Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration To

NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH EMIGRATION TO, AND SETTLEMENT IN, ARGENTINA. BY P A T R I C K M c K E N N A. M. A. G E O G R A P H Y T H E S I S 1 9 9 4 C O N T E N T S Page. Chapter 1 Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration to, and settlement in, Argentina. 1 Chapter 2 Review of Source Material used in this work. 18 Chapter 3 The Effect of Physical Geography and Climate on Early Settlement. 36 Chapter 4 The Origin of Irish Colonization. 57 Chapter 5 The Process of Nineteenth Irish Settlement in Argentina. 75 Chapter 6 The Role of the Irish Church in the Formation of the Community. 96 Chapter 7 The Journey to Argentina. 124 Chapter 8 The Sending Areas. 138 Chapter 9 The Number of Irish Immigrants. 158 Chapter 10 Gender Roles in Irish Emigration to Argentina. 186 Chapter 11 Profile of the Emigrant. 207 Chapter 12 Patterns of Irish Settlement in Argentina. 223 Chapter 13 Life for the Irish in the Camp. 245 Chapter 14 The consolidation of their position by the Irish elite. 274 Chapter 15 An Overview of Irish Emigration and Settlement in Argentina. 289 APPENDIX 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY C H A P T E R 1. NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH EMIGRATION TO AND SETTLEMENT IN ARGENTINA. A Global Perspective. By the start of the twentieth century about 7.5 million Irish had crossed the Atlantic to resettle in a new world which was being opened up for trade and commerce by European powers. In the case of the Americas, this new world stretched, unbroken, from the frozen wastes of northern Canada and Alaska through the equator until it again reached the great glaciers of southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Figure 1:1 Trans-Atlantic emigration from Ireland, 1720-1900 Beyond the Americas the New World spanned the African and Australian continents. The Irish, however, emigrated in an organized way, mostly, to very specific regions of this new world. The regions of the New World that the great majority of the nineteenth-century Irish emigrated to are located between the 30th and 50th parallel, both north and south of the equator. In addition their settlement was always bounded on at least one side by the ocean, or a large navigable river which linked the interior to the ocean. The reason why the Irish chose this relatively limited area, with easy access to the ocean, for settlement during the nineteenth century is apparent to the geographer. It was because the great grassland regions of the world are found within those parallels and it was not until the nineteenth century that those regions became the focus of European immigration. Settlement between the 30th and 50th parallel allowed the Irish settlers continue the type of agricultural production with which they were familiar, while access to the ocean allowed them trade their products for the European manufactured goods they were also familiar with when in Ireland. It was not until the late eighteenth century, however, that the great grassland frontiers became important to the growing European mercantile and industrial powers, so that the conditions for mass Irish emigration did not occur until then. By the end of the eighteenth century emigration from Ireland to the grassland regions of Canada and New England had become well established especially among the Scotch-Irish around the ports of Derry and Belfast. By the early nineteenth century this type of emigration was also beginning to occur among growing numbers of the Catholic Irish population, especially among those of similar 2 class to the Scotch-Irish, the relatively prosperous tenant farmers. Early Influences on Irish Emigration. By the second decade of the nineteenth century a series of events took place which greatly affected Irish emigration to the New World. England was involved in a European war against Napoleon. One major effect of this war was that growing emigration from Ireland to the New World was almost completely halted. Those potential emigrants who were forced to remain in Ireland not only created a notional population increase greater than it would otherwise have been, further adding to an already rapidly increasing population. The immediate consequences of this population increase and the lack of emigration were alleviated to some extent by the fact that Ireland was a major supplier of grain for the English troops. The wheat fields had to be ploughed, sown and harvested by manual labour, thus absorbing much of the labour supply, on a seasonal basis at least, for the duration of the war. When the war ended, however, a fall in demand for wheat led to an agricultural depression promoting a switch to cattle production by the land owners. This resulted in a rapid reduction in employment for labourers and a consequent large increase in emigration from the country. Another important factor which facilitated the huge rise in Irish emigration when the war with France ended was that at about the same time the colonial trade in slaves was abolished by England. As a result most of the ships involved in the slave trade were tied up in Liverpool while their owners desperately searched for alternative sources and centres of 3 trade with new regions. The English looked especially to the great grassland frontiers of the southern hemisphere to increase their influence and allow a new expansion in trade. This expansion of commercial influence by the English had a large military as well as merchant navy content. Many of the soldiers and sailors involved in this expansion, together with ordinary merchant seamen, were Irish. Not all of those Irish soldiers and sailors returned home with their comrades. Many of those who remained in these new locations did however maintain contact with their families in Ireland. And thus, links were formed between small areas in Ireland and specific locations in the new world. The link between Waterford and Newfoundland is one example where merchant seamen from the south east of Ireland settled on the other side of the Atlantic and began a chain which developed into significant emigration from the Waterford area specifically to Newfoundland. Buenos Aires is another example where soldiers, from Co. Westmeath, remained behind to form a nucleus which began emigration, from around Streamstown initially, to the Pampa of Argentina. Thus a combination of factors began the great nineteenth century Irish exodus to the New World. Briefly these were, an expanding population and economic recession in Ireland, combined with the English need to develop new frontiers for trade together with an ample supply of shipping, capable of moving both the goods and the emigrants to the desired destinations. Consequently the nineteenth-century Irish emigrant was perfectly placed, in 4 time, location and circumstance to settle the new frontiers. Furthermore a rural lifestyle in Ireland based on heavy manual labour meant that the Irish emigrant brought to the New World the variety of skills necessary to integrate the new frontiers into the European mercantile system. A very good match therefore existed between a suitable surplus population in Ireland and a great shortage of just such a population in the New World. In addition to being ideally suited to the needs of the developers of the New World, the Irish were also the ideal outward cargo. Irish emigrants became a self-loading, fare paying ballast for the growing number of ships trading with the New World. For those reasons Britain, reluctantly at first, soon began to encourage in every way the outmigration of her surplus, potentially rebellious, Irish subjects to the new frontiers in the distant reaches of her empire. Argentina's Role in the British Colonial System. Argentina, though an independent Roman Catholic and Spanish speaking nation, was drawn into this British colonial trading system from very early in the nineteenth century and competed as an equal in the British market with the British colonies of Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as the US. This trading relationship between Great Britain and Argentina continued from about 1815 until about 1960. It is therefore valid in terms of economic-geography, even if incorrect in strictly historical or political terms, to treat Argentina as a very important part of the British colonial outreach in the nineteenth century. 5 All the new great new grassland frontiers of the world were therefore being incorporated into the British colonial mercantile system, in one form or another, during the nineteenth century. All of those regions needed European labour to fully develop their economic potential within the then existing mercantile world. Consequently the regions were in competition with each other, not only for a share of the European market, but also for a share of the emigrants leaving Europe in search of a new start elsewhere in the world. Ireland as a Source for Immigrants. Ireland was a very important source for immigrant recruitment for all of the British colonies, particularly as the Irish were the only significant emigrant group in the nineteenth century who spoke English and were legally British. This allowed the Irish greater choice than other European emigrants, because, in addition to settlement in the colonies, they had the choice of emigration to the industrial centres in England as well as an in-built advantage, because of their language, in seeking industrial employment in the United States. Furthermore, the Irish were always among the very earliest Europeans to emigrate to the new frontiers and, once the Irish became established, they encouraged further immigration from Ireland. They made up about 10% of the entire European Trans-Atlantic emigration, despite being about 1% of the European population1.

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