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Origins of the Great Migration
It could be said from some vantage points that the border conflict in 1812 was pointless and changed nothing; but for those living in the colonies, it changed a good deal.
Immediately most notable was the demilitarization of the Great Lakes, which no doubt saved the neighbours time and money in addition to sewing the seeds of a stable relationship. But more crucially, it changed colonial policy toward immigration.
Beaver pelts are warm and water-proof. Beavers are largely extinct in Europe. These two facts were the basis of economy of the Canadas before the American Revolution, and no one presumed it should soon change after.
Beavers and humans are in many ways natural competitors, and in any event, colonial authorities wanted to preclude the possibility of another costly revolution. More people, more problems.
But the failed American invasion in 1812 alerted British authorities of the necessity of manning the frontiers of their vast territories, if only to establish legitimate claim and defensibility, especially as the Americans were now asserting Spain's claims in the Pacific Northwest.
As such, restrictions on immigration from the British Isles were restricted to all the colonies in 1815. The effects were limited at first, but the number of immigrants gradually increased and averaged around 20,000 a year in the 1830s; 60% of the total were Irish; 60% of the Irish were Protestants. They settled about equally in towns as in farms, and throughout the colonies. Many found employment as labourers in the construction of canals, roads, and (later) railways.
At the same time, a string of young adventurers set out to the Upper West, seeking their fortune in the employ of Montréal-based fur trade agents, including many of the Hessians and Russians who had settled in the Ottawa Valley (ancestors of the author among them). But European settlement beyond the Nipissing was still sparse before the 1830s, when young men from exhausted lands further south and east broke new land or entered in the timber trades.