ersons who had been obliged to sell
themselves to the shipping agents to pay for their passage. On their
arrival in Pennsylvania the captain sold them to the colonists to pay
the passage, and the redemptioner had to work for his owner for a period
varying from five to ten years. No stigma or disgrace clung to any of
these people under this system. It was regarded as a necessary business
transaction. Not a few of the very respectable families of the State and
some of its prominent men are known to be descended from redemptioners.

This method of transporting colonists proved a profitable trade for
the shipping people, and was soon regularly organized like the modern
assisted immigration. Agents, called "newlanders" and "soul-sellers,"
traveled through Germany working up the transatlantic traffic by various
devices, some of them not altogether creditable. Pennsylvania proved to
be the most attractive region for these immigrants. Some of those who
were taken to other colonies finally worked their way to Pennsylvania.
Practically none went to New England, and very few, if any, to Virginia.
Indeed, only certain colonies were willing to admit them.

Another important element that went to make up the Pennsylvania
population consisted of the Scotch-Irish. They were descendants of
Scotch and English Presbyterians who had gone to Ireland to take up the
estates of the Irish rebels confiscated under Queen Elizabeth and James
I. This migration of Protestants to Ireland, which began soon after
1600, was encouraged by the English Government. Towards the middle
of the seventeenth century the confiscation of more Irish land under
Cromwell's regime increased the migration to Ulster. Many English joined
the migration, and Scotch of the Lowlands who were largely of English
extraction, although there were many Gaelic or Celtic names among them.

These are the people usually known in English history as Ulstermen--the
same who made such a heroic defense of Londonderry against James II, and
the same who in modern times have resisted home rule in Ireland because
it would bury them, they believe, under the tyranny of their old
enemies, the native Irish Catholic majority. They were more thrifty and
industrious than the native Irish and as a result they usually prospered
on the Irish land. At first they were in a more or less constant state
of war with the native Irish, who attempted to expel them. They were
subsequently persecuted by the Church