The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States, from the colonial era to the present. The United States experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe, and later from Asia and Latin America. Colonial era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants where the new employer paid the ship's captain. Starting in the late 19th century, immigration was restricted from China and Japan. In the 1920s, restrictive immigration quotas were imposed, although political refugees had special status. Numerical restrictions ended in 1965. In recent years, the largest numbers have come from Asia and Central America.
Attitudes towards new immigrants have cycled between favorable and hostile since the 1790s. Recent debates focus on the Southern border, and on the status of "dreamers" who have lived almost their entire life in the U.S. after being brought in without papers as children.
Colonial era[edit]
In 1607, the first successful English colony settled in Jamestown, Virginia. Once tobacco was found to be a profitable cash crop, many plantations were established along the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland.
Thus began the first and longest era of immigration, lasting until the American Revolution in 1775; during this time settlements grew from initial English toe-holds from the New World to British America. It brought Northern European immigrants, primarily of British, German, and Dutch extraction. The British ruled from the mid-17th century and they were by far the largest group of arrivals, remaining within the British Empire. Over 90% of these early immigrants became farmers.[1]
Large numbers of young men and women came alone as indentured servants. Their passage was paid by employers in the colonies who needed help on the farms or in shops. Indentured servants were provided food, housing, clothing and training but they did not receive wages. At the end of the indenture [usually around age 21, or after a service of seven years] they were free to marry and start their own farms.[2]
New England[edit]
Seeking religious freedom in the New World, one hundred English Pilgrims established a small settlement near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Tens of thousands of English Puritans arrived, mostly from the East Anglian parts of England [Norfolk, Suffolk, East Sussex.,[3] and settled in Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent areas from around 1629 to 1640 to create a land dedicated to their religion. The earliest New English colonies, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, were established along the northeast coast. Large scale immigration to this region ended before 1700, though a small but steady trickle of later arrivals continued.[4]
The New English colonists were the most urban and educated of all their contemporaries, and they had many skilled farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen among them. They started the first university, Harvard, in 1635 in order to train their ministers. They mostly settled in small villages for mutual support [nearly all of them had their own militias] and common religious activities. Shipbuilding, commerce, agriculture, and fishing were their main sources of income. New England's healthy climate [the cold winters killed the mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects], small widespread villages [minimizing the spread of disease], and an abundant food supply resulted in the lowest death rate and the highest birth rate of any of the colonies. The Eastern and Northern frontier around the initial New England settlements was mainly settled by the descendants of the original New Englanders. Immigration to the New England colonies after 1640 and the start of the English Civil War decreased to less than 1% [about equal to the death rate] in nearly all of the years prior to 1845. The rapid growth of the New England colonies [approximately 900,000 by 1790] was almost entirely due to the high birth rate [>3%] and the low death rate [