVICTS
- 163,021 men and women in 825 shiploads were sent as prisoners to penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868
- from 1717, minor crimes = 7 yrs in AUS
- Not professional criminals, but guilty of petty theft and first time offences. Large blue collar presence
- 81 per cent of the New South Wales sample from 1817–40 were in the age range 16–35. c.f to demographic for free movers
- 75 per cent of the English convicts among the New South Wales sample could write and/or read, and that was a significantly higher rate than the 58 per cent average for all English counties in 1839–42
- Approx 80% male/female transported for theft
- Hard start, then building infrastructure
- Convicts initially ruled by army, then free settlers, then also emancipated convicts
CONFLICTING AGENDAS?
- A fresh start, or punishment?
- Some wished to go!
- Free settlers complained that their lands were being used as ‘dumping grounds’
FREEDOM
- Slaves until tickets to leave, could then get land.
Samuel Terry, 19 000 acres after being freed
END OF DEPORTATION
- 1830s-60s: Anti- transportation lobbies
- -> New South Wales (1840), Victoria (1850), and Tasmania (1852)
Migration to Australia after the anti-transportation laws of the mid-19th century. Initial reluctance followed by change
Migration and Empire
Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine
RELUCTANCE, AND WHAT CHANGED
- Only 1500 civilian migrants in 1820
- Convicts still 46% of pop in 1840
- “Distance…unsavoury reputation… [and] frontier violence” made many reluctant
- Allan Cunningham discovers the “Australian Felix” and the potential economy of wool –> Civilians attracted
- Cheap land and higher-class reputation for the buisiness
