In
the 16th century English explorers were sent to the New World to seek
a passage to the Indies. However, gradually the government became
more concerned with establishing overseas colonies. It was hoped that
these territories would provide an outlet for her surplus population,
a source of raw materials for her expanding industries and a market
for its manufactured goods.
In 1607 James I granted permission for
a group of merchants to establish a permanent English settlement in
America at Jamestown, Virginia. John Smith
was elected president of the Virginia Colony in 1608 and soon afterwards
explored the coast of New England. At first the venture attracted
adventurers who hoped to make their fortunes in the colonies. The
idea also appealed to people who were being persecuted for their political
and religious beliefs.
In 1620 John Carver, William
Bradford, Edward Winslow and other
Puritans from England who had been living in Holland decided to emigrate
to America. One hundred and two people boarded the Mayflower
in Delft Harbour and after crossing the Atlantic settled at a place
they called Plymouth in Massachusetts Bay. The Separatists established
their own government and Carver was elected governor of the colony.
The plan was for the pilgrims to live on fish caught from the sea.
However, they were not very successful at this, and by the spring
of 1621 half of them had died of starvation or disease.
In 1628 a group of Puritans, led by Thomas
Dudley and John Winthrop persuaded
Charles I to grant them an area of land
between the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River in North America.
That year the group sent John Endecott
to begin a plantation in Salem.
The main party of 700 people left Southampton
in April 1630. The party included Thomas
Dudley, John Winthrop, William
Pynchon, Simon Bradstreet and
Anne Bradstreet. Before they left
John Cotton gave a sermon where he emphasized
the parallel between the Puritans and the God's chosen people, claiming
it was God's will that they should inhabit all the world.
John Winthrop was the first governor
of Massachusetts Colony. He chose Boston
as the the capital and the seat of the General Court and the legislature.
Thomas Dudley was appointed his deputy
and on four occasions served as governor. Dudley and Winthrop did
not always agree about the way the colony should be ruled. Whereas
Winthrop was tolerant and liberal, Dudley favoured the expulsion of
any person he considered to be a heretic.
During the 1630s over 20,000 people emigrated to Massachusetts. This
included Thomas Hooker who took a large
group to Connecticut in 1636 and founded the town of Hartford. Later
that year Roger Williams was banish
from the Massachusetts Colony. Williams
established a democratic society and a haven of religious toleration
on Rhode Island and admitted Jews and Quakers
into the colony. Anne Hutchinson,
who had also been expelled by John Winthrop
from the Massachusetts colony, also joined Williams on Rhode Island.
In 1628, George Calvert, first Lord
Baltimore, decided to create a safe haven in the New World for Roman
Catholics being persecuted for their religious beliefs in England.
Calvert and his son, Leonard Calvert
spent the summer in Newfoundland but its severe winter encouraged
him to sail south in search of better land. He landed in Virginia
but the English colonists rejected him and he went back to Ireland.
In 1632 Calvert sent Leonard Calvert
and 300 settlers back to America. However, he died before his son
established a new colony, Maryland, at the mouth of the Potomac River.
Calvert became Maryland's first governor and although he retained
ownership of the land he agreed to make laws only after consulting
the freemen of the colony.
Knighted by Charles
I in 1639, William Berkeley was
appointed as governor of Virginia. The arrival of people from England
grew steadily and by 1650 the population of Virginia had reached 15,000.
Settlements spread from the banks of the James River to the York and
Rappahannock Rivers. Others decided to leave the coastal regions and
move inland.
During the English Civil War he declared his support for the king.
When Oliver Cromwell achieved power William
Berkeley was forced into retirement and until 1660 concentrated
on developing his plantations in Virginia.
Berkeley started a second term as governor of Virginia after the restoration
of the monarchy in 1660. William Berkeley
led the military against the colony's remaining Native Americans.
He also organised the defence that prevented a Dutch
landing on the Virginia coast in 1673. Berkeley appointed Nathaniel
Bacon to his governing council but the two men soon fell out about
the development of the colony. Berkeley favoured a policy of containment,
whereas Bacon wanted to expand into areas controlled by Native Americans.
In 1676 Bacon organized his own expedition. Fearing a large-scale
war with Native Americans, Berkeley turned his forces against Bacon
and his men. Bacon captured Jamestown and Berkeley was forced to flee
to the Eastern Shore. However, when Nathaniel
Bacon died of fever in October, 1676, the rebellion quickly collapsed.
Berkeley took revenge by hanging all the leading figures. This upset
Charles II who had padoned the men and
William Berkeley was recalled to England.
William Penn, a wealthy Quaker,
purchased a large area of land in America from Charles
II
in 1681. Penn saw the venture as a "holy experiment" and
hoped he would be able to establish a colony where people of all creeds
and nationalities could live together in peace. The first settlers
began arriving in Pennsylvania in 1682 and settling around Philadelphia
(the city of brotherly love) at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill
Rivers.
The early British arrivals in America were known as colonists or settlers.
The term immigrant was first used in 1787. However, it was argued
at the time that there was a difference between the colonists who
"established a new new society, and those foreigners who arrive
only when the country's laws, customs and language are fixed."
In 1798 Thomas Malthus published his Essay
on the Principles of Population.
In his book, Malthus claimed the population of Britain was growing
faster than food production. Malthus predicted that unless something
was done about this, large numbers of people in Britain would starve.
His book created panic and for the first time in history, the government
agreed to count the number of people living in Britain. The 1801 census
revealled that Britain had a population of 10,501,000. It was estimated
that the population of Britain had doubled since 1750.
The move towards large-scale scientific farming greatly increased
output but made many agricultural workers redundant. Some moved to
the fast-growing industrial areas in search of work, whereas others
decided to emigrate to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa
and the United States.
After 1830 the numbers of people leaving Britain increased dramatically.
This was particularly true of those farmers and labourers who had
lived in counties that had been hardest hit by the agricultural depression
such as Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Derbyshire,
Cheshire and Cumberland.
Liverpool now became the most popular
emigrant port in Europe. In 1830 around 15,000 people sailed from
this port to North America. By 1842 this had reached 200,000, which
accounted for more than a half of all emigrants leaving from Europe.
Unlike other groups of emigrants such as the
Irish and Italians,
a large number of the English people who went to America stayed in
agriculture. A census in 1890 revealled that 90,000 farmers and well
over 100,000 farm labourers in the United States had been born in
England.
The United States also attracted people from England with technological
skills. Samuel Slater, who had learnt
his trade under Jerediah Strutt and Richard
Arkwright, pioneers of the revolution in textile
machinery, arrived in the United States in 1789. Four years later
Slater established America's first cotton
factory at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Andrew Carnegie, the son of a handloom
weaver, from Dunfermline, Scotland, was another successful businessman
in the United States. In 1870 Carnegie erected his first blast furnace
where he used the ideas being developed by Henry
Bessemer in England. Others followed and by 1874 he opened his
steel furnace at Braddock. The Carnegie Steel Company continued to
expand and between 1889 and 1899 annual production of steel rose from
332,111 to 2,663,412 tons, and profits increased from $2 million to
$40 million. In 1901 Henry Frick joined
with J. Pierpont Morgan to purchase the
Carnegie Company for $500,000,000 and established the U.S. Steel Corporation
that was valued at $1.4 billion. Carnegie himself now had a personal
fortune of $225,000,000.
By the time Andrew Carnegie died he
had given away $350,000,000. A further $125 million was placed with
the Carnegie Corporation to carry on his good works. Samuel
Milton Jones a successful inventor and businessman in Ohio, was
an immigrant from Wales. A generous employer
who held socialist views, Jones introduced
a profit-sharing scheme, an eight-hour day, a forty-eight hour week,
paid holidays and free recreational facilities. He also campaigned
for the public ownership of utilities, free parks and playgrounds,
and an end to corruption in city government. When he became mayor
of Toledo (1887-1904) he was able to introduce many of these reforms.
Immigrants with the skills developed in the English textile industry
tended to settle in mill towns in Massachusetts such as Fall River,
New Bedford and Lawrence. Established by a group of capitalists in
Boston in 1845, Lawrence
was especially popular with the English. One visitor noted that so
many of the manager, loom-fixers, wool-sorters, shopkeepers and saloon
owners spoke with a Yorkshire accent that he felt he was still in
England. By 1860 one-third of Lawrence's 18,000 inhabitants were employed
in the textile industry and the town had become known as the "Bradford
of America".
With the decline in mining industry in Cornwall,
a large number of men from this county emigrated to the United States.
Settlements of people from Cornwall were established in the lead-mining
regions of Illinois and Wisconsin and the iron and copper ranges of
the Michigan upper peninsula. A popular saying in the middle of 19th
century was that if there was a hole in the ground in America, someone
from Cornwall would be found at the bottom of it.
Some trade unions in Britain helped to pay for
members to emigrate to America. Union leaders thought that by reducing
the number of workers available, they could increase wage-rates of
those still in England. The Iron
Founders' Union paid the fares of over 800 men who wanted to emigrate.
The National Union of Mineworkers tended
to concentrate on sending men who had been blacklisted for union activities
and were having difficulty finding work in England.
British immigrants became involved in the early days of the trade
union movement. The first president of the United
Mine Workers of America, John Rae, was originally from Scotland
and the first secretary, Robert Watchorn, came from Derbyshire in
England. Samuel Grompers had arrived
from London in 1863 and he eventually established the American
Federation of Labour, an organisation was based on the structure
of the Trade Union Congress in Britain.
In 1890 there were large numbers of English born immigrants in the
states of New York (144,000), Massachusetts
(76,000) and Illinois (70,000). There
were also significant communities in New
York City (36,000), Chicago (28,000)
and the textile town of Lawrence (5,000).
After 1890 there were fewer opportunities for skilled artisans and
emigration from England declined. Between 1820 and 1920 over 2,500,000
people emigrated from England to the United States. Only Germany
(5,500,000), Ireland (4,400,000), Italy
(4,190,000) and Austria-Hungary (3,700,000)
contributed more people.
(1)
John Smith wrote about discovering Virginia
in his book, The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain
John Smith (1630).
Till the
third day we saw not any of the people, then in a little boat there
of them appeared. One of them went on shore, to whom we rowed, and
he attended us without any sign of fear; after he had spoke much though
we understood not a word, of his own accord he came boldly aboard
us. We gave him a shirt, a hat, wine and meat, which he liked well;
and after he had well viewed the barks and us, he went away in his
own boat; and within a quarter of a mile of us in half an hour, had
laden his boat with fish, with which he came again to the plot of
land, and there divided it in two parts, pointing one part to the
ship, the other to the pinnace, and so departed.
The next day came many boats, and in one of them the king's brother,
with forty or fifty men, proper people, and in their behaviour very
civil; his name was Granganameo, the king is called Wingina, the country
Wingandacoa. Though we came to him well armed, he made signs to us
to sit down without any show of fear, stroking his head and breast,
and also ours, to express his love. After he had made a long speech
unto us, we presented him with many toys, which he kindly accepted.
He sent us every day a brace of bucks, conies, hares and fish, sometimes
melons, walnuts, cucumbers, peas and many roots. Their corn grows
three times in five months; in May they sow, in July reap, in June
they sow, in August reap; in July sow, in August reap. We put some
of our peas in the ground, which in ten days were fourteen inches
high.
The soil is most plentiful, sweet, wholesome, and fruitful of all
other; there are about fourteen several sorts of sweet smelling timber
trees; the most parts of the underwood, bays and such like, such oaks
as we, but far greater and better. This discovery was so welcome into
England that it pleased her Majesty to call this country of Wingandocao,
Virginia.
(2)
In a letter sent to supporters in England, Thomas
Dudley wrote about the Puritans
arrival in Massachusetts in the summer of 1630.
In April 1630 we set sail from old England
with four good ships. And in May following, eight more followed, two
having gone before in February and March, and two more following in
June and August, besides another set out by a private merchant. These
seventeen ships arrived all safe in New England, for the increase
of the plantation here, this year 1630.
Our four ships, which set out in April, arrived here in June and July,
where we found the colony in a sad and unexpected condition, above
eighty of them being dead the winter before, and many of those alive,
weak and sick. All the corn and bread among them all hardly sufficient
to feed them a fortnight, insomuch that the remaining of 180 servants
we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to
sustain them, we found ourselves wholly unable to feed them.
But bearing these things as we might, we began to consult of the place
of our sitting down, for Salem, where we landed, pleased us not. And
so to that purpose some were sent to the Bay to search up the rivers
for a convenient place; who, upon their return, reported to have found
a good place upon Mystic; but some other of us seconding these to
approve or dislike of their judgment, we found a place we liked better,
three leagues up Charles River.
It was decided, for our present shelter to plant dispersedly, some
at Charlestown which stands on the north side of the mouth of Charles
River; some on the south side, which we named Boston, some of us upon
Mystic, which we named Medford; some of us westward on Charles River,
four miles from Charlestown, which place we named Watertown; others
of us, two miles from Boston, in a place we named Rocksbury; others
upon the river of Saugus, between Salem and Charlestown; and the western
men, four miles south from Boston, at a place we named Dorchester.
(3)
Journal of the Massachusetts Bat Colony
(1635)
Mr. Vane and Mr. Peter, finding some
distraction in the commonwealth arising from some differences in judgment,
and with some alienation of affection among the magistrates and some
other persons of quality, and that hereby factions began to grow among
the people, some adhering more to the old governor, Mr. Winthrop,
and others to the late governor, Mr. Dudley - the former carrying
matters with more lenity, and the other with more severity - they
procured a meeting, at Boston, of the governor, deputy, Mr. Cotton,
Mr. Hooker, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Dudley, and themselves.
Mr. Winthrop spoke, professing solemnly that he knew not of any breach
between his brother Dudley and himself, since they were reconciled
long since. Then Mr. Dudley spoke to this effect: that for his part
he came thither a mere patient, not with any intent to charge his
brother Winthrop with anything; for though there had been formerly
some differences and breaches between them, yet they had been healed,
and for his part, he was not willing to renew them again.
(4)
William
Bradford, History of the Plymouth Plantation (1651)
They (the Plymouth settlers) had no friends to welcome them,
no inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies, no houses
or much less towns to repair to. The season was winter, and they that
know the winters of this country know them to be sharp and violent,
and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known
places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could
they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts
and wild men.
(5)
A supporter of Nathaniel
Bacon wrote a detailed
report of the rebellion but it was nor published in England until
1705. He was critical of William Berkeley
who he believed did not do enough to stop attacks by Native Americans.
Frequent complaints of bloodshed were
sent to Sir William Berkeley from the heads of the rivers, which were
as often answered with promises of assistance. These at the heads
of James and York rivers (having now most people destroyed by the
Indians) grew impatient at the many slaughters of their neighbours
and rose or their own defence, who choosing. Bacon for their leader,
sent oftentimes to the Governor, humbly beseeching a commission to
go against those Indians at their own charge.
Mr. Bacon, with fifty-seven men, proceeded until the fired the palisades,
stormed and burned the fort and cabins, and (with the loss of three
English) slew 150 Indians.
(6)
Nathaniel
Bacon was captured by
William
Berkeley but he escaped and raised another army
to fight Native Americans.
General Bacon marched with 1,000 men
into the forest to seek the enemy Indians; and, in a few days after,
our next news was that the Governor had summoned together the militia
of Gloucester and Middlesex counties, to the number of 1,200 men,
and proposed to them to follow and suppress the rebel Bacon.
Bacon stormed it (Jamestown) and took the town, in which attack were
twelve men slain and wounded, but Governor Berkeley, with most of
the followers, fled back down the river in their vessels. Here, resting
a few days, they agreed to the burning of the town. Mr. Lawrence and
Mr. Drumond, owning the two best houses save one, set fire each to
his own house, which example the soldiers following laid the whole
town (with church and statehouse) in ashes, saying the rogues should
harbor no more there.
Mr. Bacon returned from his expedition sick of a flux; without finding
any enemy Indians, having not gone far by reason of the vexations
behind him. Nor had he one dry day in all his marches to and fro in
the forest while the plantations had a summer so dry as stinting the
Indian corn and tobacco, etc. In a while Bacon died and was succeeded
by his lieutenant general, Ingram.
(7)
Edward
Connor, an immigrant who had settled in Indiana, wrote a letter to
his family in England in 1818.
We have plenty of game such as bears,
wolves, deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, partridges, rabbits, wild pigeons
in thousands. The land is upon a limestone-bed; and will grow anything.
It has grown 200 bushels of potatoes per acre and here they use no
manure. No land in England is to be compared with it. There is the
sugar maple, which yields a great quantity of sugar. We can make our
own candles and soap; and grow our own tobacco, in short, we can do
anything.
(8)
Edward Kershaw, a former weaver, emigrated
to Lynnfield, Massachusetts in 1831. A few months later he wrote a
letter to his wife still living in Rochdale, England.
I am between 20 and 30 pounds heavier
than I was when I came to Lynnfield. Our common living would astonish
you. Our breakfast is something like the old rush-bearing dinners
in Rochdale. I never set me down to a meal but I think of the starving
weavers of Rochdale.
(9)
George Julian Harney, speech in London
on emigration that was reported in the Northern
Star
(5th January, 1850).
George Julian Harney declared
that he had no objection to emigration, providing the right persons
were sent away - the idlers and the plunderers. But he strongly objected
to the transportation of the industrious classes.
(10)
Samuel Gompers and his family emigrated
to the United States in the summer of 1863.
The Cigarmakers' Society Union of
England, whose members were frequently unemployed and suffering, established
an emigration fund - that is, instead of paying the members unemployment
benefits, a sum of money was granted to help passage from England
to the United States. The sum was not large, between five and ten
pounds. This was a very practical method which benefited both the
emigrants and those who remained by decreasing the number seeking
work in their trade. After much discussion and consultation father
decided to go to the New World. He had friends in New York City and
a brother-in-law who proceeded us by six months to whom father wrote
we were coming.
There came busy days in which my mother gathered together and packed
our household belongings. Father secured passage on the City of London,
a sailing vessel which left Chadwick Basin, June 10, 1863, and reached
Castle Garden, July 29, 1863, after seven weeks and one day.
Our ship was the old type of sailing vessel. We had none of the modern
comforts of travel. The sleeping quarters were cramped and we had
to had to do our own cooking in the gallery of the boat. Mother had
provided salt beef and other preserved meats and fish, dried vegetables,
and red pickled cabbage which I remember most vividly. We were all
seasick except father, mother the longest of all. Father had to do
all the cooking in the meanwhile and take care of the sick. There
was a Negro man employed on the boat who was very kind in many ways
to help father. Father did not know much about cooking.
When we reached New York we landed at the old Castle Garden of lower
Manhattan, now the Aquarium, where we were met by relatives and friends.
As we were standing in a little group, the Negro who had befriended
father on the trip, came off the boat. Father was grateful and as
a matter of courtesy, shook hands with him and gave him his blessing.
Now it happened that the draft and negro rights were convulsing New
York City. Only that very day Negroes had been chased and hanged by
mobs. The onlookers, not understanding, grew very much excited over
father's shaking hands with this Negro. A crowd gathered round and
threatened to hang both father and the Negro to the lamp-post.
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