In this richly detailed history of migration and adaptation in the nineteenth century, Catharine Wilson shows how the landlord–tenant relationship changed from the Irish to the North American context.

Reconstructing the family circumstances and estate management of two landlords who owned estates in both Ireland and Ontario – Stephen Moore, third Earl of Mount Cashell, and Major Robert Perceval Maxwell – Wilson examines how the management of these estates changed over time, how practices differed in the north and south of Ireland, and whether New World tenancy arrangements offered a fresh start or were influenced by the traditions and finances of the owners’ Irish holdings. The book then follows more than one hundred tenant families who, between 1820 and 1860, migrated from County Down to Amherst Island, Ontario, where they rented land from Mount Cashell and Maxwell. Wilson reveals what their lives were like, why families emigrated and rented on Amherst Island, and what it meant socially and economically to be a tenant in the New World, where most farmers were freeholders.

Through a comparative lens Wilson concludes that both landlords and tenants were more successful in the New World. Wealth and land ownership might have been slow in materializing, but the opportunities, the choices, and the attainment of security were all greater than they had been in Ireland.