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ENGLISH MIGRATION TO THE NEW WORLD.
Term Paper ID:28848
Essay Subject:
Early English settlements in New England & Virginia. Reasons for immigration; metropolitan & rural patterns. Outline.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Early English settlements in New England & Virginia. Reasons for immigration; metropolitan & rural patterns. Outline.
Paper Introduction:
Outline
A. English immigrants (1600-1780) came to the New World
primarily for economic reasons.
1. 2 million people emigrated from England in 1600-1780.
2. Immigration was a positive alternative to life in England
or a desperate last resort.
B. Few English emigrants went to French Canada until after the
Revolutionary War. English settlers in the West Indies were
few because the labor demand was absorbed by slavery.
C. New England settled by religious sects' families as economic
base in order to practice their religions freely.
Pilgrims in the Plymouth colony were craftsmen and
farmers.
2. Puritans at Massachusetts Bay were lawyers and landowners
and managed the colony
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The 2 millionpeople who left England for America in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies emigrated for many reasons. New England settled by religious sects' families as economic base in order to practice their religions freely. But the Virginia Company, without thesectarian impulse behind the Pilgrims and Puritans, drew largely on singlemale immigrants and by 1619 it was necessary to transport "shiploads ofmaidens to Jamestown in order to provide wives for the early male settlers"(Furer 3). Jamestown was founded on the same joint-stock principles as the NewEngland colonies. And, despite a very difficult beginning, the colony'sfarmers and traders were successful. Because their company was fairly wealthy to begin with, and becausethe colony had flourished so quickly, the Massachusetts Puritans did notface the problem of unwanted immigrants. Few English emigrants went to French Canada until after the Revolutionary War. But other appeals statedclearly exactly what was needed and make it clear just which Englishmenwere immigrating in the seventeenth century. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968.Dillon, Francis. The main problem in the early days was to ensure that they werethe types of workers the colony needed. As an observer had said in the 159 s,"England is swarming with valiant youths rusting and hurtfull by lacke ofemployment" and it was these unemployed or underemployed masses whocolonized America (quoted in Olson 18). "Coming to America." Scholastic Update 126.6 (19 Nov. For example, William Penn,the proprietor of Pennsylvania, acknowledged the difficulties of life inEngland and sought "industrious husbandmen and day-labourers, that arehardly able (with extreme labour) to maintain their families and portiontheir children" or "carpenters, masons, smiths, weavers, taylors, tanners,shoemakers, shipwrights &c. Works CitedBailyn, Bernard. "The Peopling of Canada." History Today 43 (Nov. But the large number of peopleeager to leave for Plymouth, even when they were not wanted, was the key tothe growth of the Virginia colony. The first three successful colonies in what was to become the UnitedStates--Virginia, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay--were all joint-stockcompanies in which the members had rights to a central supply of capitaland to allotments of land in the regions of settlement. 2. But they had also becomeacclimated to the new land and there were even a few persons who, thoughthey could afford their passage, chose to hold on to their small savingsand "sold themselves for the sake of the benefits they would gain" (Ganter45). In this system "the potential passenger negotiatedwith the captain for a fare [and] when the ship arrived the emigrant agreedto sell his services to any person willing to redeem him" by paying for hispassage (Ganter 45). For those who were not part of anorganized group of settlers (such as the religion-based New Englandarrivals), wealthy investors with commercial connections or land grants(plantation developers from the West Indies to Maryland), purchasers ofsmall farms, or potential indentured servants there was really no place togo. Puritans at Massachusetts Bay were lawyers and landowners and managed the colony efficiently.C. where they may be spared or low in the world"(quoted in Furer 1 9). A third of the total number of British immigrants traveled asfamilies--but few of them brought any servants with them. Puritans and Pragmatists: Eight Eminent American Thinkers. There were also relatively fewEnglish settlers in the Bermudas and the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean.These islands were settled by the English between 16 9 and 1632. 2. Many other immigrants came fromBritain as well and the population of the colonies in the colonial era was"nine percent Irish and 8 percent Scottish," with Germans making up theother largest group at another eight percent (Olson 18). The Englishsettled everywhere from the West Indies to Canada and this migrationreflected "domestic mobility patterns" in Britain, which largely involvedthose who sought isolation or simply could not find work (Bailyn 2 ). As one authorityput it, it was no longer "a wild gamble" and there was "fair certainty ofmaking a decent and even a comfortable living" as America had become "areasonable project for the sober and industrious farmer, or the ambitiouslaborer" (quoted in Bailyn 63). The colonies' main problem was attracting the right kinds of labor--agricultural building-crafts workers.E. But, as Bailyn notes, "we know only in thevaguest way who the hundreds of thousands who settled in British NorthAmerica were, where precisely they came from, why they came, and how theylived their lives" (8). The flight of the early religiousdissidents and the later deportation of convicts covered a broad span ofthe English population, but the most common type of immigrant was theindividual who was eager enough for work to be willing to commit himself orherself to a period of indentured servitude. Francis Bacon had noted that "thebest sort are gardeners, plowmen, labourers, carpenters, surgeons,apothecaries and the like" and not "the scum of the people and wickedcondemned men" who would make no positive contribution to the settlements(quoted in Dillon 185). Promoters of the colonies appealed to people's desire for liberty and to the difficulty of making a living in England.F. 2 Feb. Settlers from England came to Canada in large numbers after 1815.But prior to that time "the Thirteen Colonies, not the British Isles, wasresponsible for most of the settlers" of English ancestry (Buckner 5 ).Approximately 8, New Englanders settled in Nova Scotia after theexpulsion of the Acadian settlers and nearly 6 , Loyalists fled the NewUnited States after the Revolutionary War. Few records show who migrated from England in 16 -177 . This immigrant was usually a craftsman orartisan who had completed his apprenticeship, or acquired his trade byinformal means, and had not been able to find steady employment or,perhaps, any job at all. The story of English migration to the Thirteen Colonies is differentfrom that of the West Indies and Canada. Bythe eighteenth century, however, the New World had become an even greaterattraction and "the major stimuli to population recruitment and settlementwere, first, the continuing need for labor, and, second, land speculation"(Bailyn 6 ). 1993): 48-54.Colonialism. 1. They had consideredrelocating to Guiana in South America but eventually agreed on the northernpart of the Virginia Colony--although it may only have offered a repetitionof their previous troubles. They were forcedby circumstance to farm intensively, while trade with the Indians allowedthem to establish the beginnings of trade with England. But their agents "had morevolunteers offering themselves in London than they had money with which tosend them, and any offering to finance themselves were sent without muchquestion" (Dillon 185). They had attempted tosettle in the liberal Netherlands but concluded that they needed isolationto escape the corruption that was all around them. In theyears 163 -4 over 21, immigrants from England arrived in the colony.They were almost all skilled and literate--merchants, craftsmen, andfarmers--and they largely arrived in family groups, which contributed tothe rapid growth of the population. These records, unfortunately, were only kept from December 1773 toMarch 1776, the very end of the Colonial period. Theprovincial migration was also heavily female with a ratio of only 1.6 malesfor each female--as opposed to 7 males per female in the metropolitanmigration. But Virginia wasto be the more typical in drawing on a wider portion of the populationwhile the others were sectarian. Even those whose primary goal was the free practice of theirreligion needed to establish their communities on a sound economic basis ifthis dream was to be realized. In the seventeenth century very few individual settlers were in aclass of people who were free to look around and, if they chose to rejectthe New World, to return to England. 1997): 42-47.Olson, Tod. English immigrants (16 -178 ) came to the New World primarily for economic reasons. This metropolitan emigration included very fewchildren of either gender, few women, and the only families were marriedcouples or siblings traveling together. The principal attraction for these families was theland that was available in the backcountry and they moved rapidly into theless settled regions throughout the eighteenth century. In somecases, such as Daniel Denton's 167 appeal on behalf of New York, thepromoters exaggerated shamelessly but spoke to he average Englishman's loveof his own liberty. 2 million people emigrated from England in 16 -178 . The typical immigrants were families from agricultural regions whowere, on average, almost as large as the average English family in the non-emigrating population" and included many small children (Bailyn 14). Despite the fact that they were ill-prepared thePilgrims managed to survive and eventually to flourish. As a group the Pilgrims "knew something of half a dozen tradesconnected with cloth, silk, and so on, and something, not a lot, aboutfarming" (Dillon 114). Immigration was a positive alternative to life in England or a desperate last resort.B. The owners of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, however, were merchants,lawyers, and landowners and they approached settlement as a means ofgaining religious freedom, but on a very firm financial footing. The British in America, 1578-197 . The provincial pattern of English immigration was the reverse of allthis. Pilgrims in the Plymouth colony were craftsmen and farmers. Overall immigration fromBritain followed two general patterns, the metropolitan and the provincial,which roughly reflect the split between the Scottish (and people fromEngland's northern counties) and the Thames Valley immigrants. Accompanied on the Mayflower by otherSeparatists the small band of Pilgrims accidentally arrived at Cape CodBay. Very few rural immigrants were indentured--even among singlemen traveling alone. Plymouth was founded by the small Pilgrimsect who held that it was essential for their souls to separate from theChurch of England and this meant, as William Bradford wrote, that "theycould not long continue in any peaceable condition: but were hunted andpersecuted on every side" (quoted in Dillon 82). Among these many immigrants there were those for whom the New World"was a distant but positive goal somehow to be reached" and those for whom"it was a last resort, a refuge when all else failed" (Bailyn 42-43). But the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Companycarefully scrutinized the recruitment of new immigrants and, unlike most ofthe colonies, "no one else came" but Puritans and this limited thepopulation to those "who were almost always of one doctrinal persuasion (orwere at least sensibly silent on doctrinal issues)" (Conkin 14). The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. There is little doubt that the economically oppressed population ofEngland's cities, towns, and rural regions made up the bulk of immigrantsin the seventeenth century. At the end of the period ofindenture (ranging from four to seven years) the servants "received a newset of clothes, an animal, most often a cow for women and a horse for men,and some farm tools and seed" (Ganter 45). Records of 1773-76 show patterns of English emigration. Encyclopędia Britannica. In the north the French retainedcontrol of New France until 1763 and their settlement efforts were veryweak. The Pilgrims: Their Journeys and Their World. "Emigrants Crossing the Atlantic." Early American Homes 28 (Feb. The most common course for such a migrant was tobind himself to pay for his passage by four years of indentured service onarrival in America. But,despite an initial influx of English immigrants, "the size of landholdingsincreased in all the islands, and the white populations accordinglydiminished as slavery came to furnish most of the raw labour"(Colonialism). The Pilgrims became a symbol of early migration becausetheir desire for freedom fit well with the ideals that later Americansvalued most. Provincial pattern was families from Scotland and northern England who purchased small farms.G. 1. By the 177 s immigration had become a fairly easy proposition forboth types of English settler. In generalterms, which includes both Scottish and English immigrants, they wereyoung; "almost half were under twenty-five; almost a quarter between theages of twenty and twenty-four," and seventy-five percent of them were male(Bailyn 11). The immigrant who followed the metropolitan pattern was typically "ayoung man, in his early twenties, acting individually" who was from neitherthe desperate urban poor nor the "more stable and substantial segments ofthe population" (Bailyn 12). The colonies were quite stable after theend of the Seven Years War and the future looked good. Thus the movement of English people acrossthe Atlantic was mainly economically motivated, at first drawing off thediscontented and unemployed "surplus" population and then providing afeasible alternative with much greater possibilities than existed inEngland. OutlineA. But, from the first successful attempt at English settlementat Jamestown, Virginia in 16 7 to the time of the Revolutionary War, peoplefrom Britain came to America primarily for economic reasons. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana, 1972.Ganter, Mary N. Yet it was not difficult to locate women or men who wanted toemigrate. Metropolitan pattern was indentured servants (Thames Valley craftsmen) who worked 4-7 years to pay off their passage. 2 . And, as events were soon to show, it hadeven become a life worth fighting for. 1993): 18-21. 2. Virginia, more typical of the 13 Colonies, attracted indentured labor, plantation owners, and small farmers.D. According to Denton, "if there be any terrestrialhappiness to be had by people of all ranks, especially of inferior rank itmust certainly be" in New York where "any one may furnish himself withland, and live rent-free" (quoted in Furer 1 8).
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