In order to reach an approximately correct conclusion as to the proportion of the immigrants of different nationalities embraced in this aggregate, we must be guided “by the relations then existing between the United States and the countries from which persons emigrated,” to quote the words of the last-named writer when speaking of the number of immigrants. There is no need to dwell on those relations. The bitter feeling with which the English had regarded the Americans from the days of the Revolution, lost none of its intensity during the period under consideration, and the feeling was frankly and fully reciprocated by the great mass of the American people. As a consequence, there were but few English among the immigrants to this country at that time.
The Irish, however, who had always sympathized with our republic in its struggles, and gloried in its triumphs, came here in large and constantly increasing numbers all through the thirty years preceding 1820, as well as afterwards. Many thousands of French, Germans, and others arrived here during the period, but the great majority were undoubtedly Irish. It seems clear that the immigrants were more than twice as numerous during the period considered as the commonly received estimates or conjectures would lead us to believe, and it appears evident from the facts above cited that at least two thirds of the total were of Irish birth or blood—including those from the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Canada.
That number seems very small now, when we think of the enormous immigration of later years, and our population of 80,000,000. But it should be remembered that the white population of this country in 1790 was only 3,172,464. Of this total, those between the ages of twenty and fifty numbered less than two fifths, or 1,268,986. Now the immigrants who sought our shores in those days were almost all in the prime of life. Children and aged and weakly people, being unable to undergo the difficulties and hardships certain to be encountered in a strange and new land, were left behind. Among the new arrivals marriages took place in far greater proportion than among the descendants of the earlier immigrants, and the children of the former were proportionately more than twice as numerous as those of the latter. This continued to be the case down to a much later period. During the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, the marriages among the native born in Massachusetts were at the rate of 220 in 10,000, while those of the foreigners (mostly Irish) were in the proportion of 450 in 10,000. The children born to native parents in the same state during the same years numbered 47,982, or 578 in 10,000, while those of immigrants amounted to 24,523, or 1,491 in 10,000. That is more than twice and a half as many. It is impossible to determine accurately how much the population of the United States was increased by the immigrants who arrived here between 1790 and 1820, and their descendants, but careful investigators have furnished us with estimates, which maybe fairly regarded as approximately correct.
Some writers who gravely state that “the mortality among Catholics is greater than among Protestants,” and who complacently assert that “the vitality of the Irish is very low,” have, as might be expected from these expressions, glaringly underestimated the number in 1820 of the immigrants and their descendants who arrived here during the period under consideration. Dr. Chickering says that they then numbered 1,430,906 out of a total population of 9,638,131.
But the Hon. F. Kapp, one of the commissioners of immigration for the state of New York, allowing a yearly increase of 1.38 per cent. for the descendants of the earlier immigrants, shows that at this rate the population—excluding slaves because their numbers have no bearing on the question—of 3,231,930 in 1790, would have only increased to 3,706,674 in 1800, to 4,251,143 in 1810, and to 4,875,600 in 1820, instead of amounting to 8,100,056, the total population including slaves being 9,638,131. Assuming his estimate to be nearly correct, his declaration that “immigration has enabled this country to anticipate its natural growth some forty years’” seems reasonable.
A similar estimate was made by Louis Schade of Washington, D. C., and by Hon. M. W. Closkey, ex-postmaster of the United States house of representatives, who shows that the rate of increase of our population (1.38 per cent.) was greater than that of any European nation, and proceeds to estimate what the numbers of our people would have been at each census up to 1850 had immigration been prohibited when the constitution was adopted in 1789. The estimates just quoted together with the facts above stated seem to prove that the number of the immigrants arriving here between 1790 and 1820 were absurdly underestimated by most of those who wrote on the subject.
The same remark applies to some extent to several writers who have dealt with the question of immigration after 1820, and even the official reports and statistics down to a comparatively recent period were admittedly defective in important respects, and failed to mention or enumerate a large proportion of the immigrants to this country. This subject will, however, be dealt with in another paper.
THE FIRST IRISH IN ILLINOIS.
BY HON. P. T. BARRY, CHICAGO, ILL.
Individual Irishmen appeared early on the scene in Illinois. They came in a military capacity. Having no government of their own to serve, they served others. The Irishman who had the distinction of first figuring in our annals was a Chevalier Macarty, who succeeded LaBussoniere in 1751, in the command of the first French fortress erected in the Mississippi valley—that of Chartres. He came from New Orleans with a small military force, and remained in charge until 1764, when he delivered up that stronghold to the English, according to the treaty of 1763, by which France yielded up all her Canadian possessions by right of conquest to her ancient enemy.