VOYAGERS TO THE WEST: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution

by Bernard with Barbara DeWolfe Bailyn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 31, 1986

Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Bailyn (Ideological Origins of the American Revolution) has set about the task of chronicling the immigrant experience in North America from the beginning of European colonization to the advent of the industrial revolution. A recent introductory volume, The Peopling of British North America (p. 758), gave a preliminary sketch of his intentions. Now, with the current volume, Bailyn takes advantage of an unusually detailed listing (of every person known to have left Britain for America from December, 1773, to March, 1776) in London's Public Record Office to draw a portrait of the British emigrants. The portrait is manufactured from an examination of the emigrant's geographical origins, routes of migration, legal status, purposes in emigration, sex (almost all of the English travelers were young men, while the mix of Scottish emigrants was almost half and half), age, and occupations. Almost half of these emigrants came as indentured servants. The freemen without prior arrangements sought to find odd jobs as craftsmen, laborers, or farm hands. Much of the book is taken up with exploring in depth the individual lives he was able to research, demonstrating in the process the difficulties encountered, especially by those who were adventurous enough to proceed inland a couple of hundred miles. Not for casual historians, it's nevertheless an epic undertaking, so far very well done.

Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION