PART II EMIGRANT PERSPECTIVE
western edge of Montreal; nearly 2,000 died and were buried in Kingston, and in Toronto, 1,124 of the over 38,000 migrants who landed there died before the end of January 1848” (McGowan, 2012).
Fig. 26. “The Famished”, John Falter, 1974. Irish arrivals and emigrant ships at Grosse Île, 1847. Courtesy of University of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska 1847 was a catastrophic year for BNA emigration – particularly from some of the Irish ports and from Liverpool. BNA arrivals dropped from about 100,000 in 1847 to under 40,000 in 1848, with a minor peak in 1854, and then a further drop to about 20,000 in 1855 and 10,000 by 1858 (Fig. 7). At the start of the Famine - “BNA ports became more desirable to ship owners and some landlords because fares were cheaper than to the United States, standards looser or non- existent, and ports were less punitive financially about landing potentially sick passengers. Although there is a popular myth that America closed its ports, the evidence suggests that 119,000 Irish migrants landed in US ports in ‘Black 47’. It should be noted that in the United States the Famine migration marked the rapid increase in Irish immigration, whereas in Canada and the other British colonies, Irish migration rapidly dropped and paled in significance to the preferred destinations of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, after 1847”. (McGowan, 2023) 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (US) , settling the Mexican American War, was concluded 2 Feb 1848 reducing Mexican territory by 55% and ceding to the USA Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. And Mexico was about to lose more.
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