Economic Causes
Economic Causes
A major cause of emigration was the remittance sent home by relatives to help other family members to emigrate. This lead to chain migration.
“What brings such crowds to New York by every packetship is the letters which are written by the Irish already here to their relations in Ireland, accompanied, as they are in a majority of cases, by remittances to enable them to pay their passage out. It is from this source, and this mainly, if not only, that the Cork or Galway peasant learns all he knows about the United States, and he is not in the least likely to trust to any other.” London Daily News, 1864.
Extract from letter by Margaret McCarthy to her parents, 22 September 1850 (18) QRO file 11821, PRO, Dublin
Rev. Patrick A. Ward wrote to the Limerick Reporter newspaper on April 24th 1849 from Liberty, America advising the Irish to come to America as “ the white slaves of Ireland” were thousand times worse fed than the black slaves of America who were better clothed and cared for. He stated that “claims” of 160 acres of land were selling for about $100 to $120 i.e. £20 to £25 because farmers were heading to California in search of gold. He advised that it was best to get a ship form Liverpool or an Irish port to New Orleans and travel up the Mississippi to the fertile plains where land was cheap and wages high. He warned that if people were obliged to come to New York, or Boston that they should not remain more than a fortnight in any of those eastern cities for many of their countrymen were paupers there.
Causes of Emigration | Assisted Emigration