European emigration is the successive emigration waves from the European continent to other continents. The origins of the various European diasporas can be traced to the people who left the European nation states or stateless ethnic communities on the European continent. From 1500 to the mid-20th century, 60–65 million people left Europe, of which less than 9% went to tropical areas (the Caribbean, Africa and Asia ).
From 1815 to 1933, 65 million people left Europe, primarily to the Americas, with the largest numbers going to the United States, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, while others went to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Siberia. These populations also multiplied rapidly in their new habitat; much more so than the populations of Africa and Asia. As a result, on the eve of World War I, 38% of the world's total population was of European ancestry. Most European emigrants to the Americas came from Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Armenia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.
More contemporary, European emigration can also refer to emigration from one European country to another, especially in the context of the internal mobility in the European Union (intra-EU mobility) or mobility within the Eurasian Union.
History 8th - early 5th century BC: Greek settlement In Archaic Greece, trading and colonizing activities of the Greek tribes from the Black Sea, Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia") and Asia Minor propagated Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins. Greek city-states were established in Southern Europe, northern Libya and the Black Sea coast, and the Greeks founded over 400 colonies in these areas. Alexander the Great's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire marked the beginning of the Hellenistic period, which was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization in Asia and Africa; the Greek ruling classes established their presence in Egypt, southwest Asia, and Northwest India.Hellenistic Civilization Many Greeks migrated to the new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as geographically dispersed as Uzbekistan"Menander became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole of Saurashtra and the harbour Barukaccha. His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101 and Kuwait.
1450-1800: Immigration to the Americas
The European continent has been a central part of a complex migration system, which included swaths of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor well before the modern era. Yet, only the population growth of the late Middle Ages allowed for larger population movements, inside and outside of the continent. The European exploration of the Americas stimulated a steady stream of voluntary migration from Europe.
Roughly one and a half million Europeans settled in the New World during the period of 1500 and 1800.
Spanish and Portuguese
About 200,000 Spaniards settled in their American provinces prior to 1600, a small settlement compared to the 3 to 4 million Amerindians who lived in Spanish territory in the Americas.
During the 1500s, Spain and Portugal sent a steady flow of government and church officials, members of the lesser nobility, people from the working classes and their families averaging roughly three-thousand people per year from a population of around eight million. A total of around 437,000 left Spain in the 150-year period from 1500 to 1650 mainly to New Spain, Peru in South America, and the Caribbean Islands. It has been estimated that over 1.86 million Spaniards immigrated to the Americas in the period between 1492 and 1824, one million in the 18th century (during this century, emigration was encouraged by the new Bourbon dynasty in Spain), with millions more continuing to immigrate following independence.
Between 1500 and 1700, 100,000 Portuguese crossed the Atlantic to settle in Brazil. However, with the discovery of numerous highly productive gold mines in the Minas Gerais region, the Portuguese immigration to Brazil increased by fivefold. From 1500, when the Portuguese reached Brazil, until its independence in 1822, from 500,000 to 700,000 Portuguese settled in Brazil, with 600,000 in the 1700s. Though not usually studied, this represented one of the largest movements of European populations to their colonies to the Americas during the colonial times. According to historian Leslie Bethell, "In 1700 Portugal had a population of about two million people." During the 18th century hundreds of thousands left for the Portuguese Colony of Brazil, despite efforts by the crown to place severe restrictions on emigration.Leslie Bethell (1986). "[ The Cambridge history of Latin America: Colonial Latin America]". Cambridge University Press. p.47.
In the 18th century, thanks to the gold rush, the capital of the province of Minas Gerais, the town of Vila Rica (today, Ouro Preto) became for a time one of the most populous cities in the New World. This massive influx of Portuguese immigration and influence created a city which remains to this day, one of the best examples of 18th century European architecture in the Americas. The 2022 Brazilian census showed that 41.1% of Minas Gerais state identified as white Brazilian of European descent with the rest possibly having mixed Portuguese origins. However, the development of the mining economy in the 18th century raised wages and employment opportunities in the Portuguese colony and emigration increased: in the 18th century alone, about 600,000 Portuguese settled in Brazil.
British, Irish and German settlement in North America
Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures.Galenson 1984: 1 The practice was sufficiently common that the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, in part, prevented imprisonments overseas; it also made provisions for those with existing transportation contracts and those "praying to be transported" in lieu of remaining in prison upon conviction.Charles II, 1679: An Act for the better secureing the Liberty of the Subject and for Prevention of Imprisonments beyond the Seas., Statutes of the Realm: Volume 5, 1628–80, pp 935–938. Great Britain Record Commission, (1819) In any case, while half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies had been indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired. Free wage labor was more common for Europeans in the colonies.
Indentured persons were numerically important, mostly in the region from Virginia north to New Jersey. Other colonies saw far fewer of them. The total number of European immigrants to all 13 colonies before 1775 was about 500,000–550,000; of these, 55,000 were involuntary prisoners. Of the 450,000 or so European arrivals who came voluntarily, Tomlins estimates that 48% were indentured. About 75% were under the age of 25. The age of legal adulthood for men was 24 years; those over 24 generally came on contracts lasting about 3 years. Regarding the children who came, Gary Nash reports that, "many of the servants were actually nephews, nieces, cousins and children of friends of emigrating Englishmen, who paid their passage in return for their labour once in America."
Figures for emigration in the Spanish Empire in 1650–1800 and in Brazil in 1700–1800 are not given in the table. Of the 322,000 from Britain, 190,000–250,000 were Scottish and Irish.
+Numbers of European Emigrants 1500–1783 Country of origin Number Period Britain and Ireland 722,000 1607–1780 Portugal 100,000 1500–1700500,000 1700–1760 Spain 437,000 1500–1650German-speaking Europe 100,0001683–1783 France 51,000 1608–1760 Totals 1,410,000 1500–1783
In North America, immigration was dominated by British, German, Irish and other Northern Europeans.Boris Fautos – Fazer a América: a imigração em massa para a América Latina." Immigration to New France laid the origins of modern Canada, with important early emigration of colonists from Northern France.
From 1760 to 1820, the final phase of colonial immigration became dominated by free settlers and was marked by a huge increase in British immigrants to North America and the United States in particular. In that period, 871,000 Europeans immigrated to the Americas, of which over 70% were British (including Irish in that category). Many independent farmers and tenants emigrated to establish farms and plantations, as well as craftsmen.Altman, Ida, and James Horn, eds. "To Make America": European Emigration in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
19th century to 20th century
There was mass European immigration to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of a dramatic demographic transition in 19th-century Europe, subsequent wars and political changes on the continent. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the end of World War I in 1918, millions of Europeans emigrated. Of these, 71% went to North America, 21% to Central and South America and 7% to Australia. About 11 million of these people went to Latin America, of whom 38% were Italians, 28% were Spaniards and 11% were Portuguese. +European emigrants 1800–1960 Destination Percent United States 70.0% Latin America12.0% Russian Siberia 9.0% Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa 9.0% Total 100.0% Source:World Civilizations: Volume II: Since 1500 By Philip J. Adler, Randall L. Pouwels
Immigration to Brazil
In Brazil, the proportion of immigrants in the national population was much smaller. Immigrants tended to be concentrated in the central and southern parts of the country. The proportion of foreigners in Brazil peaked in 1920, at just 7 percent or 2 million people, mostly Portuguese and Italians. However, the influx of 4 million European immigrants between 1870 and 1920 significantly altered the racial composition of the country. From 1901 to 1920, immigration was responsible for only 7 percent of Brazilian population growth, but in the years of high immigration, from 1891 to 1900, the share was as high as 30 percent (higher than Argentina's 26 percent in the 1880s).
Country of arrivals The countries in the Americas that received a major wave of European immigrants from 1820s to the early 1930s were: the United States (32.5 million), Argentina (6.5 million), Canada (5 million), Brazil (4.5 million), Cuba (1.4 million), Chile (728,000), Uruguay (713,000).
Other countries that received a more modest immigration flow (accounting for less than 10 percent of total European immigration to Latin America) were: Mexico (326,000), Colombia (126,000), Puerto Rico (62,000), Peru (30,000), and Paraguay (21,000).
DestinationYearsArrivals 1821–1932 32,244,000 1856–1932 6,405,000 1831–1932 5,206,000 1818–1932 4,431,000 1821–1932 2,913,000 1901–1931 857,000 1881–1932 852,000 1882–1932 726,000 1836–1932 713,000 1821–1932 594,000 1901–1931 326,000
Legacy Distribution
After the Age of Discovery, different ethnic European communities began to emigrate out of Europe with particular concentrations in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico where they came to constitute a European-descended majority population.. These statistics rely on identification with a European ethnic group in censuses, and as such are subjective (especially in the case of mixed origins). Nations and regions outside Europe with significant populations:
Canada