Scotlands History\|Scots and Canada

The cost of the voyage

  • Black and white image of Montreal

The cost of a two-month voyage across the ocean was a major obstacle to emigration. Many people who wished to emigrate from Scotland simply could not afford the cost of transport.

Poor people were encouraged to emigrate by travel schemes. In return for support and the cost of the voyage, they would become an indentured servant or employee to a patron. For some, becoming an indentured servant was little better than slavery, but for others, it was the only alternative to a hard life on the streets in Scotland.

Desperate parents hoping for a better life for their children would even sell their daughters as maidservants at the dockside, or their sons as clerks to travelling businessmen.

Many wealthy patrons hired ships and financed entire voyages to Canada. Some wished to help destitute Highlanders, and to settle and develop their properties overseas. Others paid for transport out of more selfish motivations; they actively pursued policies of forced emigration, removing tenants from their lands and sending them directly to Canada with no means for making a living once they arrived. 

Many families had to sell as many of their belongings as they could to cover the cost of passage and to buy a few basic goods once they arrived in Canada.