Points of View

Bailyn uses a third person omniscient point of view in Voyagers to the West. The narrator is reliable and offers an authoritative interpretation of the events. This allows Bailyn to trace events and individuals during the time period that he examines with a broader overview than the perspective of one person could offer. This is a familiar academic/ nonfiction writing style for historical events.

Bailyn uses a variety of sources in order to construct this broad view of pre-Revolutionary America and emigration from Britain. His main focus is the Registry, which included information on emigrants leaving Britain during the early 1770s. He connects the Registry with other information, including letters, ship documents, newspaper accounts and so on to give a more detailed explanation of who the emigrants were, where they were going, and why they were going.

Setting

Voyagers to the West examines pre-Revolutionary emigration from...