Michael E. Vance is a professor of history at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His research focuses on early nineteenth-century Scottish emigration, and he also has an interest in the nature of Scottish overseas identity. His previous publication with Natural Heritage Books, undertaken with co-editor Scott A. McLean, William Wye Smith: Recollections of a Nineteenth Century Scottish Canadian, is an annotated edition of the unpublished memoir of a Scottish-born poet, newspaperman, and Congregational minister. Michael lives in Halifax.