8. What made the Scots leave for new lands? (Push factors)

1. Emigration has been going on since the 1700s. Many Scots, especially Highlanders, thought that emigration was a natural thing to do. Many of them also had family contacts in Canada, the USA etc.


2. Poverty, especially in the Highlands where farm land could not produce much food for the growing population.


3. A potato blight in the 1840s caused terrible poverty and suffering just as in Ireland.


4. Scots were sent to Australia as convicts.


5. Highland landowners often evicted poor tenants to modernise the farming methods. Sheep were brought in instead. In some parts of the Highlands, sporting estates were created where rich people could hunt deer. The tenants were cleared away.


6. Some landowners paid the fares of their tenants to emigrate rather than pay high taxes to the poor law.


7. In the industrial areas of Scotland, unemployment was sometimes very high. Especially after WW1.


8. Landowners and charities sometimes paid for groups of Scots to emigrate.