Emigration in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Scotland exported a high percentage of its population (mostly young men) in the seventeenth century, but most of them went to northern Europe.93 That pattern was reversed over the course of the eighteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth century North America was the principal destination for Scottish emigrants and would remain so for all of the nineteenth century. This change occurred slowly, accelerated during the extraordinary decade before the American Revolution, with the main destination beginning to shift to Canada in its aftermath. It grew out of the changing pattern of Scottish overseas trade. If Scottish emigration to England made the greater impact on the country over the course of the eighteenth century, it was contact with America that made Scotland British. The union of 1707 created more opportunities in British American colonies for members of the Scottish elite, particularly their younger sons. However, it also gave an advantage to emigrant Scottish working people over the Irish and German servants and farmers who were being recruited in increasing numbers to mainland British North American colonies as centres of population and areas of settlement began to grow and expand.94 It is impossible to estimate the number of Scottish emigrants, although Ned Landsman has made a brave try and arrived at a fi gure of ‘under 30,000’ for the period 1700–60.95