Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

1836. Newfoundland and Labrador (BNA). The Colony’s Irish population reached 38,000 in 1836; five times greater than in 1800. Ireland accounted for 50% of all the colony’s residents in the 1840s. The historian John Manion claimed that 90% of these Irish emigrants came from SE Ireland within 40 miles of the City of Waterford; counties Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary, Kilkenny, and Cork. (Higgins, 2009) 1836. The Illinois and Michigan Canal (US). Using Irish labour, construction commenced in 1836 but stalled due to the financial panic of 1837. The 96-mile Canal was built from Chicago across the Chicago Portage, and onward to La Salle-Peru, reaching the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River. While not completed until 1848 , the canal was important, prior to railways and the Civil War, in establishing Chicago as a major continental transportation hub and securing trade west of the Great Lakes for New York. 1837-38. Rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada (BNA). Rebellions of 1837-38 against perceived undemocratic Rule in British North America. The first rebellion in Nov 1837 occurred in Lower Canada near Montreal and was led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and his ‘Patriotes’, teaming with moderate French-Canadian moderates against the self-serving Protestant Château Clique (mostly merchants, shipowners, and bankers) who controlled the purse strings and were thought to be intent on destroying their French way of life. A second more violent Lower Canada rebellion occurred later in November 1838 . The Upper Canada rebellion was started by William Lyon Mackenzie, a newspaper publisher, and his anglophile followers in December 1837 against the Crown in Upper Canada protesting the Family Compact , upper-class gentry with over-reaching political power, who spent much of the revenue on their own causes. These conflicts were resolved with the loss, between battles and executions, of 325 lives - all rebels but for 27 troops. Papineau and his supporters fled to the US. Mackenzie and his followers were defeated north of Toronto, and he too fled to the US. Both men were eventually pardoned, but many rebels were executed. The events resulted in an investigation by Lord Durham and his recommendation for reunification of Upper and Lower Canada as the Province of Canada in 1841 . The other colonies would remain independent for some years. 1837. Economic Downturn (US). Davis Index decline of 1.4% in 1837. The Canadian rebellions and the negative US jobs report in 1837 were associated with hugely decreased immigration north and south of the US-Canadian border in 1838. US immigration from the UK declined 55.6%, and from Germany 50.8%. BNA emigration in 1838 almost bottomed out completely. (Cohn, 2009, 80). 1837. Deaths of Irish Canal diggers in New Orleans (US). An 1837 report relating to the digging of the New Basin Canal. And with that ditty, published in the Times-Picayune of July 18, 1937, the lore was born that thousands upon thousands of Irish died in New Orleans digging the New Basin Canal (NBC) between 1832 and 1838. When valuable slaves died during the first year of the dig from Yellow Fever, Irish immigrants were employed to continue the job. Compared to other canals, the NBC was modest, only 6 miles long. The true number of Irish deaths is not known. Some claims in the 20,000 range are doubted – more likely in the several thousand range and largely associated with the first great Cholera epidemic that arrived at New Orleans during October 1832 from Canada - having reached New York in June, it travelled west and spread down the Mississippi by steamboat. Ten thousand Micks/They Swung their picks/To dig th’ New Canawl But the choleray was stronger’n they/And twice it killed them awl. Swampy conditions near New Orleans put workers at risk for mosquito-borne diseases like Yellow Fever and Malaria. Canal construction was associated with high mortality from

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