Westward Cork Migration by Sail 1815-1860 by John Sutton

PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE

1843. Immigration Decline (US). The cause was not clearly related to production levels in the US, where UK immigration declined by 61.7% and German immigration by 29.1% (Cohn, 2009, 83). Other push/pull factors were possibly at play, unique to those countries of origin. A nativist movement was growing at this time in the US, which particularly resented Irish Catholics and Germans (the two dominant immigrant groups), who competed for jobs and altered the cultural balance. The early part of the century also witnessed a spirit of Protestant revivalism, and many native-born Protestants concerned themselves that the influx of Catholic immigrants might not only elevate the Catholic religion but also spread Papism in American society. The movement would culminate in the ‘Know Nothings’ and the ‘American Party’ in 1854. Similar sentiment spilled over the border into BNA, as will be described later in Part ll. 1844. Montreal made Capital of Canada (BNA). Montreal, the transportation hub for Canada West and positioned near the border of the Canadas, was a logical choice to have been made the Capital of the Province of Canada in 1844 .

CHAPTER 2B

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN NORTH AMERICA 1846-60

1846. Oregon Treaty (BNA US). Oregon Country, west of the Great Continental Divide, south of Russian Alaska (54.4 th parallel) and north of Mexican Alta California (42 nd parallel), included modern Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Wyoming, Montana and British Columbia, and was populated by powerful indigenous tribes that became decimated by disease, trappers from the Hudson Bay Company and by a small number of American settlers, until a growing volume of Americans started to arrive via the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. President Polk urged his Secretary of State, James Buchanan, to negotiate American claims for the whole of Oregon Country with the British, who resisted strongly. Polk, who was distracted by the conflict with Mexico at that time and unwilling to further engage the military, compromised, resulting in the 15 Jun 1846 Oregon Treaty and acceptance of a border along the 49 th parallel , with American Oregon Territory to the south, British Columbia to the north, and Victoria Island in the west going to Britain. 1846-47. The Mexican American War (US). In 1845 Texas was accepted as the 28 th US State. Mexico disputed the US annexation of the Republic of Texas, precipitating a declaration of war and a futile conflict, resulting in the September 1847 capture of Mexico City by Major-General Winfield Scott and the huge Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (read on). 1847. Immigration and ‘Black 47’ (BNA). Irish emigrants to BNA died in huge numbers not only on the voyage, but also in distant cities far from ocean ports. “The loss of life during the Famine migration was particularly shocking. Of the 110,000 who set out for British North America, some 20% either died at sea, in quarantine stations, at makeshift fever hospitals, or in their places of sojourn. The quarantine stations at Grosse Île , near Quebec, and Partridge Island , in Saint John Harbour, were simply overwhelmed in 1847 , and were unprepared for the huge numbers of migrants who suffered from typhus (“ships fever”), dysentery, and in some cases smallpox. At Partridge Island, 600 were buried on the island, and between 1845 and 1848 the death toll exceeded 2,000 at New Brunswick’s principal quarantine station (Whalen, 1980). At Grosse Île, over 5,000 migrants died and were buried on the Island. Because the symptoms of typhus do not appear until after a week after one having been infected, suspected healthy migrants were allowed to move inland with disastrous results. Emigrant hospitals and hastily erected fever sheds in cities and towns in the interior of Canada soon became the foci of pestilence and death. Hundreds died at the Marine hospital in Quebec City; close to 6,000 were buried near the fever sheds at Point St. Charles at the

113