Abstracts
Abstract
In the ongoing discussion of how Canada’s economy developed and how the land was colonised, little attention has been paid to the role of farm animals. The strategies of Scottish immigrants to rural Upper Canada show the centrality of livestock in subsistence, in the informal economy of barter, exchange and credit, and in off-farm sales. Raising stock—particularly cattle, sheep and pigs—was not an addition to settlers’ sources of income and subsistence, but underpinned most of them. Letters back to Scotland, supplemented by surveys and census data, show that animals’ contribution to clearing forest, raising crops, maintaining soil, providing food and clothing, raising cash or credit, maintaining reciprocal relationships and passing on property was integral to the success of backwoods farmers as they strove first for survival, and then for comfort.
Résumé
Les débats actuels sur le développement économique du Canada et la colonisation des terres n’accordent que peu d’attention au rôle joué par les animaux d’élevage. Les stratégies de subsistance des immigrants écossais dans le Haut-Canada rural démontrent l’importance du bétail dans le cadre informel de troc, de change et de crédit, et dans les ventes hors de l’exploitation agricole. L’élevage – bovin, porcin et ovin – ne constituait pas une source de revenus supplémentaire des colons, mais contribuait plutôt à l’appui de toutes les autres sources. Les lettres envoyées an Écosse, auxquelles s’ajoutent les données de recensement, démontrent que les contributions des animaux au déboisement, à la production agricole, au maintien du sol, au fournissement de nourriture et de vêtements, à l’acquisition d’argent ou de crédit, au maintien de relations de réciprocité et à la transmission de propriétés étaient essentielles à la survie des fermiers, et plus tard à leur confort.
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Appendices
Acknowledgements
With grateful thanks to the British Academy-Leverhulme for supporting the Canadian archival research; to Claire Gill and Issie MacPhail for generously sharing their agricultural expertise; and to Doug McCalla, Catharine Wilson and the anonymous reviewer for their meticulous academic advice.
Biographical note
Dr. Elizabeth Ritchie is a lecturer at the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Guelph in 2010. She teaches on a range of Scottish and North American topics and her main research interests lie in the social and cultural history of the early nineteenth-century Highlands, with an especial focus on religion, education, land use, the family and migration. When she’s not reading about them, she can often be found cycling around the countryside thinking about the people who used to live there: how they organised their settlements and used the land; what they believed; how they were connected to each other and other parts of the world; and what their family lives were like.