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 IRISH

134

IRISH

Act of Union of 1800. Their legislative independence thus extinguished, their trade and commerce de- stroyed, with every avenue for honourable occupation closed against them, the Irish people were thrown back on the soil for their means of support and became victims of a system of landlordism with its rents, fines, and rack-rents, its tithes, and various other iniquitous conditions, under which human beings could not hve except by almost superhuman industry and self-denial.

These, briefly stated, were the conditions which confronted the Irish yet remaining on their native soil at the close of the eighteenth century. That those who could should go elsewhere to find relief was most natural. As a result a tide of emigration set in, to be continued during two centuries, carrying away millions of the people who were destined to become so impor- tant an element in the establishment and maintenance of the .\merican Republic. It was no ordinary over- flow of a surplus population, seeking new fields of in- dustry, nor the enterprise of adventurous spirits in- duced, as had been other colonists, by promises of rich rewards, but rather the mournful flight of a peo- ple seeking to escape the ruin which had overtaken so many of their fellow-countrymen and which as surely was to be their lot if they remained at home. During the period of 1680 to 1720 thousands of woollen wea- vers, mostly Protestants from Ulster, deprived of their means of livelihood, and Dissenters as well as Roman Catholics anxious to avoid persecution, had left Ire- land for the American Colonies where they "were changed into enemies who paid off old scores in the War of American Independence" (Gregg, " Irish His- tory", 92). Other Catholic Irish from the middle and south of Ireland had likewise voluntarily emigrated to the different colonies, through which they dis- persed, to find or make homes for themselves and their families wherever circumstances favoured.

In the early years of the eighteenth century we find abundant records of Irish emigration. Thus, in 1718, five ships arrived in Boston with 200 emigrants from Ulster. So considerable was the influx that, in 1720, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed an ordinance directing that "certain families recently arrived from Ireland be warned to move off ", and, in 1723, another ordinance was passed requiring all Irish emigrants to be registered. During the years 17.36-17.38 ten ships arrived in Boston harbour bringing 1000 such immigrants, and hardly a year passed without a fresh infusion of Irish blood into the existing population. Irish names frequently ap- pear in the early records of many of the New England towns, showing how widely the immigration had dis- tributed itself, and in some cases those emigrating from particular locaUties in Ireland were numerous enough to establish their own independent settle- ments, to which they gave the names of their Irish home places, such as the towns of Belfast, Limerick, and Londonderry in Maine, Dublin, Derryfield, and Kilkenny in New Hampshire, and Sullivan and Car- roll Counties in the latter state, and this practice was followed in many instances by the Irish arriving in other colonies, notably Pennsylvania and New York, where the names of counties and towns of Ireland attest the place of origin of the first settlers. It was from the Irish settlers in New Hampshire that Stark's Rangers were recruited who fought the battle of Bennington and took part in the campaign leading to the surrender of Burgoyne. The official military records of the province of New York show that from early times Irishmen were there in large numljers. Thomas Dongan, the first colonial governor (ap- pointed in 1G8.3), who gave New York its first charter of liberties, was a native of the County Kildare and a Catholic. The muster-rolls of the various military companies which were maintained under British rule down to the time of the Revolution and participated in the French and Indian Wars, show a large propor-

tion of unmistakable Irish names, and there were some thousands of Irish soldiers in the various regiments of the line and of the militia of New York serving in the Continental Army.

On account of its reputation for religious tolerance and wise administration, William Penn's colony at- tracted Irish settlers in unusual numbers. Penn's trusted agent and administrator of the affairs of the colony during the period 1701-1751, James Logan, distinguished for his high character and the abiUty with which he discharged his trust, was a native of Lurgan, Ireland; among the "first purchasers" who embarked with Penn on the "Welcome", arriving at Philadelphia in 1682, we find the names of several Irishmen, who with their families had left their native towns of Wexford and Cashel respectively for America. (See list in Scharf and Westcott, "His- tory of Philadelphia ", I, 99.) Other early Irish immigrants arriving at Philadelphia were Patrick, Michael, and Philip Kearney, natives of Cork, among whose descendants may be named General Stephen W. Kearney, first governor of California, Commodore Lawrence Kearney, and the dashing General Phil Kearney, the distinguished soldier of the Civil War, and, in 1719, George Taylor, later one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1727, 1155 Irish landed at Philadelphia and in 1728, 5600 more. Holmes's "American Annals" states that out of a total of 6.310 immigrants arriving during 1729 by way of the Delaware River, 5655 were Irish. In one week alone, as reported by the "American Weekly Mer- cury " of 14 August, 1729, there arrived "about two thousand Irish and an abundance more daily ex- pected". In 1737 thirty-three vessels are registered as arriving at Philadelphia, bringing passengers from different ports in Ireland, and although definite statis- tics are not available, there is sufficient evidence to show that this tide of emigration did not slacken for many years. So great was it that in 1735 a bill was introduced in Parliament to prohibit emigration from Ireland entirely. The great number of Irish in Penn- sylvania at the beginning of the War of Independence, their high character, and important standing in the community indicate how large and valuable had been the immigration there.

Besides the Irish who had come into the Virginia Colony before referred to, there was other emigration to it, as well as to the Carolinas, where as early as 1734 a colony of 500 Irish settlers planted themselves on the Santee River; among these are to be found such names as Rutledge, Jackson, and Calhoun, which a generation later were to be famous in the history of the United States. Other settlements in the Southern States were made by Irish immigrants who had come thither from the northern Colonics. From various town and other colonial records (see Hanna, "Scotch-Irish", II, 9 and passim), it has been ascertained that Irish emi- grants had settled in Pennsylvania in 1682, in North Carohna in 1683, in South Carolina and New Jersey in 1700. The historian of South Carolina (Ramsay) writes, " but of all other countries none has furnished the Province with so many inhabitants as Ireland " (Vol. I, 20). The disastrous famine of 1740, hke that still more terrible one a hundred years later, greatly increased the emigration to America; besides those who left from Galway, Dubhn, and other ports, it is recorded that for "several years afterwards 12,000 emigrants annually left Ulster for the American Plantations", and that "from 1771 to 1773 the whole emigration from LTIster is estimated at 30,000 of whom 10,000 are weavers". (Lecky, "History of England in the Eighteenth Century ", II, 261; Froude, "English in Ireland", II, 125.)

There are no official records of immigration to the United States prior to 1820. But with rcferonee to the period from 1776 to 1820 the Hun-au of Statistics has adopted an estimate, based upon the most reliable