Highland Emigration
Overpopulation and limited economic opportunity long characterized the Highlands. But leaving that region was both physically difficult and expensive. Some moved by water into the towns to the south, while after 1600 others took up lands in Ulster. But the most massive migrations occurred in the late 17th and 18th centuries, with the opening up of the North American colonies, and particularly after 1707 and the union of England and Scotland. Some were transported as Jacobite rebels; some joined the regiments and served in North America; others went as indentured labor; but most came as free settlers. By the 1740s, the exodus was picking up speed, and by 1770 it was at its peak.
