the first wave of immigration

7/28/2019 The First Wave of Immigration

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-first-wave-of-immigration 1/10

The first wave of immigration

1680 - 1776



• The population of the American Colonies, untilthe end of the 17th century, was almost entirelyEnglish.

• Except for the Dutch in New York, the Englishpopulation had managed to maintain or imposetheir institutions on all other competing cultures.

• The 18th century saw the arrival of largenumbers of Swedes, Germans, Swiss, Scotch-Irish, Africans and other cultures as they arrivedor were brought into the colonies.



• Immigration to the Colonies after 1683since Europe was at war for almost thirtyyears, but picked up after 1710 with awave of Scotch-Irish and Germanimmigrants.

• Regardless of when they came or wherethey came from, almost all immigrantsarrived in the colonies in an effort to leavesomething behind and a hope to better

their circumstances in the new AmericanColonies.



• In the colonies, there was plenty of land for the

wealthy landowner, but always a lack of labor.

One answer to this problem was to import

indentured servants.

• These indentured servants were the primary

migrant to the British settlements of Virginia,Maryland, the Carolinas, Jamaica and

Barbados.

• However, the death rate was very high in these

colonies as many servants died before they

were "acclimatized" to the region. This kept the

demand for labor high.



• In the 18th century, slave labor came to

supplant the demand for indentured

servants. About 2,300,000 Africans arrived

in the American Colonies between 1600 -

1800.



• Around 1683, the first group of Germanssettled at Germantown, not far fromPhiladelphia. By 1775, it was estimated that

around 100,000 Germans had settled inPennsylvania, making up about one third of it'stotal population.

• A large group of Germans fled persecution

along the Rhine around 1708 and settled in theHudson Valley in New York. Before theRevolution, there were Germans settled in thevalley of Virginia, in parts of western Maryland,and in western North Carolina.

• By the Revolution, Germans had settled allalong the eastern seaboard, as far north asMaine.



•

The largest non-English ethnic group toimmigrate to the American Colonies beforethe Revolution was the Scotch-Irish.

• These were neither Scots nor Irish, but

Ulstermen from Northern Ireland. In 1713a few Scotch-Irish settlements had beenestablished along the frontier land in New

England, but the New Englanders gave acold reception to the new immigrants.



• There were several other minority groups

settled in the colonies. The Dutch settled

New York and there was a large settlement of

Swedes in the Delaware Valley.

•

In 1732, Swiss immigrants established thesettlement of Beaufort, South Carolina. The

Huguenots (French Protestants) had

established settlements in South Carolina

and southern Virginia in the early 18thcentury.



• Africans were imported as slaves

primarily into the southern colonies. In1761, about 284,000 Negroes lived in the

southern colonies (Maryland to Georgia)

and about 41,000 lived in the northerncolonies (Delaware to New Hampshire).

• Nearly 60 percent of all slaves were

found in Virginia and Maryland, withanother 30 percent in North Carolina,

South Caroline and Georgia.



• Immigrants who were looking for an opportunity toincrease their wealth, to escape persecution, or to serveout a prison sentence settled the early American

colonies. In the 17th century, the colonies werepopulated almost entirely by the English.

• From the turn of the 18th century through theRevolution, the arrival of minority immigrant populationsincluding the Dutch, Germans, Scots, Scotch-Irish,Swedes, Irish and Africans imported as slaves, havehelped to shape identity of America.

• Whether is was setting an example of solid living andgood husbandry (as in the case of the Germans) or

setting the stage for centuries of turbulent race relations(as in the treatment of Africans), the immigrants whopopulated the American Colonies provided thefoundation for who we are today.

the first wave of immigration

Documents