European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since the 17th century, European Americans have been the largest panethnic group in what is now the United States. According to the 2020 United States census, 58.8% of the White alone population and 56.1% of the White alone or in combination gave a detailed European write-in response.
The Spaniards were the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the contiguous United States, although arriving in small numbers, with Martín de Argüelles ( 1566) in St. Augustine, then a part of Spanish Florida, and the Russians were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska, establishing Russian America. The first British child born in the Americas was Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born in Roanoke Colony, located in present-day North Carolina, which was the first attempt, made during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanent English settlement in North America.
In the 2020 United States census, British Americans (46.6 million), German Americans (45 million), Irish Americans (38.6 million), Italian Americans (16.8 million) and Polish Americans (8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States.
The 2020 census was the first census to allow data collection on subtypes of Europeans. During previous surveys, the number of people with British ancestry was considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tended to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, "The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns", Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-6.Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82–86. A 2015 genetic study of 148,789 European Americans concluded that British ancestry was the most common European ancestry among white Americans, with this component ranging between 20% and 55% of the total population in all 50 states, showing its highest levels in the same states where "American" ancestry predominated on the census. The same applies to the number Americans of Spanish ancestry, as most people in that demographic tend to identify themselves as Hispanic and Latino Americans (65,140,276 or 19.4%), especially since the vast majority of this group and their ancestors came to the U.S. from Latin American countries rather than immigrating directly from Spain. Studies show that European genetic ancestry, mainly from Spain, is the largest component in Hispanic Americans, with a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry according to one study from 2014.
An increasing number of people ignore the ancestry or origins question or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the 2000 census this represented over 56.1 million or 19.9% of the United States population, an increase from 26.2 million (10.5%) in 1990 and 38.2 million (16.9%) in 1980 and are specified as "unclassified" and "not reported". In the 2020 U.S. census, 96.58 million people did not report any detailed white ethnic origins and are "Not specified".
Terminology
European Americans 1800–2010 Year Population % of the U.S. 1800 4,306,446 81.1 1850 19,553,068 84.3 1900 66,809,196 87.9 1950 134,942,028 89.5 2000 211,460,626 75.1 2010 223,553,265 72.4
Use In 1995, as part of a review of the Office of Management and Budget's Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting), a survey was conducted of census recipients to determine their preferred terminology for the racial/ethnic groups defined in the Directive. For the White group, European American came a distant third, preferred by only 2.35% of panel interviewees, as opposed to White, which was preferred by 61.66%.
The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo-American in the United States.
Origin In contexts such as medical research, terms such as "white" and "European" have been criticized for vagueness and blurring important distinctions between different groups that happen to fit within the label. Margo Adair suggests that viewing Americans of European descent as a single group contributes to the "wonder-breading" of the United States, eradicating the cultural heritage of individual European ethnicities.
Subgroups
There are several subgroupings of European Americans. While these categories may be approximately defined, often due to the imprecise or cultural regionalization of Europe, the subgroups are nevertheless used widely in cultural or ethnic identification. This is particularly the case in diasporic populations, as with European people in the United States generally. In alphabetical order, some of the subgroups are: Northwestern European Americans, including Austrian Americans, Belgian Americans, British Americans (Cornish Americans, English Americans, Manx Americans, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scottish Americans, Welsh Americans), Dutch Americans, French Americans (Breton Americans), German Americans, Irish Americans, Luxembourger Americans, Nordic and Scandinavian Americans (Danish Americans, Finnish Americans, Icelandic Americans, Norwegian Americans, Swedish Americans), and Swiss Americans, or "Old Immigrants" (the first waves of which arrived pre-1881) Eastern European Americans, including Belarusian Americans, Czech Americans, Estonian Americans, Hungarian Americans, Latvian Americans, Lithuanian Americans, Polish Americans, Russian Americans, Slovak Americans, and Ukrainian Americans, or "New Immigrants" (the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965) Southern European Americans, including Albanian Americans, Bosnian Americans, Bulgarian Americans, Croatian Americans, Cypriot Americans, Greek Americans, Italian Americans, Maltese Americans, Macedonian Americans, Moldovan Americans, Montenegrin Americans, Portuguese Americans, Romanian Americans, Serbian Americans, Slovenian Americans, and Spanish Americans (Basque Americans, Catalan Americans, Galician Americans), also "New Immigrants" or "New Immigrants"(the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965)
History
Historical immigration estimatesData From Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPS). Country Before 1790 Ancestry (1790) England* 230,000 1,900,000 France 150,000 500,000 Ulster Scotch-Irish* 135,000 320,000 Germany 103,000 280,000 Scotland* 48,500 160,000 Ireland 8,000 200,000 Netherlands 6,000 100,000 Wales* 4,000 120,000 Sweden and Other 500 20,000 *Totals, British 417,500 2,500,000+ United States 950,000 3,929,214
Before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans predominantly inhabited the United States. The earliest Europeans to colonize North America were the small number of Spaniards. The first Spanish colonization was in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida.EUROPEAN COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA One of the most significant Spanish explorers was Hernando De Soto, a conquistador who accompanied Francisco Pizzaro during his conquest of the Inca Empire.
Leaving Havana, Cuba, in 1539, De Soto's expedition landed in Florida. It explored the southeastern area of the United States. They reached as far as the Mississippi River in search of riches and fortune. Another Spaniard who explored the United States, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, set out from New Spain in 1540 in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. Coronado's expedition traveled to Kansas and the Grand Canyon but failed to discover gold or treasure. However, Coronado left a gift of horses to the Plains Indians. Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano and Frenchman Jacques Cartier are other Europeans who explored the United States. The Spaniards viewed the French as threatening their trade route along the Gulf Stream.United States History - The First Europeans
Since 1607, some 57 million immigrants from other lands have come to the United States. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to some other place or returned to their homelands, leaving a net gain of 47 million people.
During the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans arrived in North America in search of religious freedom, economic prospects, and political independence.
Shifts in European migration Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived from Northwestern Europe, principally Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia, known as "Old Immigration". Between 1881 and 1893, the pattern shifted in the sources of U.S. "New Immigration." Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe accounted for 69% of the total. Prior to 1960, the overwhelming majority came from Europe or of European descent from Canada. Immigration from Europe as a proportion of new arrivals has declined since the mid-20th century, with 75.0% of the total foreign-born population born in Europe compared to 12.1% recorded in the 2010 census.
Immigration since 1820 European immigration to the U.S. 1820–1970 Years Arrivals Years Arrivals Years Arrivals 1820–1830 98,816 1901–1910 8,136,016 1981–1990 1831–1840 495,688 1911–1920 4,376,564 1991–2000 1841–1850 1,597,502 1921–1930 2,477,853 2001-2010 1851–1860 2,452,657 1931–1940 348,289 2011-2020 1861–1870 2,064,407 1941–1950 621,704 1871–1880 2,261,904 1951–1960 1,328,293 1881–1890 4,731,607 1961–1970 1,129,670 1891–1900 3,558,793 1971–1980 Arrivals Total 35,679,763
Country of origin 1820–1978Public Opinion and the Immigrant: Mass Media Coverage, 1880–1980 Rita James Simon Country Arrivals % of total Country Arrivals % of total Germany1 6,978,000 14.3% Norway 856,000 1.8% Italy 5,294,000 10.9% France 4,351,000 9.5% Great Britain 4,298,000 9.4% Greece 655,000 1.3% Ireland 4,723,000 9.7% Portugal 446,000 0.9% Austria-Hungary1, 2 4,315,000 8.9% Denmark 364,000 0.7% Russia1, 2 3,374,000 6.9% Netherlands 359,000 0.7% Sweden 1,272,000 2.6% Finland 33,000 0.1% Total 34,318,000
Population born in Europe
The figures below show that of the total population of the specified birthplace in the United States, 11.1% were born overseas.
Population / Proportionborn in Europe in 1850–2020 Year Population % of foreign-born 1850 2,031,867 92.2% 1860 3,807,062 92.1% 1870 4,941,049 88.8% 1880 5,751,823 86.2% 1890 8,030,347 86.9% 1900 8,881,548 86.0% 1910 11,810,115 87.4% 1920 11,916,048 85.7% 1930 11,784,010 83.0% 1960 7,256,311 75.0% 1970 5,740,891 61.7% 1980 5,149,572 39.0% 1990 4,350,403 22.9% 2000 4,915,557 15.8% 2010 4,817,437 12.1% 2020 - - United States Demographics & Social 2015% Foreign-Born population in the United States
Birthplace Populationin 2010 Percentin 2010 Populationin 2016 Percentin 2016 Totals, European-born 4,817,437 12.0% 4,785,267 10.9% Northern Europe 923,564 2.3% 950,872 2.2% United Kingdom 669,794 1.7% 696,896 1.6% Ireland 124,457 0.3% 125,840 0.3% Other Northern Europe 129,313 0.3% 128,136 0.3% Western Europe 961,791 2.4% 939,383 2.1% Germany 604,616 1.5% 563,985 1.3% France 402,373 0.9% 575,383 1.2% Other Western Europe 209,216 0.5% 200,148 0.4% Southern Europe 779,294 2.0% 760,352 1.7% Italy 364,972 0.9% 335,763 0.8% Portugal 189,333 0.5% 176,638 0.4% Other Southern Europe 224,989 0.6% 247,951 0.5% Eastern Europe 2,143,055 5.4% 2,122,951 4.9% Poland 475,503 1.2% 424,928 1.0% Russia 383,166 1.0% 397,236 0.9% Other Eastern Europe 1,284,286 3.2% 1,300,787 3.0% Other Europe (no country specified) 9,733 0.0% 11,709 0.0% Source: 2010 and 2016
Demographics