European immigration to America from 1607 to 1914

Immigration

The United States is known as the "nation of immigrants." The reason for this is not hard to find: the economic opportunities and the "American Dream" have attracted waves of immigrants from different parts of the world to make America a mosaic of diverse cultures. While America has lived up to its reputation as the "land of opportunities" and provided new settlers with the freedom and means to achieve their dreams, people who have adopted U.S. As their country have also played their part in making America great. This essay focuses on why the immigrants from Europe wanted to come to America in the early 1600s and from the 1820s to 1914; what were their expectations and what did they achieve in their adopted country.

The Early European Settlers

The history of European settlement in America started with a group of 214 Englishmen, belonging to the Virginia Company, arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 and established the first permanent English settlement.

Soon thereafter, they started cultivation of tobacco in the low-lying fertile areas around Chesapeake Bay and along the rivers of the coastal plain to the south. Their objective was to export the tobacco to Europe as it was a highly profitable business. The settlers braved numerous hardships in the beginning; they were harassed by the local Indians who inhabited the area and by the vagaries of the weather. A particularly harsh winter in 1909 reduced the population of the settlers to only 60. One other problem that the new immigrants faced was the shortage of labor to work on the farms. This was partially fulfilled by "indentured servants" -- people who had been convicted of petty crimes in England were sent to the American colonies and were forced to work for a period of four to seven years before regaining their freedom. Indentured servants from Africa also started to be transported to Virginia in 1919 to fulfill the demand of laborers

. The colony at Jamestown, thus, began to thrive as export of tobacco to Europe and trading with some local Indian tribes proved highly profitable.

The earliest settlers were followed by a group of Puritans, known as "Pilgrims," who set sail for New England in 1920 and established Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. A larger settlement of English Puritans was founded in Massachusetts Bay in 1629, and between 1629 and 1640 approximately 21,000 English colonists crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in New England. Other smaller groups of early European immigrants included the Dutch and the Swedes who established the colonies near present-day New York and Delaware only to lose them to the British who took over these colonies in 1664. ("U.S. Immigration History")

Reasons for Early European Immigration:

Most early settlers came to escape harsh economic conditions or religious prosecution in their homeland. Immigrants from continental Europe were mostly fleeing wars, plague, and famine in their homelands. The Puritans were escaping religious prosecution. Famine in Northern Ireland also triggered an exodus of Scots-Irish to the North American colonies in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A smaller number of individuals immigrated simply for adventure or for other personal reasons. (Dinnerstein)

What did they Achieve?

The largest group of early European settlers in America was the English Puritans. Because of their Protestant "work ethic" which valued hard work, education and commercial success, they greatly influenced the culture of the American colonies and later of the United States. They also achieved economic prosperity for themselves and were in the forefront of the American struggle for independence.

What Did they Achieve?

The new immigrants were not received with a lot of enthusiasm by the older immigrants. Although most of the prejudice was reserved for the non-white immigrants, some European groups were also targeted. For example, some American Protestants opposed the immigration of Roman Catholics and the Southern Europeans; Slavs and Jews were discriminated against by an American population of pre-dominantly North European origin. "Nativity" became an issue for the first time in the U.S. And some restrictive laws on even "white" immigration were put in place. With time, however, almost all European immigrant groups assimilated in the mainstream American culture and contributed significantly to America's own Industrial Revolution, which eventually caught up with and overtook Europe's.

Just as the earliest European settlers had been in the forefront of the American Independence struggle, the second wave of European immigrants were instrumental in making their adopted country the foremost superpower of the 20th century.