In addition to these four chief forms of migration, there are certain other less important forms of which mention should be made to avoid any confusion. First among these stands what may be called forced migration. This occurs when bodies of people, for any reason, without any choice of their own, are compelled to leave a certain region, and go elsewhere, either with or without a specific destination. A familiar example is that presented by the Jews, who were expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1395, and from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1495. The Moors were also expelled from Spain in 1609, on penalty of death. Another familiar example is that of the Huguenots, who were expelled from France at the end of the seventeenth century. Such movements as these have usually resulted in a nation’s losing the most valuable elements of its population. The cause has usually been religious.

A different type of forced migration has been exemplified in the slave trade. In this case the migrants are compelled by actual force to go from one region to another specified one. The movement of the Africans to America is a familiar example. The motive is the economic one of securing a supply of labor at a minimum expense. Still another type is furnished by the penal colonies, such as have been established in Australia and elsewhere. All these forms of forced migration are evidently different in principle and in most of their characteristics from the great types of migration which have been mentioned. Their study is a subject by itself.

Still another form of migration is what is known as the internal or intra-state migration. This is manifestly going on all the time in every civilized country. It is only when it involves large masses of people, moving in certain well-defined directions, with a community of motives and purposes, that it deserves to be classed with the great population movements. Then it may become of great interest and significance, as in the case of the great westward movement of the people of the United States. It is evidently a wholly different matter from the other forms which have been emphasized.

There is, of course, also a continual passage of individuals between all the nations of the earth, in every direction. A permanent change of residence is frequently involved. These movements, obviously, may not correspond to any of the principles which have been laid down for any specific form of migration, and, if they were sufficiently numerous, would constitute exceptions to all that has been said. In point of fact, they are isolated, scattered, and occasional. They do not rank in any sense as movements of peoples, nor do they complicate the discussion of the great sociological phenomena in which we are interested.

CHAPTER II
THE UNITED STATES. COLONIAL PERIOD

In taking up the special study of immigration, it is necessary to bear in mind at the outset that the word is to be used in a limited and semitechnical sense. It is not always so used in common speech nor even in scientific writings, and much confusion and inaccuracy not infrequently result. Let us state once more exactly what is meant by immigration. Immigration is a movement of people, individually or in families, acting on their own personal initiative and responsibility, without official support or compulsion, passing from one well-developed country (usually old and thickly settled) to another well-developed[[11]] country (usually new and sparsely populated) with the intention of residing there permanently. The same movement may equally well be referred to as emigration. It is obviously only a question of the point of view. The two words may be used interchangeably without danger of confusion, if the point of view is regarded. There is only one movement, and one set of people, emigrating from one country and immigrating to another.[[12]]

As observed in the foregoing chapter, immigration is a movement which could not have originated before the Discoveries Period, and did not, in fact, become a matter of much importance until a century or so later. The countries which are now the objective points of large streams of immigration are, without exception, countries which have been opened up since that epoch. An exhaustive study of immigration should take up each of these countries in turn, and examine conditions in Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Australasia, and the United States. The plan of the present volume does not include so exhaustive a treatment; it is intended primarily for American readers. The specific study of immigration will be limited to the United States. This is the more justifiable, inasmuch as the United States is, beyond comparison, the foremost country in immigration movements, both in point of numbers and of world interest. All the fundamental principles of immigration are exemplified here more fully than in any other country. To the citizen of the United States it is a matter of the greatest importance and interest, for it has to do with a unique subject—the make-up of the American people itself.

The history of immigration into the United States may for convenience be divided into five periods. The first of these includes the time between the first settlement of the North American colonies and the year 1783. This date is chosen for the end of this first period because, as Professor Mayo-Smith has expressed it, “At that time the state was established, and any further additions to the population had little influence in changing its form or the language and customs of the people.”[[13]] The second period, from 1783 to 1820, marks the beginning of national life. It was a period of small immigration, and closes with the year in which federal statistics were first collected in regard to the stream of immigration. The third period begins in 1820 and ends roughly about 1860. This period is marked by the beginning and culmination of the first great rise in the immigration stream, by a growing opposition to the immigrant, and by state control of the admission of aliens. The period from 1860 to 1882 begins with the Civil War agitation, witnesses the disappearance of state control, and closes with the year in which the first immigration law was passed by the federal government. The fifth, or modern, period is from 1882 to the present. Other features which distinguish and separate these periods will manifest themselves as the periods are examined more closely.

It is customary with some writers, as, for instance, Professor Mayo-Smith in the reference above quoted, to include all movements of people into the North American colonies, previous to the Revolution, under the head of colonization, and to call everything after the beginning of national life immigration. The second part of this classification accords with the definitions given above, but the first part does not. For it will be remembered that colonization refers to movements of people from a central state to its dependencies, while immigration is a movement from the territory of one nation to that of another. The fact that the receiving region is itself a colony does not alter the case. Hence, in so far as the people who came to the North American colonies in the early days came from a state to which the region where they were going was subject, they were true colonists. They were simply going from one part of a national territory to another. But all who came from any European state to a dependency of another state—and there were a goodly number of them—were immigrants. Thus, even in colonial days, there were both colonization and immigration.

In establishing this distinction it must be noted that while the colonies were undeveloped as regards their natural resources, they were highly developed in respect to their stage of civilization and their advancement in the arts. In this respect they were the peers of the most cultivated European states of the period. The factors which gave a primitive aspect to life in the colonies were due to the newness of the settlement and the sparseness of the population. These were, in turn, just the factors which made them desirable to immigrants and colonists alike.