On the other hand, settlers of good character were regarded as very valuable acquisitions, and measures were adopted from time to time to encourage their immigration.[[32]]
In New England the immigration question was less pressing than in either the central or southern colonies. There was less need of passing direct restrictive measures,[[33]] because the religious exclusiveness of this section kept away many who might otherwise have come. And there was little necessity of encouraging immigration, as the natural increase of the population was sufficient to maintain an adequate number of inhabitants. In fact, the influx of population from Europe to New England was practically over by the middle of the seventeenth century. It is stated that from 1628 to 1641 about twenty thousand English came as permanent colonists to New England, and for the next century and a half more went from there to England than came from England there.[[34]] As a result of these conditions, the population of this region was much less mixed than in the other colonies. Nevertheless, it was a prolific and growing population, and “overflowed into the other colonies, without receiving corresponding additions from them.”[[35]]
In spite of this fact, however, a certain jealousy was felt toward Pennsylvania, on account of the large number of foreigners who sought her shores. This feeling was expressed by Dr. Jonathan Mayhew in his election sermon before the governor and legislature of Massachusetts in 1754. While he surmised that Pennsylvania might in time experience some inconvenience from too large numbers of unassimilated Germans, yet he attributed much of her growth and prosperity to their presence. He was assured that the English element in Massachusetts was already too well established for there to be any fear of too great an admixture of alien elements, and expressed the opinion that all measures to encourage the immigration of foreign Protestants were to be favored.[[36]]
New York frankly shared this jealousy of Pennsylvania, and, when it was too late, made efforts to attract immigrants to her territory. Thus in 1736 Governor Clarke caused to be widely circulated in Germany an advertisement in which he proposed to give 500 acres of land to each of the first two hundred families who should come to New York from Europe. The measure met with no great success.[[37]] Possibly the treatment accorded to the would-be settlers of a generation earlier still lingered in the memory of their fellow-countrymen.
In addition to the legislation against paupers and criminals, most of the colonies had laws designed to prevent the entrance of religious sects who were not regarded with favor. The class most discriminated against was the Roman Catholics, and the eighteenth century found harsh statutes against them in the legislation of most of the colonies.[[38]] Virginia, and all the New England colonies except Rhode Island, had laws designed to prevent the coming in of Quakers.[[39]] Rhode Island resembled Pennsylvania in the religious tolerance which prevailed there.[[40]] Maryland started on the basis of religious toleration, but did not maintain this position.[[41]] A prejudice against Roman Catholics soon manifested itself, and occasionally found expression in legislation. Thus in the Maryland statutes for 1699 there is an act entitled, “An act for Raising a Supply towards the defraying of the Publick Charge of this Province and to prevent too great a number of Irish Papists being imported into this Province.” The provisions of the act required shipmasters to pay twenty shillings per poll for all Irish servants imported, as well as for negroes.[[42]] None of these acts, of course, was absolutely prohibitive.
Among the settlers of this period there was one peculiar class which requires special mention. They were, for the most part, colonists rather than immigrants, though some of them came from foreign countries. These were the indented (or indentured) servants, or redemptioners.[[43]] There were two main classes of them—those who were brought under compulsion, and those who came voluntarily. Of the first class, many were convicted criminals, who were sent over in great numbers from the mother country, and on arrival were indented as servants for a term of years. Under the barbarous legal system of the day many persons were sentenced to death for insignificant crimes, such as stealing a joint of meat worth over a shilling, or counterfeiting a lottery ticket. Many humane judges welcomed exile as an alternative to the death penalty. It is estimated that possibly as many as fifty thousand criminals were sent to America from the British Isles, from the year 1717 until the practice was ended by the War of Independence. Besides the criminals, in this class of indented servants were many who were kidnaped and sent over to America. Press gangs were busy in London, Bristol, and other English seaports, seizing boys and girls, usually, but not always, from the lowest classes of society, and sending them over to labor as indented servants in the colonies.
Those who came voluntarily were respectable but destitute persons who, despairing of success or progress in the old country, sold themselves into temporary slavery to pay their passage over. Many of these came from very good classes of society. The southern colonies received a much larger number of indented servants of all classes than the northern colonies, as the semiplantation character of the former made a much larger demand for servile labor than in the farm colonies of the north.[[44]]
Shipmasters made an enormous profit from this traffic, adding as much as 100 per cent of the actual cost of transportation to cover risks. Adults were bound out for a term of three to six years, children from ten to fifteen years, and smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to masters who had to rear and board them.[[45]] As a rule the indented servants, on the arrival of a ship at an American port, were auctioned off to the highest bidder at a public auction very like a slave market. The last sales of this kind reported took place in Philadelphia in 1818 and 1819. These were mostly Germans. Many of the indented servants became eminent and respected citizens of the colonies, while others degenerated and became the progenitors of the “poor white trash” of the south.
As a result of this study of the colonial period the fact stands out prominently that during these years both colonization and immigration entered into the peopling of the Thirteen Colonies. The distinction between the two was clearly recognized by the colonists themselves, and immigrants were accorded different treatment from colonists. In the handling of the situation many of the stock arguments against unrestricted immigration were developed, and some of the important legislative expedients, such as the head tax, the bonding of shippers, the exclusion of paupers and criminals, etc., which have had a wide use in later years, were put into practice. It is very noteworthy, however, that in all the discussions of this question during this period one searches in vain for any trace of opposition to immigration on the grounds of the economic competition of the newcomer with the older residents. In the unsettled state of the country at this time, such a thing could hardly be thought of. The idea of any crowding of the industrial field, or any lack of economic opportunity for an unlimited number, was almost inconceivable. It is this, more than any other one thing, which differentiates the immigration situation during the colonial period from that at the present time.
Two other fundamental facts in reference to the formation of the new American people should also be noted in this connection. The first is that the actual transference of people from Europe to America during the entire colonial period was relatively slight. Benjamin Franklin stated that in 1741 a population of about one million had been produced from an immigration (used in the broad sense) of less than 80,000.[[46]] As an indication of how much less important this “immigration” was than the recent immigration into the United States has been, it may be noted that the ratio between immigrants and total population, at the period that Franklin mentioned, was one to twelve for a period of 120 years or more, while the ratio between immigrants since 1820 and population in 1900—a period of only eighty years—was one to four. “After the first outflow from Old to New England, in 1630–31, emigration was checked, at first by the changing circumstances of the struggle between the people and the king, and, when the struggle was over, by the better-known difficulties of life in the colonies.”[[47]]