>Many of these people were fleeing Europe from debts or minor crimes
that's the lightened version. Many of them were fleeing persecution. Now lets talk about what that persecution entailed.
1) the Reformation-The JV squad of the Spanish Inquisition. 15,000 anabaptists tortured and killed in the Palatinate, their names are preserved in The Martyr's Mirror, a book of these terrors. French hugeonots the same, and their 'inquisition' was worse. Protestants in England were burned at the stake, and murdered by the village.
2) tyranny. Because the scots wouldn't accept the British jackboots on their necks, Brits made the tartan illegal, speaking gaelic illegal, prohibited the use of 'Mc/Mac' as the first part of your name, and made war on them till they broke up the clans. MacGregor men were to be killed on sight, while MacGregor women and children were shipped off to the colonies as slaves. Other septs met the same fate.
that's not 'debts'.