Part 9

In 1804, Irish immigrants to the number of 670 are reported as arriving at St. John’s on their way to the United States, and for several years after thousands of their countrymen chose the same route to our shores. During the war of 1812 many of the Irish who had remained on the island went to serve on American privateers against the English, and many of these ships were commanded by Irishmen.

The large number of Irish who entered the United States from British North America within the period considered is not taken into account by our authorities on immigration, and their estimates of the direct immigration from Ireland and Britain are also very evidently far too low. They do not seem to remember that, there being no supervision of vessels carrying passengers until a much later period, the ships for America were crowded to a degree which in our day would hardly be thought possible.

Wolfe Tone, in his “Memoirs,” gives us an idea of the manner in which passengers were packed in vessels bound for the United States. Speaking of his voyage from Belfast to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1795—which occupied upwards of eight weeks—he says: “The slaves who are carried from the coast of Africa have much more room allowed them than the immigrants who pass from Ireland to America, for the avarice of the captains in that trade is such that they think they never can load their vessels sufficiently, and they trouble their heads in general no more about the accommodation and storage of their passengers than of any other lumber aboard.” There were over 300 immigrants on board the ship on which he sailed, but when off the banks of Newfoundland, she was stopped by three English frigates, and fifty of her passengers carried off by the “press-gangs” to serve in the navy of their persecutors. Tone narrowly escaped being among the number of those taken.

Many of the captains of emigrant ships at that time were thoroughly unscrupulous. A few years before the incidents just referred to occurred, the captain of a vessel, who had undertaken to carry a body of emigrants from Dunleary (now Kingstown), Ireland, to Charleston, S. C., landed eighty of them on the island of Inagua, near Dominica, in the West Indies, telling them it was well inhabited, and that provisions were plentiful. When, after having landed, they found that they had been deceived by the captain, and attempted to get on board the vessel again, they were fired on and one of them killed. They were, however, rescued a short time after by a passing American vessel, being, as might be supposed, “all in a most distressed condition.” It was not only the poorer people of Ireland who even then sought a free home in this land. Many persons of means were always to be found among those who came direct from thence. In 1798, a ship arrived at Norfolk, Va., from that country “with 426 passengers, chiefly tradesmen and persons of property.”

In the absence of any authentic records of immigration during the thirty years preceding 1820, we are justified, when endeavoring to form anything like an approximately correct estimate of the arrivals from Ireland during that period, in taking into consideration the strength of the Irish element here at that time, and the importance attached to the movements of Irish Americans in aid of their struggling kindred in the Old Land. Branches of the United Irish Society were established here soon after the organization of that body in Ireland. “Its headquarters were in Philadelphia, where Mathew Carey and other good men gave it aid and impulse. The publications of the Irish society were reprinted in the city just named as early as 1794, and funds were collected and arms promised.”

The strength and influence of this organization excited the uneasiness of the English government, and its minister here, Sir Robert Liston, used every effort to check the progress of the sympathetic movement. He was unfortunately enabled to attain his object, to a great extent, through his close intimacy with the highest officers of our government. In 1798, the “Alien Act” was passed in Congress, by a small majority. By this enactment, the president could order any alien he deemed dangerous to quit the country, others were to be licensed to remain during his pleasure, and neglect to obtain a license was made an offense punishable by three years’ imprisonment, and perpetual disqualification for citizenship. Fourteen years was fixed as the time necessary for an alien to reside here before he could become a citizen. This law excited deep indignation, and was strongly denounced by many independent journals. In order to prevent hostile criticism, the “Sedition Law” was passed, by which a fine of $2,000 was imposed upon any one who should write or publish a letter against the government, either house of Congress, or the president. Many were tried and several punished under these acts, and some had to fly the country to escape the threatened penalties.

The English minister was jubilant. In a letter to the governor-general of Canada, written in 1799, he gleefully told how some supporters of the coercive measures had “taken the law into their own hands, and flogged one or two of the printers of the newspapers whose comments had offended them,” and he remarked that this proceeding had “given rise to much animosity, to threats, and to a commencing of armed associations among those opposed to these laws, particularly among the United Irishmen,” adding, “Some apprehend that the affair may lead to a civil war.”

The Alien and Sedition laws were repealed three years later, the bill for that purpose being introduced by Senator Smilie, a native of Newtonards, Down county, Ireland, and a veteran of the Revolution. In 1812 he was a member of the foreign affairs committee, and prepared the bill authorizing President Madison to raise an army to fight the English.

Among the many prominent United Irishmen who arrived here about this period were Napper Tandy, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Mathew Carey, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Robert Adrian, who became professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Columbia college, and later was made vice-provost of the University of Pennsylvania. There came at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Thomas Addis Emmet, afterward attorney-general of New York state; Dr. William J. Macneven; Counselor Sampson; W. Theobald Wolfe Tone, a worthy son of his heroic father; Nicholas Grey, who had been adjutant to General Harvey, commander of the Wexford insurgent army in ’98; Henry Jackson, John Cormack, and many others. Alexander Porter, another of these immigrants, was too young in ’98 to become a member of the organization in Ireland, but his father, Rev. W. Porter, a Protestant minister of Newtonards, Down, had been hanged at his own door for his patriotism during the insurrection. Mr. Porter was later chosen United States senator from the state of Louisiana.

During the war of 1812–’15, large numbers of Irish joined the armies of the republic and shared in the victories as well as the defeats of that conflict. When General Scott and his small force was overpowered at Queenstown Heights by a greatly superior body of English and compelled to surrender, a number of the Irish prisoners of war were separated from their comrades and sent in irons to England “in order to be tried and executed for the crime of high treason.” The United States government, however, threatened to retaliate, and because of this fact, the men were ultimately released and allowed to return to this country. Many Irish also fought under Harrison, one of them (Mason) being credited with having killed the Indian chief, Tecumseh, at the battle of the Thames, and among the gallant men who under Andrew Jackson so decisively defeated the English at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, were numbers who had been born in his father’s native land, including several veterans of the insurrection of ’98.

While the war lasted, immigration from Europe was checked, but very soon after the restoration of peace, immigrants, particularly from Ireland, began to come here in far greater numbers than ever before. The English, however, notwithstanding the treaty of Ghent, were still bitterly hostile to the Americans, and their press indulged in the coarsest abuse of our institutions and public men. Inflamed by jealousy of this republic, and anxious to prevent the Irish from emigrating to it, the English parliament in 1816 passed a law which prohibited British vessels from carrying more than one passenger for every five tons burden to the United States, while allowing them to carry one passenger for every two tons to any other part of the world.

But this law did not produce the desired effect. Professor Smith says that “from Great Britain (and Ireland) the number of emigrants for the year 1815 was only 2,081. The next year it rose to 12,510; in 1817 to 20,634; in 1818 to 27,787, and in 1819 to 34,789.”

Holmes says, speaking of the year 1816: “In this and the preceding year there was a great emigration from Ireland and England to America. This year 1,192 American and foreign vessels arrived at New York, bringing to that port alone 7,122 passengers.” From the same authority we learn that the returns of vessels and passengers at Baltimore showed the arrival at that port early in October, 1816, of 1,878 passengers; those reported being estimated at probably three fourths of the whole number that arrived. From another source we find that “within three weeks, in the month of September, 1816, about 2,000 immigrants arrived in the United States.” Similar notices may be frequently found in the newspapers of those times.

The English authorities, while endeavoring to prevent the Irish from coming to the United States, exerted themselves vigorously to promote emigration to Canada. Municipal bodies, local organizations, and various societies contributed funds to assist those intending to emigrate, and at the same time liberal grants of land and other inducements were offered to prospective settlers in Canada. As a result of these efforts, the immigrants from Ireland and Britain to Canada out-numbered, for many years, those who came to the United States. The great majority of the Irish, however, soon found their way to this country, and especially to New York, where work was progressing at that time on the Erie and Champlain canals. Of all these, no account was taken by officials or writers on emigration at the time, and but little by those who wrote later on the subject, though one writer admits that there was even more recently “considerable overland immigration, much of which escapes attention.”

It seems evident, taking all the facts above cited into consideration, that the estimates of those writers of the number of immigrants, and particularly of Irish immigrants who arrived here between 1790 and 1820, are very much too low, and it appears very reasonable to assume that Dr. Chickering’s estimate of the number of immigrants who came here after 1820—that is 50 per cent. more than the officially reported number of arrivals—must be largely increased when we are endeavoring to ascertain how many immigrants landed on our shores before the date just mentioned, and before any attempt was made to obtain the number of those who arrived in the United States, even through our Atlantic ports.

In order to reach an approximately correct conclusion as to the proportion of the immigrants of different nationalities embraced in this aggregate, we must be guided “by the relations then existing between the United States and the countries from which persons emigrated,” to quote the words of the last-named writer when speaking of the number of immigrants. There is no need to dwell on those relations. The bitter feeling with which the English had regarded the Americans from the days of the Revolution, lost none of its intensity during the period under consideration, and the feeling was frankly and fully reciprocated by the great mass of the American people. As a consequence, there were but few English among the immigrants to this country at that time.

The Irish, however, who had always sympathized with our republic in its struggles, and gloried in its triumphs, came here in large and constantly increasing numbers all through the thirty years preceding 1820, as well as afterwards. Many thousands of French, Germans, and others arrived here during the period, but the great majority were undoubtedly Irish. It seems clear that the immigrants were more than twice as numerous during the period considered as the commonly received estimates or conjectures would lead us to believe, and it appears evident from the facts above cited that at least two thirds of the total were of Irish birth or blood—including those from the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Canada.

That number seems very small now, when we think of the enormous immigration of later years, and our population of 80,000,000. But it should be remembered that the white population of this country in 1790 was only 3,172,464. Of this total, those between the ages of twenty and fifty numbered less than two fifths, or 1,268,986. Now the immigrants who sought our shores in those days were almost all in the prime of life. Children and aged and weakly people, being unable to undergo the difficulties and hardships certain to be encountered in a strange and new land, were left behind. Among the new arrivals marriages took place in far greater proportion than among the descendants of the earlier immigrants, and the children of the former were proportionately more than twice as numerous as those of the latter. This continued to be the case down to a much later period. During the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, the marriages among the native born in Massachusetts were at the rate of 220 in 10,000, while those of the foreigners (mostly Irish) were in the proportion of 450 in 10,000. The children born to native parents in the same state during the same years numbered 47,982, or 578 in 10,000, while those of immigrants amounted to 24,523, or 1,491 in 10,000. That is more than twice and a half as many. It is impossible to determine accurately how much the population of the United States was increased by the immigrants who arrived here between 1790 and 1820, and their descendants, but careful investigators have furnished us with estimates, which maybe fairly regarded as approximately correct.

Some writers who gravely state that “the mortality among Catholics is greater than among Protestants,” and who complacently assert that “the vitality of the Irish is very low,” have, as might be expected from these expressions, glaringly underestimated the number in 1820 of the immigrants and their descendants who arrived here during the period under consideration. Dr. Chickering says that they then numbered 1,430,906 out of a total population of 9,638,131.

But the Hon. F. Kapp, one of the commissioners of immigration for the state of New York, allowing a yearly increase of 1.38 per cent. for the descendants of the earlier immigrants, shows that at this rate the population—excluding slaves because their numbers have no bearing on the question—of 3,231,930 in 1790, would have only increased to 3,706,674 in 1800, to 4,251,143 in 1810, and to 4,875,600 in 1820, instead of amounting to 8,100,056, the total population including slaves being 9,638,131. Assuming his estimate to be nearly correct, his declaration that “immigration has enabled this country to anticipate its natural growth some forty years’” seems reasonable.

A similar estimate was made by Louis Schade of Washington, D. C., and by Hon. M. W. Closkey, ex-postmaster of the United States house of representatives, who shows that the rate of increase of our population (1.38 per cent.) was greater than that of any European nation, and proceeds to estimate what the numbers of our people would have been at each census up to 1850 had immigration been prohibited when the constitution was adopted in 1789. The estimates just quoted together with the facts above stated seem to prove that the number of the immigrants arriving here between 1790 and 1820 were absurdly underestimated by most of those who wrote on the subject.

The same remark applies to some extent to several writers who have dealt with the question of immigration after 1820, and even the official reports and statistics down to a comparatively recent period were admittedly defective in important respects, and failed to mention or enumerate a large proportion of the immigrants to this country. This subject will, however, be dealt with in another paper.

THE FIRST IRISH IN ILLINOIS.

BY HON. P. T. BARRY, CHICAGO, ILL.

Individual Irishmen appeared early on the scene in Illinois. They came in a military capacity. Having no government of their own to serve, they served others. The Irishman who had the distinction of first figuring in our annals was a Chevalier Macarty, who succeeded LaBussoniere in 1751, in the command of the first French fortress erected in the Mississippi valley—that of Chartres. He came from New Orleans with a small military force, and remained in charge until 1764, when he delivered up that stronghold to the English, according to the treaty of 1763, by which France yielded up all her Canadian possessions by right of conquest to her ancient enemy.

Canada at that time extended to the Ohio river on the south and to the Mississippi on the west. There was not yet any map bearing the name of the Empire state of the West. There was only a tribe of Indians inhabiting a portion of the immense Northwest named the “Illini,” that had its name given to the territory at the dividing up. Beyond the Mississippi was Spanish territory.

Under the French and Spanish systems of colonization at that date, Indian missions, military posts and towns went together. Old Kaskaskia, in what is now Randolph county, was the first seat of civilization in the great Mississippi basin, and was for a time the capital of the territory. Here many stirring events took place for many eventful years. In addition to a mission and a fort near by, it was made of greater importance with a legislature.

Pere Marquette, the apostle of several states, laid its foundation in the year 1675, one hundred years before the breaking out of the war for American independence. Here savages and whites commingled. Also, the soldiers of France, Great Britain and America. And wherever there are soldiers there is to be found the ubiquitous Irishman. There was to be found French contentment, savage resentment and pioneer endurance. Vincennes, Pittsburg and Detroit were its nearest neighbors on the great Western expanse. But, like the sites of Tyre and Sidon, famous in ancient history, it exists no more, the encroaching waters of the Mississippi having washed it away and made it a memory.

After the capitulation of Quebec in 1763 the British claimed ownership of the whole of the French territory known as Canada, and prepared to garrison all the forts the French had erected, including Detroit, Peoria, Vincennes, Chartres, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, etc. The last-named three were situated on the Mississippi river, and somewhat contiguous.

On the 27th day of February, 1764, a Major Loftus of the British army, then on duty in Florida, was ordered to proceed to Fort Chartres and take possession of it. His name indicates his Irish origin, but if there be any mistake in this, there certainly was not in his soldiers. They were of the Twenty-second British regiment, and were mostly Irishmen. Here, then, was presented the peculiar spectacle of one Irish commander in the service of a country not his own being required to evacuate his command to another Irishman in the service of a different country not his own. It reminds the writer somewhat of the siege of Quebec by Richard Montgomery, an Irishman in the service of the United States, when he asked its British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, another Irishman, and an old schoolmate, to surrender to the Continental Congress. But Major Loftus was not fortunate any more than General Montgomery. On the way he and his command were attacked by the Indians, who killed many of the soldiers, the remainder escaping down the Mississippi. Thus was the first Irish blood spilled in the Mississippi valley.

Then another Irish officer, also in the British service, named George Croghan, was ordered by Governor Murray to go forward and secure the desired possession. Croghan had been quite a conspicuous figure in the British interest in those days in America. He ranked as major, and had been for many years a trader among the Western Indians. Hardly another white man was in the prairie country before him. In describing the country afterwards, he said it looked like an ocean. The ground was exceedingly rich and full of all kinds of game, and at any time, in half an hour, he could kill all he wanted. He was commanded to go from Fort Pitt to make the way clear for the British advance to Forts Cahokia and Chartres. It was not the French alone that were to be considered, but the Indian chieftains as well. He first sent forward a Lieutenant Fraser to see the way clear, but the latter received rough treatment at Kaskaskia and returned unsuccessful.

It was said that Chief Pontiac was egged on to kill him, but he escaped without serious injury. Then Colonel Croghan, who was also a British deputy superintendent of Indian affairs, went forward himself. He left Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg) on May 15, 1765, accompanied by a party of friendly Indians. His progress was uninterrupted until he arrived at a small promontory on the Wabash, where he disembarked. On June 8, six miles below the stream he was suddenly attacked by a band of Kickapoos, eighty in number. In the fight which followed Croghan lost two white men and three Indians, while most of his party, including himself, were wounded. A surrender was unavoidable, and the victorious Kickapoos plundered the entire party. Subsequently the Indians confessed they had made a great mistake, and expressed sorrow for what had happened. They supposed, they said, that the friendly Indians accompanying Croghan were their deadly enemies, the Cherokees. They brought their prisoners in safety to Vincennes on the Wabash, where the Indians, many of whom had friendly acquaintance with Croghan, strongly condemned the Kickapoos, and the latter in turn expressed deep sorrow for what they persisted in calling a blunder.

Further on the way he received a message from St. Ange, the late French commander, cordially inviting him to advance to Fort Chartres. He had proceeded but a short distance on his way, however, when he was met by a delegation of chiefs, representing various tribes of Indians, among whom was the hitherto implacable Pontiac, the great warrior, at the head of a large band of Ottawa braves, offering their services as an escort. At this juncture, and under this condition of things, Croghan did not deem it necessary to proceed further in person, the British claim to the territory being acknowledged by both French and Indians. This happy result showed that the Irishman must have used his diplomatic powers to excellent advantage. He then betook himself to Detroit to attend to other important business in the interest of his royal master, leaving his command in charge of another officer.