European Pioneers

Unit 2: People and Culture European Pioneers

• Pioneer: a person who is among those who first enter or settle a region, thus opening it for occupation and development by others.

• What images does the word “pioneer” bring to mind?

Early Immigration

• Prince Edward Island experienced much change during the first half of the 19th century as a great influx of immigrants made the Island their home all seeking a better life.

• Social and economic factors often played the major role when people decided to leave their homeland.

• Other reasons for migration were war, persecution, discrimination, or simply the desire for adventure.

• Few Island pioneer settlers had backgrounds in agriculture but were forced to adapt and learn new skills.

Clothing

• Early French settlers, and later the British (English, Scottish and Irish) were generally economically poor

• Arrived with very little and wore their clothing until it literally disintegrated (reused everything possible)

• Gradually adopted Mi’kmaq styles and materials

• Began making clothing from sheep wool and flax

3 main reasons for Scottish migration to Canada in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

• Agricultural Revolution led to a large increase in population in Scotland (as in the rest of Europe)

• Agricultural Revolution led to a large increase in population in Scotland (as in the rest of Europe)

• The Enclosure Movement in Scotland and England and the transition from land crofting to sheep farming.

• Religious persecution of Catholic Scots, especially Highland Catholics

Three Waves of Immigration

• First Wave of Scottish Immigrants- arrived in 1770, sent by James Montgomery, Lord Chief Advocate of Scotland. About 50 Lowland Scots arrived on the Falmouth to his property at Stanhope, Lot 34

• Second Wave- the arrival in 1772 of Captain John MacDonald's Catholic Highlanders. MacDonald was an educated man and an inheritor of family estates in Scotland. MacDonald saw PEI as an ideal place to take Catholic Scots who were being evicted from their land.

• The largest group of Scottish settlers were led to PEI by Lord Selkirk who, in 1803, brought out 800 settlers from the Scottish Highlands to settle his lands in the Belfast area.

Selkirk – A Different Kind of Landlord

• He was interested in the welfare of his settlers

• He was not interested in remaining a landlord

• Arranged to settle his people in large communities on 50-100 acre lots per family (aimed to keep communities together)

• Selkirk sold his settlers land at a reasonable price, even financing those who needed three or four years to afford their land.



Reasons for Irish Immigration

• For the Irish who came 1815, they were leaving a country where the population had grown, the economy was in trouble, crop failure threatened starvation and English domination was hated.

• Roman Catholics had few rights and no representation under English rule.

• PEI and the Maritimes seemed ideal because land was available, fishing was good, lumber markets were strong and shipbuilding was entering its most profitable period.

The Journey

• Most Irish who came over traveled "steerage" class, because they could not afford the first class passenger cabins.

• These quarters were more like large storage bins for people than real accommodations. They were crowded, noisy, rat infested and there was no privacy. They were also an ideal place for contagious diseases to spread.

• The steerage quarters were places of crime at times, being compared by one observer to a concentration of all the crimes committed in Liverpool in one year now committed in one passage across the Atlantic on an immigrant ship.

First Wave of Irish Immigration

• The Colonial Pioneers were the Irish who arrived in small numbers during the early years after the British takeover of New France.

• They were Irish Protestants brought to the Island to establish British law, government and institutions in the new colony.

• Governor Patterson was one of these Colonial Pioneer Irish



Second Wave

• The Southeastern Irish Immigrants (“Southies”) came from the Southeastern counties of Ireland.

• Merchant ships from England often stopped in Ireland to pick up cargo and fishermen bound for the Grand Banks of Newfoundland

• Fishermen coming to the Island via Newfoundland were nicknamed “two-boaters”

Third Wave

• The last large group of Irish immigrants of the 19th century were known as the Monaghan Settlers named after County Monaghan in Ireland.

• This was the largest group of Irish immigrants to PEI and they arrived from 1830-1850.

• This was an organized immigration, began primarily through the work of Reverend John MacDonald, a Catholic priest (third son of Captain John MacDonald who brought the Catholic Scots to Scotchfort)

1770 Charlotte Town Develops

• Roads were very poor in the early days (muddy in spring and fall, dusty in summer)

• Men over the age of 21 were pressured into working four days a year on the roads

• Examine the three pieces of primary evidence on page 23 of your book. What conclusions can you draw about urban development in this time period? What are some of the challenges using primary sources? Which source provides the most reliable information?