PEOPLE ON THE MOVE - Department of Geography

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TEACHER BACKGROUND AMERICA'S FOUR WAVES OF IMMIGRATION * The United States is considered a "nation of immigrants." With the exception of Native Americans, every American is 1 of 60 million immigrants or their descendants. The United States was peopled by three broad groups. Colonists. European settlers set the framework of the society that became the United States. Starting at Jamestown and Plymouth early in the 17th century, English colonists predominated, pushing back Native American settlements, seizing control from the Dutch in New York, and overrunning various French and Spanish settlements. They established English as the public language and English common law as the foundation of the American legal system. Involuntary Americans. Two types of coercion contributed to the peopling of America: the importation of African slaves (who formed 19 percent of the U.S. population of 1790), and the incorporation of Native American, Spanish, and French populations as the boundaries of the United States expanded westward. The slave trade brought an estimated 600,000 involuntary African immigrants before the importation of slaves was officially abolished in 1808. Other notable examples of involuntary (but free) Americans are: • the French living in North America in 1803 when the United States concluded the Louisiana Purchase; • the Native Americans and Mexicans in Texas, California, and other southwestern regions who became Americans when these territories came under U.S. jurisdiction in the 1800s; and • Puerto Ricans who became colonial subjects of the United States and eventually U.S. citizens as a result of the American victory in the Spanish- American War in 1898. Immigrants. The word "immigrant" was coined around 1789 to describe an alien who voluntarily moved from one established society to another. Some 60 million immigrants have come to the United States since its founding. They, along with the colonists, the slaves, the Native Americans, and their descendants, make up the American people. The number of immigrants to the United States fluctuated with economic conditions here and abroad and with U.S. immigration policies. These various factors combined to create four major waves of immigration. The first three were marked by a peak followed by a trough, and the fourth wave describes the current situation. The First Wave: 1790-1820. The first wave of immigration occurred before 1820, the year the government began recording immigrant arrivals. English
settlers were the most prominent immigrant group— they comprised 60 percent of U.S. citizenry in 1790, the year of the first U.S. population census. In addition to the English, there were Scots, Scots Irish, Germans, Dutch, French, and Spanish. These immigrant groups came for a variety of religious, political, and economic reasons. German sectarians sought religious freedom in Pennsylvania; Spaniards looked for Christian converts in Florida and the southwest; and the Puritans in Massachusetts sought to establish a community restricted to members of their faith. The early immigrants took big risks. Starvation, disease, and shipwreck killed at least 1 in 10 of those who set sail for America before they reached her shores. The cost of travel was equivalent to about six months' wages in England. A substantial share of white immigrants (one-third of those arriving in 1776) indentured themselves to secure passage. These indentured workers were legally bound to work for as long as five years for the employer who paid their passage. The Second Wave: 1820-1860. The second wave of immigrants fit well with American eagerness to push back the frontier. In Europe, peasants displaced from agriculture and artisans made jobless by the industrial revolution were eager for new opportunities. New arrivals sent what came to be called "American Letters" back to Europe, encouraging friends and relatives to join them. Steamship and railroad companies recruited immigrants as customers. Between 1820 and 1840, over 750,000 German, British, and Irish immigrants arrived in the United States. During the following 20 years, 4.3 million more came from those countries. About 40 percent of these second-wave immigrants were from Ireland, where poverty and famine encouraged emigration. One-third came from the German lands, escaping economic problems and seeking political freedom after 1848. Roman Catholics predominated in the second wave. Although most Americans were Protestants of various denominations, the Roman Catholic church was the largest single religious body in the United States by 1850. The Third Wave: 1880-1914. The third wave began in 1880, with almost 460,000 arrivals, and ended in 1914 when 1.2 million immigrants entered the United States. These immigrants came from different regions than had the immigrants in previous waves: over 20 million came from southern and eastern Europe, mostly flowing into the eastern and midwestem states. Several hundred thousand immigrants from China, Japan, and other Asian countries migrated to the western states. The shift in national origins can be seen by comparing the homelands of the immigrants who came in 1882 with those who came in 1907, two peak years of immigration. Of those arriving in 1882, 87 percent came from northern and western Europe, and 13 percent from the countries of southern and eastern Europe. In 1907, the proportions were reversed: 19 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Among this third wave were the first large numbers of people of Jewish and Eastern Orthodox religion. From the turn of the century onward, most newcomers found industrial employment in the great cities. In 1910, immigrants comprised over half of all operatives in mining, steel, and meat-packing, and foreign bom men made up more than one half of the work force in dties such as New York, Chicago, and Detroit.
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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE - Department of Geography

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