The Otago Association was founded in 1845 by adherents of the Free Church of Scotland with the purpose of establishing a colony of like-minded Scots in Otago in the South Island of New Zealand, chiefly at Dunedin. In addition to religion, the economy was also a motivator in the association's foundation. The Highland Clearances, crop failures, and population pressures in industrialised urban centres all created conditions that, by the mid-nineteenth century, made emigration seem attractive to many poorer Scots.