Scotland Farewell: The People of the Hector

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

The history of Scottish immigration to Canada is colorful, tragic, and
well documented. Scotland Farewell is the interesting story of one
group’s odyssey to “New Scotland”—the province of Nova Scotia.

In 1773, Highland Scots from the Loch Broom district near Ullapool
sailed to Pictou, Nova Scotia, on the decrepit old ship Hector. Victims
of the Black Winter of 1771 and the economic crisis of 1772, these 200
men, women, and children undertook the long journey partly to escape the
hunger and high rents, and partly because of a desire to possess their
own land. But the so-called Promised Land was in fact forest-covered,
and the passengers from “the Scottish Mayflower” (as it was
erroneously called) would not have survived without help from the
Mi’kmaq and from a few sympathetic New Englanders who had already
settled in the area. MacKay’s narrative, researched from many
sources—including George Patterson’s History of the County of Pictou
(1877)—effectively describes the life, customs, and religious
practices of the early settlers and their community leaders, while
chronicling their successes and failures.

First published in 1980 and now republished with a brief postscript,
Scotland Farewell is made up of two parts. Part 1 deals with the
dreadful conditions of post-Culloden Scotland, the dispirited and
displanted Highlander, the forfeited estates that spawned the many
immigration schemes that led to the terrible Hector crossing. Part 2
describes the New World, the land grab, the colonization attempts, and
the harsh life in hostile territory. The book also includes five
appendices (lists of settlers, land agreements, etc.), a useful
bibliography, maps, and photographs authenticating this story of
suffering, sacrifice, desire, and deceit.