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1492
Christoffer Colombus "discovers" America
In 1492 Christoffer Columbus discovered America with its original settlers of indigenous native americans who crossed over a land bridge, which connected Siberia into whats now Alaska and spread from there. -
Period: 1492 to
Immigration to America
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First settelers
In the year 1607 the first british settlers arrived in America. they settled down in Jamestown Virginia. after this other collonies began to show up other places in the US. -
Population growth
1620 - thousands of mostly British puritans came to America to get to the “new world” to escape religious persecution. Established rich trading posts in cities like new Amsterdam which is now New York city.
More than 90% of the early colonists became farmers, due to a lot of land. The early colonists needed big families to farm effectively which made a big boom in the population. -
Booming slave trade
1620 slave trade - tobacco was a highly profitable crop which was farmed in the southern part of America. The American immigrants began to take advantage of the growing slave trade. Most of the slaves were taken to the US because there was labor to be done. The increased slave trade resulted in a forced migration happened into America. -
Native Americans near extinction
In 1790 the US population is quite interesting. The native americans are by this point nearly extinct after being taken out by disease, war and migration to the west. Only around 100.000 of the native americans remained in America. -
Period: to
Spaniards settles in southern states.
In the west most Spaniards move west to settle into California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Most of those settlers were not of European descent, although they could all speak Spanish ethnically, they were a melting pot of whites, Indians and mestizos. -
Period: to
Population growth
Us population growth 1790 to 1850 - in just 2 decades, from 1830 to 1850 the number of immigrants tripled to around 170.000. In 1850 when to total population of America finally crossed 20 million the first anti-immigration law was put in place. This law was mainly made to target the Irish who were immigrating due to the potato famine -
Unskilled workers flood to america
1830 - around the 1830s another mass immigration began in America again, mostly consisting of people from Britain, Ireland and Germany. Some of them were attracted to the cheap farmland that was available due to westward expansion, and others were taking advantage to the manufacturing boom that was happening in cities caused by the industrial revolution. -
industrial workers
The Irish were unskilled labors who mostly built the railroads and canals and took jobs in the emerging textile mill towns.
Around half of the germans became farmers while the other half became craftsmen in urban areas.
Asian immigrants crossed the pacific to work on the transcontinental railroad or in the mines. -
steam ships bring immigrants to america
Large steam powered ships started to be common in the 1880s and began replacing the older ships. This made it faster and cheaper to travel over the oceans and made it easier for many to get to America. Due to this, millions of immigrants were coming to America, and they passed immigration processing stations, like Ellis island in New York or Angel Island in San Fransisco bay. -
American industries
World war 1 - during the first world war every country had to focus on producing supplies needed for war. The factories in Europe couldn’t meet the demands since most of the young workers were out in the fields or dead, therefor the factories in the US provided the need supplies. In 1917 when the US entered the fight themselves they now also had to make supplies for themselves and the rest. -
American urbanisation
in year the growing population in america created a need for urbanisation. large urban areas was created toaccommodate the large population -
anti immigration
1921 - the American congress pushed through a law that marked the turning point in American immigration policy, the law passed the senate 78-1. This law set a limit to the amount of immigrants that would be allowed into America each year. The amount of immigrants fell from 800.000 to just 300.000 admitted in 1921. -
immigration restrictions
In 1924 congress tightened up the quota even more and stationed a border patrol which said that all undocumented immigrant who tried to get into America would be deported