endure the increasing oppression of the chiefs and left without means of 
     
     securing a livelihood, these people were forced to make a serious decision 
     
     concerning the future of themselves and their families.l2 There were three 
     
     alternatives open to them: to wander to meagre settlements along the 
     
     coast of Northern Scotland and eke out an existence by fishing; to travel 
     
     to the new industrial towns in the south and work in the factories; or to 
     
     emigrate overseas to the New World. ' 3 
     
    

    
     Of the three, emigration held the most promise. Obviously, only 
     
     the poorest of the Highlanders took the first recourse — that of fishing 
     
     on the coast. And factory work in the south was anathema to most of the 
     
     agriculturally-bred northerners, as was the prospect of residence in the 
     
     Lowlands. Those who chose to emigrate, on the other hand, had the 
     
     opportunity to begin afresh on unsettled, uncleared land — to build new 
     
     communities and continue a lifestyle similar to that which they had 
     
     known earlier as tenants. And because the American colonies were as yet 
     
     sparsely settled and there was little difficulty in acquiring large tracts of 
     
     land, the emigrants had a much greater chance of attaining a superior 
     
     rank in society there than they had in the Old World. 
     
    

    
     There was, on the whole, very little to prevent those who wished to 
     
     emigrate from doing so. Finances were usually not a problem, since the 
     
     majority of tenants had been allowed to receive the profits of their 
     
     labours. Consequently, even poorer families could afford the passage to 
     
     America and many sub-tenants and cotters accompanied their tacksmen. 
     
     Some of the more substantial farmers had enough left over to help 
     
     establish themselves in the New World.” Yet, the majority of emigrants 
     
     were poor, and the cost of their passage often exhausted their savings. 
     
    

    
     Most parties of emigrants travelled in clans, resolving the difficulty 
     
     of having to break up extended families. The greater number of 
     
     Highlanders going to North America at this time were doing so to im- 
     
     prove their living standards and to separate themselves from the social 
     
     disorder in Scotland. It may have been that the settlers hoped to build a 
     
     new, more perfect Scotland in the New World. Their main attributes 
     
     were their pride in being Scots, their continuing fidelity to their 
     
     homeland, and the bonds of kinship they had with each other. 
     
    

    
     Such were the traits of most emigrants on board the ships that 
     
     sailed for the Isle of Saint John (renamed Prince Edward Island in 1799) 
     
     in the latter part of the eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth 
     
     centuries. The first Scots arrived on the Island about 1768; the majority 
     
     of migrations were organized between 1771 and 1803.” As well, a 
     
     contingent of Lowlanders came and settled in the colony during the same 
     
    
   
   
    
     4