Abstract
Nineteenth-century Newfoundland was caught up in North America’s drive towards progress. The desire for landward development was present within political discourse from the 1840s onwards, politicians arguing that economic diversification – particularly agricultural development – would free the population from coastal resource dependency. Failure to entice fishermen to farm led officials to believe that individuals to push Newfoundland forward would have to be found elsewhere. Contemporaries were aware of the geographic limitations preventing large-scale immigration, and hoped for a small number of skilled agriculturalists from the British Isles. Yet no government formulated a formal immigration policy, and proposed immigration strategies were cautious.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the author(s), with Acadiensis being granted a non-exclusive licence to each and every right in the work throughout the world. After publication of the work, the author(s) shall have the right to self-archive the work and to reprint the work in whole or in part in books authored by or edited by the author(s) without the payment of any fee. In these other formats, however, the author or authors are required to acknowledge the original publication of the work in the pages of the journal. In the case of any requests to reprint the work, Acadiensis will require a standard permission fee -- to be divided equally between the journal and the author. In the event that such requests are received by the author(s), the author(s) shall direct such requests to the journal.