Migration to the US 1800-1850

[Peteu4]

Migration in the time period 1800-1850 interests me.

Assuming the migrant was voluntary..ie not a criminal or a burden on the parish council.

The governments in America and Canada had a scheme to encourage migration by offering free land to anyone that would settle there and develop the land.

Q.1  how would this offer be transmitted to people in small villages etc in this country.

The people concerned were probably not destitute but as "aglabs for example" would only have a small amount of money at their disposal...possibly too they were unable to read so not be able read it from a newspaper.

Q.2 Were the expenses for these migrants subsidized and organised by the governments concerned,or was it left to some other organistion "ie religious" or the potential migrants themselves?

Q.3 In this period the only forms of transport would be carriers carts or if lucky, by canal..assuming again that the railways in this early period were in their infancy.
..was some organised travel available?

Q.4 Can anyone recommend a book relating to a typical journey?

Pete

[eillo]

There were many immigration schemes in the time period (50 years) that you are interested in. Here's a few (the tip of the iceberg) that you can read about online:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ote/ships/ Click on "Peter Robinson Settlers 1825 Ireland to Canada"

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/passengerlists/peterrobinsonindex.htm
Peter Robinson Settlers

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/reports/report1834.html
Extracts From Government Immigration Reports of the Nineteenth Century

Assisted Emigration - Emigration Societies
http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/reports/emigrationsoc.html

Petworth Immigration Project 1832-1837 (England to Upper Canada)
http://www.petworthemigrations.com/

Some Reconstructed Ships Lists for Petworth
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/passengerlists/petworth.html

... and many many more which can be found by a search of Google. Have fun!

[Erato]

I have relatives who migrated to the US and Canada in this period (1830-40).  One family went from Co. Down to Ontario, another from Wigtownshire to New York, and a third from Co. Wicklow to Canada.  In two cases, they went where others from their communities had preceded them.  These people were literate and presumably were responding to encouraging letters sent home by the earlier settlers.

By 1850, they all had moved on to frontier areas of Wisconsin where the gov't. was selling (not giving away) recently opened up land.  All three families were young, recently married, with few or no children at the time the emigrated.  Evidently they sold whatever they had to pay their passage and stake them to a start in the New World.  They probably started out as hired laborers on someone else's land until they could earn enough to get a piece for themselves.

I think that they were probably typical immigrants in this time period - that is, they had some education and a small amount of money; they were not from the very bottom of the social ladder.