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Plymouth
Plymouth was the first permanent New England settlement. Calvinists mainly settled here. People living here were fleeing several types of persecution in Europe. -
"The Great Migration" - Massachusetts Bay Colony
Many puritans immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England. Many moved to the colony in search of religious freedom. King James II of England unified it with other New England colonies later in 1686. -
German Immigration
German Immigration began in 1700. Germans composed 6% of the entire American population. They fled from religious persecution, economic opression, and war. The Germans mainly settled in the back country of Pennsylvania. -
Scots- Irish Immigration
In 1775, the Scots -Irished made up 7% of the entire American population. Many settled in Pennsylvania and later the "great wagon road" hugging the eastern Appalacian foothills. -
Treaty of Echota
The Cherokee leader sign a treaty relasing land to the west of the Mississippi to the United States government. The general Cherokee peoples are outraged. 15,600 men sign a petition to stop the treaty. This treaty causes a huge internal migration of Cherokee to western lands. -
Naturalization Act
This act increased the amount of time necessary for immigrants to become naturalized citizens in the United States from five to fourteen years. -
Alien Act
This act authorized the president to deport any resident alien whom he considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States." -
Alien Enemies Act
This act authorized the president to punish and deport resident aliens if their home countries were at war with the United States of America. This was intended to protect the american public from sedition and spy-like activities. -
Sedition Act
This act made it a illegal to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or any of its officials. If one is convicted of this crime, they are thrown in jail and fined $2,000. Many said this violated the 1st amendment of "freedom of press, religion, etc.". -
Puerto Rican Immigration
Political exiles were the first Puerto Rican immigrants. They fought for independence from Spain from the safety of the US, but when America itself gained Puerto Rico, they returned home. Poor islanders that needed jobs became the new major source of immigrants from Puerto Rico. -
Migration to Hawaii
New England missionaries began migrating to Hawaii to spread Protestant Christianity. Due to the new arrivals, Honolulu soon began to look like a New England town. The island also attracted shippers, sailers, and whalers from the mainland. America eventually considered Hawaii an extension of their own coastline. -
Indian Removal Act
Indians moved from east of the Mississippi river to west of the Mississippi. -
"Trail of Tears"
In response to the Treaty of Echota, 17,000 Cherokees take the "Trail of Tears" out west toward Oklahoma. Unfortunately, 4,000 Cherokee die during this internal migration. -
Westward Expansion - Oregon Trail
This 2,000 mile long trail was the beginning of Westward Expansion. Thousands of Americans followed this trail to make fortunes in the fur trapping business and to make new lives out west. -
Fort Laramie Treaty
The United States government forced the internal migration of the Sioux Indians becuase they wanted the gold in the Black Hills area. One of the leaders, Red Cloud, signed a treaty promising to stay on the reservation as long as the tribe is guarenteed provisions and money. -
"Boss Tweed"
"Boss Tweed" used bribery and fraud to "milk the metropolis". He offered jobs to new immigrants, bought them into voting for specific candidates in elections, etc. Tweed's profits amounted to approximetely $200 million. -
Jewish Immigration
In Poland and Russia, Jews were being religiously persecuted during this time. Thousands fled to America seeking religious freedom and a new life. -
Italian Immigration
Between 1880 and 1920, 4 million southern Italians immigrated to the United States of America. Mainly settling in NY harbour, they provided cheap labor and an easily manipulated political perspective. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
By 1880, there were 75,000 Asians in California. These immigrants performed low level jobs such as commerical cooks, laundrymen, or domestic servants. They were terrorized in the streets and in public venues. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a government attempt to stop/lessen immigration from Asia to the United States. -
New Immigration
Beginning in the 1850's, all the way through the 1880's, there was a new wave of immigrants from more southern and eastern European countries (Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Greece, Poland). Many of these immigrants were Jewish and worshiped Orthodox churches. They mainly settled in New York and Chicago, seeking jobs in factories rather than on farms. In 1882, there was 2,100 new immigrants to America in a single day. -
The Statue of Liberty
France gives the Statue of Liberty as a gift to the United States. For many Americans, it becomes a symbol of "scum washed up by immigrant tides". For others it represents the opportunity and freedom America offers to immigrants. -
Oklahoma "Boomers" and "Sooners"
On April 22, 1889, 50,000 "boomers" crowded at the Oklahoma boundary line, eager to settle in to this new territory. Please that were already settled in Oklahoma illegally were given the name "sooners". Many of the people migrating westward were seeking cattle driving and farming territories. -
Japanese Immigration
Japanese laborers and their families poured into California. Approximately seventy- thousand new immigrants arrived, and this worried the Americans living there. They were afraid of a new "yellow peril." -
Gentlemen's Agreement
After being pressed for space by an earthquake and a fire, school authorities in California decided that Japanese children had to attend special schools. This offended Japanese in America and Japan. Roosevelt worked out a solution to the crisis. The Board of Education and Japan accepted the "Gentlemen's Agreement." The Japanese part included withholding passports to stop the large amount of immigrants. -
Puerto Rican Citizenship
The United States granted Puerto Ricans citizenship. This caused more Puerto Ricans to immigrate in order to find jobs. The majority of them stuck together in New York City after arriving. -
Black Migration
During World War 1, many blacks migrated to northern cities from the South. They were drawn by war- industry employment, and worked in factories or steel mills. Their appearance in some areas that had previously been all white created violence and race riots. One of the major race riots occured in Chicago. -
Filipino Immigration
Filipinos began immigrating to Hawaii. Many were recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association for cheap labor. There were soon thousands working on sugar plantations and pineapple fields. A lot of them signed contracts that guaranteed a free passage back after three years of labor, but not all went back. Some ventured to the mainland and eventually made up California's agricultural work force. -
From the Country to the City
During the 1920's, the majority of Americans shifted from rural areas to urban centers. Many women even found jobs in the cities. -
United Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey founded UNIA to promote the resettlement of Africans in Africa. This migration of blacks back to Africa was to help promote economic prosperity among blacks. UNIA also sponsored stores and other businesses to help blacks keep their money in their wallets. -
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
The "New Immigration" of the 1920's caused Congress to pass the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. This restricted newcomers from Europe each year to a definite quota. The quota was 3% of the people of their nationality already living in the United States in 1910. -
Immigration Act
The Immigration Act of 1924 replaced the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. It cut the quote from 3% to 2%. Specific countries were allowed to send an allotted number of immigrants each year but Japanese persons were banned from the United States. Canadians and Latin Americans were exempt from the act. -
Hoovervilles
Due to the economic struggle faced by many Americans, thousands of people set us housing areas (slums) called Hoovervilles. Veterans were among the hardest hit by the Great Depression and many of them found themselves living in these slum areas outside of urban centers. -
Assimilation of Ethnic Groups
World War II sped the assimilation of many ethnic groups into mainstream American society. Government witch-hunting of minority groups slowed but Japanese people became a main target of the United States Government. -
Japanese Internment
110,000 Japanese Americans were sent to concentration camps on the Pacific Coast. The United States Government feared espionage and sabotage. The concentration camps deprived Japanese Americans of basic rights and caused them to lose most of their life's earnings. -
Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act, allowing Chinese nationals already living in the United States to become naturalized citizens. It also allowed a national quota of 105 Chinese immigrants per year. -
Mechanical Cotton Picker
The invention of the Mechanical Cotton Picker caused a great internal migration of Black tenant farmers and sharecroppers. The new picker made the South's need for cheap labor dissapear and therefore millions of blacks moved north. 1.6 million blacks left the south to seek jobs in war plants in the North and West. -
War Brides Act
The War Brides Act of 1945 allowed spouses and adopted children of United States military personnel to enter the U.S. after World War II.The law temporarily got rid of the ban on Asian immigration and the quotas on European immigration from the Immigration Act of 1924. -
Displaced Persons Act
The Act permitted that before July 1, 1950, 202,000 people from Europe that were driven form their homes in the years preceding World War II as a result of political or racial persecution and those forcibly transported form their homes during World War II would be allowed to immigrate to the US. -
The Immigration and Nationality Act
It incorporated most of the existing laws relating to immigration including two major changes which were the Asiatic Barred Zone, which had banned most Asian immigrants since 1917, was abolished and people from all nations are given the opportunity to enter the U.S. -
The Refugee Act
The Act made an additional allocation of places for the victims of the war disaster. -
Operation Wetback
It was a massive roundup of illegal Mexican immigrants residing in the US in 1954. The event occured under Eisenhower's Presidency. -
Immigration Act of 1965
The Act was signed by Lyndon B Johnson and granted residency to 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, with no more than 20,000 per country. One hundred twenty thousand immigrants from the Western Hemisphere with no “national limitations,” were to be admitted also. This bill was significant because immigrants were to be welcomed based on their skills and professions, not their countries of origin. -
Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Acts
They previously abolished the nation-origin quotas and established an annual limitation of 170,000 visas for immigrants in the eastern hemisphere in 1965. In 1977 they abolished separate quotas for the western and eastern hemispheres changing the quota to 290,000 immigrants worldwide annually with a maximum of 20,000 for any one country. -
The Refugees Act of 1980
It reduced the worldwide quota to 270,000 immigrants. -
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
It allowed most illegal aliens who had resided in the U.S. continuously since January 1 of 1982 to apply for legal status and prohibited employers from hiring illegal aliens while mandating penalties for violations. -
The Immigration Act of 1990
It set an annual ceiling of 700,000 immigrants per year to enter the U.S. for the next three years and an annual ceiling of 675,000 per year for every following year.
