OCT 29, 2009
U.S. Immigration Before 1965
HISTORY.COM EDITORS
CONTENTS
Immigration in the Colonial Era
Immigration in the Mid-19th Century
Ellis Island and Federal Immigration Regulation
European Immigration: 1880-1920
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
PHOTO GALLERIES
The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom. From the 17th to 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of African slaves came to America against their will. The first significant federal legislation restricting immigration was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Individual states regulated immigration prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island, the country?s first federal immigration station. New laws in 1965 ended the quota system that favored European immigrants, and today, the majority of the country?s immigrants hail from Asia and Latin America.
Immigration in the Colonial Era
From its earliest days, America has been a nation of immigrants, starting with its original inhabitants, who crossed the land bridge connecting Asia and North America tens of thousands of years ago. By the 1500s, the first Europeans, led by the Spanish and French, had begun establishing settlements in what would become the United States. In 1607, the English founded their first permanent settlement in present-day America at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.
Did you know? On January 1, 1892, Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork, Ireland, was the first immigrant processed at Ellis Island. She had made the nearly two-week journey across the Atlantic Ocean in steerage with her two younger brothers. Annie later raised a family on New York City?s Lower East Side.
Some of America?s first settlers came in search of freedom to practice their faith. In 1620, a group of roughly 100 people later known as the Pilgrims fled religious persecution in Europe and arrived at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they established a colony. They were soon followed by a larger group seeking religious freedom, the Puritans, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By some estimates, 20,000 Puritans migrated to the region between 1630 and 1640.
A larger share of immigrants came to America seeking economic opportunities. However, because the price of passage was steep, an estimated one-half or more of the white Europeans who made the voyage did so by becoming indentured servants. Although some people voluntarily indentured themselves, others were kidnapped in European cities and forced into servitude in America. Additionally, thousands of English convicts were shipped across the Atlantic as indentured servants.
Another group of immigrants who arrived against their will during the colonial period were black slaves from West Africa. The earliest records of slavery in America include a group of approximately 20 Africans who were forced into indentured servitude in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. By 1680, there were some 7,000 African slaves in the American colonies, a number that ballooned to 700,000 by 1790, according to some estimates. Congress outlawed the importation of slaves to the United States as of 1808, but the practice continued. The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) resulted in the emancipation of approximately 4 million slaves. Although the exact numbers will never be known, it is believed that 500,000 to 650,000 Africans were brought to America and sold into slavery between the 17th and 19th centuries.