In taking up the special study of immigration, it is necessary to bear in mind at the outset that the word is to be used in a limited and semitechnical sense. It is not always so used in common speech nor even in scientific writings, and much confusion and inaccuracy not infrequently result. Let us state once more exactly what is meant by immigration. Immigration is a movement of people, individually or in families, acting on their own personal initiative and responsibility, without official support or compulsion, passing from one well-developed country (usually old and thickly settled) to another well-developed[11] country (usually new and sparsely populated) with the intention of residing there permanently. The same movement may equally well be referred to as emigration. It is obviously only a question of the point of view. The two words may be used interchangeably without danger of confusion, if the point of view is regarded. There is only one movement, and one set of people, emigrating from one country and immigrating to another.[12]
As observed in the foregoing chapter, immigration is a movement which could not have originated before the Discoveries Period, and did not, in fact, become a matter of much importance until a century or so later. The countries which are now the objective points of large streams of immigration are, without exception, countries which have been opened up since that epoch. An exhaustive study of immigration should take up each of these countries in turn, and examine conditions in Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Australasia, and the United States. The plan of the present volume does not include so exhaustive a treatment; it is intended primarily for American readers. The specific study of immigration will be limited to the United States. This is the more justifiable, inasmuch as the United States is, beyond comparison, the foremost country in immigration movements, both in point of numbers and of world interest. All the fundamental principles of immigration are exemplified here more fully than in any other country. To the citizen of the United States it is a matter of the greatest importance and interest, for it has to do with a unique subject—the make-up of the American people itself.
The history of immigration into the United States may for convenience be divided into five periods. The first of these includes the time between the first settlement of the North American colonies and the year 1783. This date is chosen for the end of this first period because, as Professor Mayo-Smith has expressed it, “At that time the state was established, and any further additions to the population had little influence in changing its form or the language and customs of the people.”[13] The second period, from 1783 to 1820, marks the beginning of national life. It was a period of small immigration, and closes with the year in which federal statistics were first collected in regard to the stream of immigration. The third period begins in 1820 and ends roughly about 1860. This period is marked by the beginning and culmination of the first great rise in the immigration stream, by a growing opposition to the immigrant, and by state control of the admission of aliens. The period from 1860 to 1882 begins with the Civil War agitation, witnesses the disappearance of state control, and closes with the year in which the first immigration law was passed by the federal government. The fifth, or modern, period is from 1882 to the present. Other features which distinguish and separate these periods will manifest themselves as the periods are examined more closely.
It is customary with some writers, as, for instance, Professor Mayo-Smith in the reference above quoted, to include all movements of people into the North American colonies, previous to the Revolution, under the head of colonization, and to call everything after the beginning of national life immigration. The second part of this classification accords with the definitions given above, but the first part does not. For it will be remembered that colonization refers to movements of people from a central state to its dependencies, while immigration is a movement from the territory of one nation to that of another. The fact that the receiving region is itself a colony does not alter the case. Hence, in so far as the people who came to the North American colonies in the early days came from a state to which the region where they were going was subject, they were true colonists. They were simply going from one part of a national territory to another. But all who came from any European state to a dependency of another state—and there were a goodly number of them—were immigrants. Thus, even in colonial days, there were both colonization and immigration.
In establishing this distinction it must be noted that while the colonies were undeveloped as regards their natural resources, they were highly developed in respect to their stage of civilization and their advancement in the arts. In this respect they were the peers of the most cultivated European states of the period. The factors which gave a primitive aspect to life in the colonies were due to the newness of the settlement and the sparseness of the population. These were, in turn, just the factors which made them desirable to immigrants and colonists alike.
The truth of this position is further established by the fact that this distinction was clearly recognized by the early settlers themselves. A very different attitude was manifested in the colonies toward persons who came from the home state than toward those from any other country. The former were generally welcomed; the latter were regarded with suspicion, if not actual hostility. The history of immigration to the North American continent reaches far back toward the days of the earliest settlement, and many of the characteristic problems and arguments connected with the immigration situation were familiar long before the Revolution. A familiarity with these early aspects of the question furnishes many enlightening comparisons and parallels, and is of great value in correctly estimating the modern situation.
The peopling of the North American continent by persons of north European stock began with the formation by James I of England of two companies of settlement in the year 1606. These were known as the London Company and the Plymouth Company. To the former was granted the territory on the North American coast between 34 and 38 degrees north latitude, though these boundaries were somewhat extended in 1609. To the latter was assigned the region from 41 to 45 degrees. This left a section of unassigned territory between, extending from the Rappahannock to the Hudson rivers. This was open to settlement by either company, with the stipulation that neither was to plant a settlement within one hundred miles of a previous settlement of the other. Neither of these companies, however, ever made any very extensive achievements in colonization, and both gave up their charters in the course of a few years, the London Company in 1624 and the other in 1635.
Before the charters were surrendered, however, settlements had been started in both territories. In Virginia, the province of the London Company, the first shipload of adventurers from London arrived in the year 1607. But twelve years of hard and painful struggle were required to establish this settlement as a permanent and self-maintaining colony. It is interesting to note that at this time, and in this place, one of the greatest of our national racial problems had its commencement, through the introduction of a number of African slaves from a Dutch vessel in 1619. The settlers in this region were, in part, adventurers, younger sons of noble families, and other members of the aristocracy who found it advisable to leave England, and in part rather unworthy representatives of the lower classes. A combination of political, social, and economic causes was responsible for their coming.
The settlers of the northern colony, in the territory of the Plymouth Company, were of a different class of the population. Their motives for coming were also different, being primarily of a religious character. These colonists were separatists from the Church of England, who fled first to Holland, and from there came to America in 1620, landing in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. In this colony, also, the process of settlement was slow, and there were very few arrivals for ten years. In 1630, however, about one thousand colonists, Puritans but not separatists, came over, and settled in Massachusetts Bay. This was the real beginning of the history of the Massachusetts colony, which in time absorbed also the Plymouth colony. Once started, population in this colony advanced very rapidly, and overflowed into the neighboring regions, forming the colonies of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and the river towns of Connecticut.
In the meantime the Dutch were taking possession of the unassigned central region. New Netherland was organized under the Dutch West India Company in 1621, and the city at the mouth of the Hudson was named New Amsterdam. Sweden, too, was trying to get a foothold in the new country and sent a party of colonists to Delaware Bay in 1638. This was not successful, however, and surrendered to the Dutch in 1655, so that Sweden never achieved prominence as a colonizing power in the New World. With the growth of the English colonies in the north and south, this central territory in the hands of a foreign power came to be recognized as a source of annoyance and danger, and on the occasion of a war with Holland, England sent over a fleet and took possession of the whole intervening region, forming the colonies of New York and New Jersey. In 1681 the territory of Pennsylvania was granted for settlement to William Penn, and thus the whole Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida became a field of colonization, subject to the English authority.
The study of the formation of the American people as a separate nation is of peculiar interest, because it has taken place within a recent historical period, and we can study the original elements from the time when they first settled in the country. This is not true of any of the nations of Europe.
The foundation of the new people consisted of colonists from England. They were the original settlers, and during the entire colonial period they continued to contribute to the growing population. In addition to these there was the Dutch element, which became well established when New York was a Dutch colony. Aside from the colonists, there was a large and important contribution from other European nations, people from practically every country on the continent. These were the true immigrants. The colonies which were most affected by arrivals of this sort were the central ones, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, and above all the latter. This was due to their location, the attitude of their proprietors, and the feeling and conduct of the original settlers. The attitude of William Penn was decidedly liberal, and Pennsylvania advanced in population accordingly. Penn advertised his colony widely, and when he came over in 1682 there were already six thousand Swedish, Dutch, and English settlers there. Others came rapidly, prominent among them English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, German Mennonites, and French Huguenots. These religious designations are significant of the preponderance of the religious element in the immigration of the day.
Throughout the colonial period this class of causes was an underlying factor in most of the important migrations to America, both colonization and immigration. The Protestant Reformation, and the intellectual and social movements which went with it, had a profound effect upon the contentment of large masses of the people of Europe, and made that continent a very undesirable place of residence for many of them. That political causes should have been closely combined with the religious ones was inevitable, on account of the intimate relation between religion and government, and the practice of using political power to secure religious ends, and vice versa. These two classes of causes were the prevailing and characteristic ones during this period.
The religious tolerance and freedom which characterized Pennsylvania was therefore one of the chief factors which drew immigrants of every nationality to it, and it quickly became the most cosmopolitan of all the colonies. Penn’s agents were particularly active in Germany, with the result that in twenty years the Germans numbered nearly one half the population of the colony.
With the beginning of the eighteenth century two currents of immigration rapidly outdistanced all others in numbers, importance, and the amount of attention which they attracted. These were the Palatines and the Scotch-Irish. Throughout the rest of the colonial period they held the center of the stage in the immigration situation.
The Palatines were so called because their original home was in what was known as the Palatinate. This was a section of Germany lying on both sides of the Rhine from Cologne to Mannheim. It was divided into two parts, the upper and the lower, from the latter of which most of the immigration came. The position of this country brought it into close relations with the spirit of the Reformation, and large bodies of the population became Protestant, both Reformed and Lutheran. The rulers of the Palatinate, the Electors Palatine, swung back and forth between Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Roman Catholicism, and since each successive ruler wished his subjects to conform to his religious views, the miserable people suffered accordingly. Both of the two great wars between 1684 and 1713, the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the Spanish Succession, had borne heavily on the Palatinate, which had long been the object of Louis XIV’s most covetous desire. The second ruthless devastation which the country experienced during the latter of these wars reduced the people to the lowest pitch of misery and desperation. Meanwhile their ruler, John William, was trying to force the whole of the people back into Catholicism. “To the people already suffering from the intolerable hardships which the cruelest of wars had thrust upon them, this persecuting spirit of their prince came as the last impulse to break off their attachment to the fatherland and send them to make new homes in distant America.” Thus began the great exodus, from a combination of political and religious causes, in entire harmony with the spirit of the age.
The Elector Palatine resisted the emigration, and adopted various measures to check it, among them an edict threatening death to all who should attempt to emigrate. As usual, such efforts were powerless to check a natural movement. The first detachment to leave was apparently a small band which, after many wanderings, settled in New Jersey in 1707. In 1708 a small company came to London and asked to be sent to America. They were sent to New York at public expense, and were furnished with farm implements; nevertheless, they fell into want and had to be aided by the colonial council. The next year about thirteen thousand Palatines arrived in London by way of Rotterdam. They were, for the most part, absolutely penniless, and in rags. England responded nobly to the burden thus cast upon her. Queen Anne allowed ninepence per day each for their subsistence, and they were housed in army tents set up in vacant lots, and in barns and warehouses. This piece of benevolence is said to have cost England, in public and private expenditures, the sum of £135,000. Some of these refugees were sent to Ireland, but large numbers of them eventually found their way to America. A large shipment arrived in the Carolinas in 1709.
The largest detachment, however, was a body of three thousand who arrived in New York, from England, in the early summer of 1710. This is said to have been the largest body of immigrants to have arrived in this country at one time during the colonial period. They have been characterized as perhaps the most miserable and most hopeful set of people ever set down on our shores. In spite of their poverty, they manifested a stern and determined spirit in their fight for their faith and home. To the shame of the New York colonists, it is recorded that they were welcomed with privation, distress, fraud, and cruel disappointment. They were cheated and oppressed by the heartless and rapacious settlers, to whom their helplessness made them easy victims. It was by such practices as these that New York diverted many streams of immigration from her territory to that of her neighbors, particularly Pennsylvania.[14]
The second great stream of immigration during the colonial period was composed of the Scotch-Irish, who were for a long time called merely “Irish.” Neither name denominates them accurately, as, in the words of Professor Commons, they “are very little Scotch and much less Irish.”[15] They are in fact the most composite of all the people of the British Isles, being a mixture of the primitive Scot and Pict, the primitive Briton and Irish, and a larger admixture of Norwegian, Dane, Saxon, and Angle. They were called Scots because they lived originally in Scotia, and Irish because they moved to Ireland.
James the First resolved to make Catholic Ireland a Protestant country, and with this in view dispossessed the native chiefs in Ulster, giving their lands to Scottish and English lords on condition that they settle the territory with tenants from Scotland and England. Thus about 1610 many people from Scotia moved to Ulster, and from that time on were called Irish, though there was only a slight trace of Irish blood in their veins. It was nearly a century later that conditions arose which began to predispose them to emigration in large numbers. In 1698, on the complaint, from English manufacturers, of Irish competition, the Irish Parliament, a tool of the British crown, passed an act totally forbidding the exportation of Irish woolens, and another act forbidding the exportation of Irish wool to any country save England. The linen industry was also discriminated against. These acts nearly destroyed the industry of Ulster, and aroused great discontent. Next the people were compelled to take the communion of the established church in order to hold office, which practically deprived them of self-government, as they were unwilling to renounce their native Presbyterianism for political ends. Soon after, their hundred-year leases began to run out, and when the land was auctioned off the low-living Irish could offer higher rents than they, and consequently they lost much of their land. The ensuing large emigration was thus the result of dissatisfaction due to an interesting combination of economic, political, and religious causes.
It is said that in 1718 forty-two hundred of the Scotch-Irish left for America, and that after the famine of 1740 there were twelve thousand who departed annually. In the half century preceding the American Revolution, one hundred fifty thousand or more came to America. They were by far the largest contribution of any foreign race to the people of America during the eighteenth century, and constituted a strong element in the army at the time of the Revolution.
At the time of the arrival of the Scotch-Irish in America, the lands along the Atlantic coast were already well occupied, and they were compelled to move on into the interior. The traditional religious exclusiveness of Massachusetts and the well-settled character of the country prevented them from settling in the eastern portions of that colony. Consequently they chose as their destination New Hampshire, Vermont, western Massachusetts, and Maine, and most of all Pennsylvania and the foothill regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. They were by nature typical pioneers, and gradually pushed their way into western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They were the one race sufficiently unified, endowed with the spirit of liberty, and scattered throughout the colonies, to serve as the amalgamating force binding all the other races into one—the American type.[16]
During the whole of the eighteenth century, up to the time of the Revolution, representatives of these two races continued to arrive in increasing numbers. The Palatines, though less numerous than the Scotch-Irish, seem to have attracted more attention. The general attitude of the colonists toward these immigrants was one of welcome, or at the least of toleration. This was natural under the conditions of the time. It must ever be borne in mind that the distinguishing feature of the situation in this country during the colonial period was a superabundance of fertile soil, rich in a variety of natural resources, and a scarcity of men. That is, the ratio between men and land was low. Hence there was a great demand for settlers, and newcomers were believed to be, and were, an asset to the community. A certain degree of rivalry and jealousy between the colonies, leading them to covet a rapid increase in population, contributed to this sentiment.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that there was a decided preference for colonists over immigrants. This was partly due to a natural race prejudice, but it was augmented by the character of the immigrants at that time. Considering the nature of the conditions which led to emigration from both Ireland and Germany, it is not surprising that a majority of the newcomers were characterized by extreme destitution. As might also be expected from the frightful shipping conditions which then existed, many of them arrived in wretched condition physically. The voyage was long, the ships were small, poorly ventilated, shockingly overcrowded, and totally unprovided with adequate provisions for sanitation, cleanliness, and culinary facilities. It seems to have been the expected thing that a large part of every shipload of immigrants, particularly of the Palatines, should arrive in a prostrated condition.
There is a record of one ship which made the voyage in 1731 on which there was such a scarcity of food provided for the passengers that they “had to live on rats and mice, which were considered dainties. The price on board for a rat was eighteen pence, and for a mouse an English sixpence. The captain was under the impression that the passengers had considerable money and valuables with them, and, believing that he might profit by it, he endeavored to reduce them to a state of starvation. He succeeded too well, for out of the 156 passengers only 48 reached America.”[17]
These wretched victims were of course thrown upon the mercy of the citizens of the colony in which they landed; Pennsylvania, and particularly Philadelphia, were especially subject to visitations of this kind. The generosity with which these unfortunates were cared for in this colony is remarkable. Nevertheless, the burden was a heavy one, and the opposition which arose to the free admission of this class of persons is not to be wondered at. A new country, struggling to subdue the wilderness and to establish economic independence, welcomes hardy and industrious laborers, even though they bring little capital with them. If the poverty of the immigrant is due to no fault of his own, and is offset by a sound body and a determined spirit of industry, there is every hope that the influence of the new environment may set him permanently on his feet. But an influx of people so deficient in moral or physical stamina as to promise nothing, save an additional burden on the already strained resources of the community, is naturally and justly viewed with alarm. Very many of the immigrants of this period belonged to this type.
As suggested above, the low physical and economic state of many of the immigrants was due to the conditions and experiences attending the passage from the old country to the new. Many an immigrant who was hale and able-bodied when he started on the voyage was a physical wreck when he landed. Many others who were relatively well off economically on leaving home arrived penniless. It was the practice of the “importers” to compel passengers who had means to settle the accounts of those who had not, and thus, it is stated, many who had been well-to-do were reduced to house-to-house beggary.[18] But many other of the immigrants were hopelessly destitute when they started. Still others were criminals. It was the practice of European nations at this time to empty not only their almshouses, but their jails, into their own colonies, or those of other nations. Thus many of the colonists, as well as of the immigrants, belonged to the pauper and criminal classes.[19]
This action of European states was naturally bitterly complained of by the colonies. But as long as they were colonies, and had no independent standing, it could be little more than a complaint.[20] After the War of the Revolution it became a matter of international relations, and, as will appear later, attracted no little attention.
Pennsylvania, being the destination of the largest number of immigrants, suffered most from troubles of this sort. Consequently, in this colony we find the most powerful body of opinion contrary to the free admission of aliens, and the most frequent and stringent measures to control it. Many of the stock arguments against immigration on the grounds of pauperism, criminality, and inability for self-support developed during this period.
One of the earliest Pennsylvania statutes covering this ground was an act passed in 1722, imposing a tax on every criminal landed, and making the shipowner responsible for the good conduct of his passengers.[21] This was followed by numerous other laws designed to help control the immigration situation. One of the most important of these was the act of September 21, 1727, which was passed at the suggestion of the colonial governor, who feared that the peace and security of the province was endangered by so many foreigners coming in, ignorant of the language, settling together and making, as it were, a separate people. This is one of the earliest instances of the use of the nonassimilation argument in connection with immigration legislation. The act in question provided that shipmasters bringing immigrants must declare whether they had permission from the court of Great Britain to do so, and must give lists of all passengers and their intentions in coming. The immigrants must take the oath of allegiance to the king, and of fidelity to the Proprietary of the Province. On the day the act was passed, an agreement was signed by 109 persons, representing about four hundred immigrants, who had arrived at the port and were waiting to be landed. A pathetic touch is given to the incident by the naïve statement, “Sundry of these forreigners lying sick on board, never came to be qualified.”
This act remained in force for some time, but appears to have been more or less of a dead letter, for the shipmasters never seem to have had any license to bring immigrants, and yet the latter were always admitted.[22] This law was slightly modified in 1729, and a tax of forty shillings was laid on each immigrant. This is an early instance of the use of a head tax as a restrictive measure, for among the reasons assigned for its passage we find mention of the necessity “to discourage the great importation and coming in of foreigners and of lewd, idle, and ill-affected persons into this province, as well from parts beyond the seas as from the neighboring colonies,” whereby the safety and quiet of the province are endangered, many of them becoming a great burden upon the community. It was asserted that shipmasters resorted to deceitful methods in the furtherance of the practice of bringing in convicts.[23] This accusation was substantiated by an event which occurred a short time previously, when “a vessel arrived at Annapolis with 66 indentures, signed by the Mayor of Dublin, and 22 wigs to disguise the convicts when they landed.”[24] The provision imposing a head tax of forty shillings was repealed within a very few months.[25]
Through the discussions of this matter can be traced a frequent conflict of opinion between the colonial governor and the assembly. The former, representing the interests of the Proprietary, was inclined to welcome anything which tended to increase the population of the colony at whatever cost. The latter, representing the people, is concerned for the character of the settlers and the financial welfare of the colony.[26] This is well illustrated by the progress of the effort to secure an immigrant hospital in Philadelphia. The erection of such a building had been recommended to the assembly by Governor George Thomas as early as 1740, in the interests of humanity. But the house demurred on the ground of expense, and several years of haggling passed before a pest-house was finally erected. In the meantime much difficulty was experienced with “sickly vessels,” and a law was passed requiring all ships to anchor a mile from the city, until inspected by the port physician. If sick passengers were found on board, the shipmaster was required to land them at a suitable distance from the city and convey them at his own expense to houses in the country prepared for them.[27]
The house, on its part, made vain attempts for a period of fifteen years or more to get a bill passed which should check the overcrowding of immigrants in ships. The ostensible reasons urged were mainly those of humanity, and they rested on an ample basis. The degree of overcrowding was frightful. It was stated that in many cases the chests of apparel belonging to immigrants were shipped in other vessels to make more room for passengers, so that the immigrants had no chance even to change their clothes during the long voyage of sometimes sixty days.[28] But underlying this there was undoubtedly the desire to reduce the number of immigrants. It was represented that whereas the German importations were at first of good class, people of substance, now they were the refuse of the country, and that “the very goals [sic] have contributed to the Supplies we are burdened with.”
In the southern colonies we find much the same attitude of welcome to respectable settlers, and fear of criminals and paupers, with this difference, that as immigration was slower into these colonies, more active measures were occasionally taken by the colonies themselves to encourage it. Thus in 1669 North Carolina passed a law exempting new settlers from levies for one year, and from action for debt for five years. But they were debarred from holding office for three years.[29]
Maryland early experienced difficulties with imported criminals. On account of the practice, which appears to have been common, of importing notorious criminals, the general assembly of this province in 1676 passed an act requiring all shipmasters to declare whether they had any convicts on board. If so, they were not to be allowed to land in the province. Any person presuming to import such convicts must pay a fine of 2000 pounds of tobacco, half to go to the Proprietary and half to the informer.[30] On December 9 of the same year the lieutenant governor issued a proclamation requiring all shipmasters who had landed convicts previous to this act going into effect to deposit a bond of £50 for their good behavior. Any landed without this bond were to be put in prison until the bond was paid.[31] This is one of the earliest instances of bonding shippers for the good conduct of their passengers.
On the other hand, settlers of good character were regarded as very valuable acquisitions, and measures were adopted from time to time to encourage their immigration.[32]
In New England the immigration question was less pressing than in either the central or southern colonies. There was less need of passing direct restrictive measures,[33] because the religious exclusiveness of this section kept away many who might otherwise have come. And there was little necessity of encouraging immigration, as the natural increase of the population was sufficient to maintain an adequate number of inhabitants. In fact, the influx of population from Europe to New England was practically over by the middle of the seventeenth century. It is stated that from 1628 to 1641 about twenty thousand English came as permanent colonists to New England, and for the next century and a half more went from there to England than came from England there.[34] As a result of these conditions, the population of this region was much less mixed than in the other colonies. Nevertheless, it was a prolific and growing population, and “overflowed into the other colonies, without receiving corresponding additions from them.”[35]
In spite of this fact, however, a certain jealousy was felt toward Pennsylvania, on account of the large number of foreigners who sought her shores. This feeling was expressed by Dr. Jonathan Mayhew in his election sermon before the governor and legislature of Massachusetts in 1754. While he surmised that Pennsylvania might in time experience some inconvenience from too large numbers of unassimilated Germans, yet he attributed much of her growth and prosperity to their presence. He was assured that the English element in Massachusetts was already too well established for there to be any fear of too great an admixture of alien elements, and expressed the opinion that all measures to encourage the immigration of foreign Protestants were to be favored.[36]
New York frankly shared this jealousy of Pennsylvania, and, when it was too late, made efforts to attract immigrants to her territory. Thus in 1736 Governor Clarke caused to be widely circulated in Germany an advertisement in which he proposed to give 500 acres of land to each of the first two hundred families who should come to New York from Europe. The measure met with no great success.[37] Possibly the treatment accorded to the would-be settlers of a generation earlier still lingered in the memory of their fellow-countrymen.
In addition to the legislation against paupers and criminals, most of the colonies had laws designed to prevent the entrance of religious sects who were not regarded with favor. The class most discriminated against was the Roman Catholics, and the eighteenth century found harsh statutes against them in the legislation of most of the colonies.[38] Virginia, and all the New England colonies except Rhode Island, had laws designed to prevent the coming in of Quakers.[39] Rhode Island resembled Pennsylvania in the religious tolerance which prevailed there.[40] Maryland started on the basis of religious toleration, but did not maintain this position.[41] A prejudice against Roman Catholics soon manifested itself, and occasionally found expression in legislation. Thus in the Maryland statutes for 1699 there is an act entitled, “An act for Raising a Supply towards the defraying of the Publick Charge of this Province and to prevent too great a number of Irish Papists being imported into this Province.” The provisions of the act required shipmasters to pay twenty shillings per poll for all Irish servants imported, as well as for negroes.[42] None of these acts, of course, was absolutely prohibitive.
Among the settlers of this period there was one peculiar class which requires special mention. They were, for the most part, colonists rather than immigrants, though some of them came from foreign countries. These were the indented (or indentured) servants, or redemptioners.[43] There were two main classes of them—those who were brought under compulsion, and those who came voluntarily. Of the first class, many were convicted criminals, who were sent over in great numbers from the mother country, and on arrival were indented as servants for a term of years. Under the barbarous legal system of the day many persons were sentenced to death for insignificant crimes, such as stealing a joint of meat worth over a shilling, or counterfeiting a lottery ticket. Many humane judges welcomed exile as an alternative to the death penalty. It is estimated that possibly as many as fifty thousand criminals were sent to America from the British Isles, from the year 1717 until the practice was ended by the War of Independence. Besides the criminals, in this class of indented servants were many who were kidnaped and sent over to America. Press gangs were busy in London, Bristol, and other English seaports, seizing boys and girls, usually, but not always, from the lowest classes of society, and sending them over to labor as indented servants in the colonies.
Those who came voluntarily were respectable but destitute persons who, despairing of success or progress in the old country, sold themselves into temporary slavery to pay their passage over. Many of these came from very good classes of society. The southern colonies received a much larger number of indented servants of all classes than the northern colonies, as the semiplantation character of the former made a much larger demand for servile labor than in the farm colonies of the north.[44]
Shipmasters made an enormous profit from this traffic, adding as much as 100 per cent of the actual cost of transportation to cover risks. Adults were bound out for a term of three to six years, children from ten to fifteen years, and smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to masters who had to rear and board them.[45] As a rule the indented servants, on the arrival of a ship at an American port, were auctioned off to the highest bidder at a public auction very like a slave market. The last sales of this kind reported took place in Philadelphia in 1818 and 1819. These were mostly Germans. Many of the indented servants became eminent and respected citizens of the colonies, while others degenerated and became the progenitors of the “poor white trash” of the south.
As a result of this study of the colonial period the fact stands out prominently that during these years both colonization and immigration entered into the peopling of the Thirteen Colonies. The distinction between the two was clearly recognized by the colonists themselves, and immigrants were accorded different treatment from colonists. In the handling of the situation many of the stock arguments against unrestricted immigration were developed, and some of the important legislative expedients, such as the head tax, the bonding of shippers, the exclusion of paupers and criminals, etc., which have had a wide use in later years, were put into practice. It is very noteworthy, however, that in all the discussions of this question during this period one searches in vain for any trace of opposition to immigration on the grounds of the economic competition of the newcomer with the older residents. In the unsettled state of the country at this time, such a thing could hardly be thought of. The idea of any crowding of the industrial field, or any lack of economic opportunity for an unlimited number, was almost inconceivable. It is this, more than any other one thing, which differentiates the immigration situation during the colonial period from that at the present time.
Two other fundamental facts in reference to the formation of the new American people should also be noted in this connection. The first is that the actual transference of people from Europe to America during the entire colonial period was relatively slight. Benjamin Franklin stated that in 1741 a population of about one million had been produced from an immigration (used in the broad sense) of less than 80,000.[46] As an indication of how much less important this “immigration” was than the recent immigration into the United States has been, it may be noted that the ratio between immigrants and total population, at the period that Franklin mentioned, was one to twelve for a period of 120 years or more, while the ratio between immigrants since 1820 and population in 1900—a period of only eighty years—was one to four. “After the first outflow from Old to New England, in 1630–31, emigration was checked, at first by the changing circumstances of the struggle between the people and the king, and, when the struggle was over, by the better-known difficulties of life in the colonies.”[47]
The second of these facts is that such additions to population as there were, while containing a number of diverse elements, were predominantly English, and that those who were not English were almost wholly from races closely allied to the English. These were principally the Dutch, Swedes, Germans, and Scotch-Irish, which with the English, as Professor Commons has pointed out, were, less than two thousand years ago, all one Germanic race in the forests surrounding the North Sea. “It is the distinctive fact regarding colonial migration that it was Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion.”[48] This Protestantism was important, not so much because of the superiority of one form of religion over another, as because of the type of mind and character which Protestantism at that day represented. It stood for independence of thought, moral conviction, courage, and hardihood.
The English element, then, was sufficiently preëminent quickly to reduce all other elements to its type. As a result of the character of the migration assimilation was easy, quick, and complete. While it was said that every language of Europe could be found in Pennsylvania, this diversity was short-lived. “No matter how diverse the small immigration might have been on its arrival, there was a steady pressure on its descendants to turn them into Englishmen; and it was very successful.... The whole coast, from Nova Scotia to the Spanish possessions in Florida, was one in all essential circumstances.”[49]
Such, then, was the American people at the time of the Revolution—a physically homogeneous race, composed almost wholly of native-born descendants of native-born ancestors, of a decidedly English type, but with a distinct character of its own. This was the great stock from which the people of the United States grew, and upon which all subsequent additions must be regarded as extraneous grafts.