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History of Immigration Through the 1850s

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . . .

-Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor

The United States is the most diverse nation on Earth. It has been built by millions of immigrants coming to our shores from

all the nations of the world. Immigrants have enriched our culture and contributed mightily to our economic growth. Countless

numbers have put down roots and found new opportunities in the United States.

The process has not always been easy. As newcomers, immigrants have faced poverty, prejudice, hostility, and even

violence.

But no other nation has been as successful as the United States in incorporating diverse peoples into one nation. Immigration

has defined us as a nation.

The first people in America were the ancestors of the American Indians. Most anthropologists believe these people crossed a

land bridge connecting what is now Siberia and Alaska. This migration started from 20,000 to 50,000 years ago and lasted

until the land bridge disappeared (it is now the Bering Strait).

Early European Immigrants

From 3 to 4 million Native Americans, or Indians, lived north of the Rio Grande River in North America when Europeans

began to explore and settle this area in the 1500s. The Spanish, French, English and Dutch were the chief colonizers of

North America.

Following the establishment of the first permanent English colonies in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), and Plymouth,

Massachusetts (1620), many colonists began to arrive in America. Between 1630 and 1643, about 20,000 people settled in

the New England colonies. They came for many reasons-to practice their religion freely, to own land, to escape poor harvests

and hunger, to earn a better living.

Between the English colonies in New England and Virginia lay the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. In 1624, England seized

this colony from the Dutch and renamed it New York. Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, Germans, Poles and other nationality

groups had already established settlements in the former Dutch colony.

Soon, the English colonies began to encourage northern Europeans to settle in America. Most of these people were

Christians, but Jews fleeing persecution in Europe also came to some colonies.

Over 50 percent of the early European immigrants arrived as indentured servants. These individuals promised to serve their

masters without pay for a set number of years. In return, the masters paid for their passage to America and for their upkeep

in America. Some indentured servants, called "redemptioners," were bound to the ship captain who brought them to the New

World. He then auctioned them off after arriving in one of the colonial ports.

The Slave Trade

The first black people to land in English America came as indentured servants who could work for their freedom. But in 1664,

the Maryland colonial legislature passed a law making all blacks in the colony, as well as their offspring, servants for life, and

the infamously cruel institution of chattel slavery in the British colonies in North America was born. Similar laws were passed

in other colonies.

A booming slave trade quickly developed. Slave ships in England loaded up with manufactured goods like cloth and muskets

and traveled to slave trading stations on the coast of Africa. Here, the captains negotiated with African slave dealers,

exchanging their goods for slaves. The slaves were then forced aboard ships to make the perilous "middle passage" across

the Atlantic.

Chained together, human beings were stacked on shelves below deck in filthy disease-ridden holds without light or fresh air.

They were often packed so closely together that they could only lie on their sides. Many ship captains believed that

overcrowding the ship would bring more money ― even if some of the slaves died. Thousands of Africans died on these

slave ship voyages, which often lasted up to three months. Ships transported an estimated 1 million slaves from West African

ports to the 13 English Colonies (and later to the United States).

Once in America, ship captains sold their slaves for cash, which they used to buy raw materials like sugar, tobacco, cotton, or

other plantation products. They took this new cargo back to England. This was called the "triangular trade."

Slavery existed in all 13 colonies before the American Revolution, although Northern colonies legally recognized black free

men and women. Southern planters became dependent on slave labor for their wealth. By 1804, all the Northern states had

abolished slavery. Congress outlawed the importation of new slaves in 1808. But slavery continued to grow in the South. The

division between the slave and free states led to the

Civil War in 1861. After the Civil War, the 13th

Amendment was adopted, and slavery became illegal

throughout the United States. Severe legal

discrimination against blacks persisted for another

100 years.

Irish Immigration

The first U.S. census in 1790 recorded about 4 million

people living in the colonies-about 700,000 of African

descent and 2 million of English descent. Some

400,000 Europeans came from countries other than

England.

European immigration to the United States increased

slowly after the Revolutionary War until 1840. Then

during the next 20 years, immigration exploded. From

1841 to 1860, over 4 million people came to the

United States. This represented a 600 percent

increase over the previous 20-year period. Most of

these immigrants came from Great Britain, Germany, and especially Ireland.

During the potato famines of the 1840s, thousands of people in Ireland died of starvation and disease. Many Irish decided to

leave Ireland and come to America. They were desperate, poverty-stricken people who could only afford to travel in

"steerage." This was a dark, confined area below the main deck of a ship (barely 51⁄2-feet high), located near the steering

mechanism. Despite these poor accommodations, 1.6 million men, women, and children left Ireland for America in the 1840s

and 1850s.

The sailing ships took anywhere from four to 14 weeks to cross the Atlantic. Before the end of the voyage, conditions in

steerage often became unbearable. There was usually little fresh water and the food (which the steerage passengers had to

supply for themselves) either ran out or rotted. Overcrowding, poor ventilation, and the lack of sanitation frequently led to

outbreaks of contagious diseases such as cholera. At the peak of the Irish immigration in the 1840s, about 25 percent of

those in steerage died during the voyage.

The American writer Herman Melville described steerage as "an open cesspool." He went on to write that Irish passengers in

steerage were "stowed away like bales of cotton, and packed like slaves in a slave ship, with no light and air; cut off from all

the most indispensable conveniences of a civilized dwelling."

The Irish landed in America at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. They were poor, Catholic peasants with few

marketable skills in an overwhelmingly Protestant and rapidly industrializing society. To survive, they took work as laborers

and servants in the new cities of the Northeast. Through the next decades, until well after the Civil War, Irish workers

contributed mightily to America's growing network of canals, railways, rural highways, city streets, sewers, and waterworks.

Nativist Reaction Against the Irish

The Irish faced discrimination because of their Catholicism. As more Irish people arrived, the Native American Party was

formed. Supporters of this party called themselves "nativists" believing that they, as white Protestant native-born Americans,

were superior to the incoming immigrants.

In 1844, violent rioting broke out between nativists and the Irish in Philadelphia. Several people were killed, and nativist mobs

burned Irish homes, stores, schools, and even churches. The army was called in to stop the riot.

At their national convention the following year, the members of the Native American Party called the newly arrived immigrants

a "swarm of aliens, who, like a deluge, annually poured moral and political corruption upon us."

In 1852, a nativist secret society, later known as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, was formed to oppose Catholics in

public office. Members of this society had to be white, native-born, Protestant, born of Protestant parents, and not married to

a Catholic. They attacked Irish neighborhoods and Catholic churches in the 1850s. When they were questioned about their

activities, they frequently replied, "I know nothing." Because of this response, other Americans soon called them "Know-

Nothings".

The "Know-Nothings" joined other nativists to successfully elect sympathetic politicians to public office. They opposed the

further immigration of "cheap working foreigners." In 1854, nativists elected nine governors and numerous members of state

legislatures and Congress. Two years later their presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, won almost 25 percent of the

national vote for president. He had already served a term as president before joining the Native American Party. But nativists

divided over the issue of slavery, and the Native American Party eventually collapsed.

In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded to the

United States all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada,

New Mexico, and parts of other States. The treaty also approved the

1845 annexation of Texas by the United States.

(Perry-Castaneda Map collection, University of Texas Library)

The Mexican Borderland

A 2,000-mile border today separates the United States from Mexico. This borderland region stretches from the Gulf of Mexico

on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. The entire area was once part of Mexico. Following the Mexican War, the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848. Under its provisions, Mexico ceded all of present-day California, Arizona,

New Mexico, and parts of other states to the United States. In addition, the treaty approved the 1845 annexation of Texas to

the United States. The treaty also recognized rights of Mexicans living within these areas, including the right to keep their

language, religion, culture, and property.

When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

was signed, about 75,000 Spanish-

speaking people lived in the Southwest.

They became American citizens because

the U.S.-Mexican border shifted several

hundred miles to the south.

Before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

Mexicans traveled freely in and out of the

area. After the treaty was concluded and

the area became part of the United States,

this pattern of movement continued.

Although maps showed a new

international border, Mexican citizens

residing south of the border kept visiting

their relatives who now lived north of the

border and vice versa. A constant stream

of people moved back and forth across the

border with little regard for border or

immigration regulations.

Mexicans also sought out work in the

borderland area. They stayed in the United

States for a few weeks, or for a few

months, or for many years. Some spent

major portions of their lifetimes living in

both Mexico and the United States. Others remained in this country permanently, raised families, worked, and paid taxes. By

being born in the United States, their children automatically became citizens.

For Discussion and Writing

1. What were the major European immigrant groups before 1850?

2. How was the immigration of Africans unique?

3. What is steerage? Why do you think people put up with traveling in such conditions?

4. Why did the Irish come to America? How do you account for the rise of nativism against the Irish? Why do you think

that members of most large immigrant groups have experienced resistance to their settling in America?

5. In what ways have immigrants from Mexico differed from those who came from Europe? What are some similarities of

those two groups?