Immigration

by Henry Pratt Fairchild

The truth of this position is further established by the fact that this distinction was clearly recognized by the early settlers themselves. A very different attitude was manifested in the colonies toward persons who came from the home state than toward those from any other country. The former were generally welcomed; the latter were regarded with suspicion, if not actual hostility. The history of immigration to the North American continent reaches far back toward the days of the earliest settlement, and many of the characteristic problems and arguments connected with the immigration situation were familiar long before the Revolution. A familiarity with these early aspects of the question furnishes many enlightening comparisons and parallels, and is of great value in correctly estimating the modern situation.

The peopling of the North American continent by persons of north European stock began with the formation by James I of England of two companies of settlement in the year 1606. These were known as the London Company and the Plymouth Company. To the former was granted the territory on the North American coast between 34 and 38 degrees north latitude, though these boundaries were somewhat extended in 1609. To the latter was assigned the region from 41 to 45 degrees. This left a section of unassigned territory between, extending from the Rappahannock to the Hudson rivers. This was open to settlement by either company, with the stipulation that neither was to plant a settlement within one hundred miles of a previous settlement of the other. Neither of these companies, however, ever made any very extensive achievements in colonization, and both gave up their charters in the course of a few years, the London Company in 1624 and the other in 1635.

Before the charters were surrendered, however, settlements had been started in both territories. In Virginia, the province of the London Company, the first shipload of adventurers from London arrived in the year 1607. But twelve years of hard and painful struggle were required to establish this settlement as a permanent and self-maintaining colony. It is interesting to note that at this time, and in this place, one of the greatest of our national racial problems had its commencement, through the introduction of a number of African slaves from a Dutch vessel in 1619. The settlers in this region were, in part, adventurers, younger sons of noble families, and other members of the aristocracy who found it advisable to leave England, and in part rather unworthy representatives of the lower classes. A combination of political, social, and economic causes was responsible for their coming.

The settlers of the northern colony, in the territory of the Plymouth Company, were of a different class of the population. Their motives for coming were also different, being primarily of a religious character. These colonists were separatists from the Church of England, who fled first to Holland, and from there came to America in 1620, landing in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. In this colony, also, the process of settlement was slow, and there were very few arrivals for ten years. In 1630, however, about one thousand colonists, Puritans but not separatists, came over, and settled in Massachusetts Bay. This was the real beginning of the history of the Massachusetts colony, which in time absorbed also the Plymouth colony. Once started, population in this colony advanced very rapidly, and overflowed into the neighboring regions, forming the colonies of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and the river towns of Connecticut.

In the meantime the Dutch were taking possession of the unassigned central region. New Netherland was organized under the Dutch West India Company in 1621, and the city at the mouth of the Hudson was named New Amsterdam. Sweden, too, was trying to get a foothold in the new country and sent a party of colonists to Delaware Bay in 1638. This was not successful, however, and surrendered to the Dutch in 1655, so that Sweden never achieved prominence as a colonizing power in the New World. With the growth of the English colonies in the north and south, this central territory in the hands of a foreign power came to be recognized as a source of annoyance and danger, and on the occasion of a war with Holland, England sent over a fleet and took possession of the whole intervening region, forming the colonies of New York and New Jersey. In 1681 the territory of Pennsylvania was granted for settlement to William Penn, and thus the whole Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida became a field of colonization, subject to the English authority.

The study of the formation of the American people as a separate nation is of peculiar interest, because it has taken place within a recent historical period, and we can study the original elements from the time when they first settled in the country. This is not true of any of the nations of Europe.

The foundation of the new people consisted of colonists from England. They were the original settlers, and during the entire colonial period they continued to contribute to the growing population. In addition to these there was the Dutch element, which became well established when New York was a Dutch colony. Aside from the colonists, there was a large and important contribution from other European nations, people from practically every country on the continent. These were the true immigrants. The colonies which were most affected by arrivals of this sort were the central ones, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, and above all the latter. This was due to their location, the attitude of their proprietors, and the feeling and conduct of the original settlers. The attitude of William Penn was decidedly liberal, and Pennsylvania advanced in population accordingly. Penn advertised his colony widely, and when he came over in 1682 there were already six thousand Swedish, Dutch, and English settlers there. Others came rapidly, prominent among them English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, German Mennonites, and French Huguenots. These religious designations are significant of the preponderance of the religious element in the immigration of the day.

Throughout the colonial period this class of causes was an underlying factor in most of the important migrations to America, both colonization and immigration. The Protestant Reformation, and the intellectual and social movements which went with it, had a profound effect upon the contentment of large masses of the people of Europe, and made that continent a very undesirable place of residence for many of them. That political causes should have been closely combined with the religious ones was inevitable, on account of the intimate relation between religion and government, and the practice of using political power to secure religious ends, and vice versa. These two classes of causes were the prevailing and characteristic ones during this period.

The religious tolerance and freedom which characterized Pennsylvania was therefore one of the chief factors which drew immigrants of every nationality to it, and it quickly became the most cosmopolitan of all the colonies. Penn’s agents were particularly active in Germany, with the result that in twenty years the Germans numbered nearly one half the population of the colony.

With the beginning of the eighteenth century two currents of immigration rapidly outdistanced all others in numbers, importance, and the amount of attention which they attracted. These were the Palatines and the Scotch-Irish. Throughout the rest of the colonial period they held the center of the stage in the immigration situation.