European immigration to the Americas was one of the largest migratory movements in human history. Between the years 1492 and 1930, more than 60 million Europeans immigrated to the American continent. Between 1492 and 1820, approximately 2.6 million Europeans immigrated to the Americas, of whom just under 50% were either British or Irish, 40% were Spanish or Portuguese, 6% were Swiss or German, and 5% were French.
But it was in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century that European immigration to the Americas reached its historic peak. Never before in human history have so many people immigrated to another continent. Between 1815 and 1930, 60 million Europeans emigrated, of which 71% went to Northern America, 21% to Latin America, and 7% to Australia. This mass immigration had as a backdrop economic and social problems in the Old World, allied to structural changes that facilitated the migratory movement between the two continents. British people and Iberians continued to immigrate, but influxes from other parts of Europe, particularly Germany, Italy, Ireland, Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire and Scandinavian countries also became numerous.
Immigration history Between 1492 and 1640
European immigration to the Americas, 1492–1640 Country of origin Number Portugal 200,000 Spain 190,000 Great Britain 50,000 France 4,000 Netherlands 2,000 Total 446,000
Between 1492 and 1640, approximately 446,000 Europeans immigrated to the Americas. At that stage, immigration was dominated by Portuguese and Spaniards, who accounted for 87% of the settlers who left Europe. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the decision by Spanish and Portuguese monarchs to take possession of the New World and establish crown-governed colonies required the transfer of large numbers of colonists. The plundering of Native American societies and the Spanish discoveries of silver mines in Potosí, in Upper Peru, and Zacatecas, in Mexico, in the 1540s, provided a significant stimulus to immigration. In the long run, however, the most important development that encouraged large-scale immigration of settlers from Europe was the production of consumer goods in high demand in Europe, most notably sugar and, to a lesser extent, tobacco.Horn, James, and Philip D. Morgan. "Settlers and Slaves: European and African Migrations to Early Modern British America." In The Creation of the British Atlantic World, edited by Elizabeth Manke and Carole Shammas. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.Altman, Ida, and James Horn, eds. "To Make America": European Emigration in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
In the Americas, Portuguese Brazil (specifically the northeastern captaincies of Pernambuco and Bahia) emerged as the epicenter of world sugar production around 1600. Brazil was followed half a century later by a new sugar plantation complex founded by the British and French (supported by Dutch merchants) on the islands of Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Martinique and Guadeloupe, in the West Indies. Meanwhile, in Chesapeake, the English colonies of Virginia and Maryland began to rapidly expand tobacco production during the 1620s and 1630s. At that time, plantation-based colonies absorbed the vast majority of European immigrants (and enslaved Africans).
During the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, the origins of Spanish immigrants were strongly drawn from the Spanish southwest, with the majority of settlers coming from Andalusia, Extremadura and Castile. Andalusia alone contributed a third to a half of all immigrants from Spain. However, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the character of Spanish emigration changed dramatically, with much greater numbers moving from the poorer north coast provinces (Galicia, Cantabria and the Basque Country), from the east (Catalonia) and the Balearic and Canary Islands. In the case of Brazil, in the first century of colonization, settlers came mainly from the Lisbon region, but later they came mainly from Northern Portugal (Trás-os-Montes and Entre Douro e Minho).José Moya. Canada and the Atlantic World: Borderlands and Transnationalism in the United States and Canada
Between 1640 and 1760
European immigration to the Americas, 1640–1760 Country of origin Number Great Britain 592,000 Portugal 300,000 Spain 160,000 Germany 97,000 France 96,000 Netherlands 18,000 Total 1,263,000
In the second phase, from 1640 to 1760, European immigration to the Americas tripled and British immigration surpassed the Spanish and Portuguese one. During this period, close to 1.3 million colonists left Europe for the New World. Most of the 350,000 English immigrants who crossed the Atlantic, during the 17th century, went to the West Indies (180,000) and to the Chesapeake Colonies, in the southern United States (120,000). Only about 23,000 went to the North American-Central colonies and 21,000 to New England.Horn, James. "British Diaspora: Emigration from Britain, 1680–1815." In The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, edited by P. J. Marshall. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Portugal and Spain had no difficulty finding citizens who were willing to emigrate to their colonies in the Americas, so that Iberian emigration to the Americas was predominantly spontaneous. The supply of Portuguese and Spanish people willing to emigrate was so high that the Spanish and Portuguese governments even had to restrict emigration to the Americas (very early Spain had restricted emigration to the Spanish West Indies and Portugal had to pass three laws prohibiting the migration of people from the Portuguese Northwest to Brazil, in the years 1709, 1711 and 1720, to contain the large numbers of Portuguese who were going to Minas Gerais, during the Brazilian Gold Rush). Gold from Minas Gerais produced an era of economic prosperity not only in the Minas Gerais region, but also on the Brazilian coast. Regarding the law enacted in 1720, Portuguese authorities stated: "Having been the most populated, Minho today is a state in which there are not enough people to cultivate the land or provide for the inhabitants".
However, this was not the case in Great Britain, France and the Netherlands, nations that had difficulties in recruiting settlers and had to resort to forced or semi-voluntary immigration. It is often said that Portugal had difficulties in populating Brazil and that it sent Portuguese criminals for that purpose. However, this statement is not true, as the number of Portuguese willing to emigrate to Brazil voluntarily has always been large. In fact, sending prisoners to their colonies was a more common practice in British colonization, not in the Portuguese one.
More than 65% of the 600,000 British who immigrated to the Americas before 1780 arrived as forced laborers, and over 60,000 were condemned prisoners. In the Antilles, the French authorities had to appeal to volunteers (engagés) and prisoners to maintain a European presence in their colonies. To populate Quebec and Louisiana, the French government had to recruit engages, soldiers and women in orphanages and asylums (the Filles du Roi). The Netherlands had to recruit sailors from the East and West India companies (half of whom were not Dutch), as well as soldiers, forced laborers, orphans and foreigners to populate its colonies.José Moya. Migration and the historical formation of Latin America in a global perspective
Therefore, European immigrants of this period can be divided into two groups: those who arrived free and those who were subject to some form of contractual work obligation. Of the latter, the vast majority were indentured servants (British), engages (French) and redemptioners (Germans), who added up to about half a million immigrants, between 1500 and 1800. Convicts and political prisoners contributed another 129,000 immigrants. In addition, there were an undetermined number of men and women who were serfs (e.g. Spanish servants) in the service of a civil servant, priest or gentleman, but who might have been of relatively high social standing.
Many of the British, French, Swiss and German settlers who immigrated during that period were bound by a employment contract, which normally required them to work for four to seven years, in return for the cost of passage, food and lodging, and certain payments called "freedom dues". Freedom dues were paid by the master to the servant, upon completion of the term of service, and normally took the form of provisions, clothing, tools, land rights, money, or a small part of the harvest (tobacco or sugar).
Even though it is impossible to specify the proportion of Europeans who arrived in the Americas as non-free workers, certainly no less than 25% of them were serfs, convicts or prisoners. During the peak years of serf emigration, in the second half of the 17th century, the proportion was around 50%. Between 1620 and 1700, indentured servants made up between 70 and 85 percent of the settlers who emigrated to the Chesapeake and to the British West Indies.
The vast majority of settlers were young (between 16 and 25 years old), male and single. In the 16th century, Spanish females never accounted for more than 30% of the total immigrants. Over three-quarters of the serfs who left England in the 17th century were men or boys, rising to over 90% between 1718 and 1775. Of the French 'engages' who left Nantes and Bordeaux in the early 18th century, over 90% were men and between 67 and 70% were 19 years of age or younger. It is often claimed that British colonists arrived in the Americas in family groups, bringing wives. However, the proportion of women was only high in exceptional cases, such as the Puritans who emigrated to New England and the Quakers to Pennsylvania. The proportion of women among British immigrants was similar to that among Portuguese and Spanish immigrants: between 20 and 25% of the total. Men constituted the absolute majority in almost all migratory flows.
Between 1760 and 1820
European immigration to the Americas, 1760–1820 Country of origin Number Great Britain 615,000 Portugal 105,000 Spain 70,000 Germany 51,000 France 20,000 Netherlands 5,000 Others 5,000 Total 871,000
The final phase of colonial immigration, from 1760 to 1820, 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.
In the first century of colonization, most settlers in the Thirteen Colonies (present-day United States) came from the southwest of England. However, in the 18th century, the origins of the settlers became more diverse, with many coming from the Celtic periphery and Germany (35% Irish, including Scots-Irish from Ulster, 12% Scots and 27% Germans). As Germans had no colonies in the region, attention is drawn to the large number of Germans who emigrated to the Americas before 1820, a larger number than the French and Dutch, who had colonies. These Germans went to the British colonies, most of whom were recruited in the Rhineland region and arrived as indentured servants, as did most of the British colonists.José Moya. The Iberian Atlantic, 1492–2012