-
1500
First Europeans established settlements : Spanish and French
-
English founded their first settlement, Virginia Colony
-
First black slaves from West Africa (20)
-
Group of 100 Pilgrims, Plymouth, Massachusetts -> fled religious persecution in Europe
-
Period: to
Group of 20,000 Puritans, same reason
-
Period: to
7,000 -> 700,000 African slaves in the American colonies
-
Slavery outlawed by the Congress but the practice continued
-
Period: to
2nd major wave of immigration
-
Half of the American’s immigrants were from Ireland
-
Asians -> significant number of them settlements, 25,000 of Chinese
-
anti-immigrants, anti-Catholic American party tried to severely immigration during the president election
-
Period: to
The U.S civil war -> emancipation of 4 million salves
-
Depression -> immigration slowed down
-
Chinese exclusion act -> 1st significant piece of federal legislation aimed at restricting immigration
-
600,000 Italian immigrants + central, eastern and southern europeans = majority arrivals
-
The President Benjamin Harrison designated Ellis Island as a federal immigration station
-
Peak Year -> 1.3 million people entered the country illegally
-
Period: to
World War One -> decline in immigration
-
Congress enacted legislation requiring immigrants over 16 to pass a literacy test
-
Period: to
Quotas established
-
Immigration Act created a quota system that restricted entity to 2% of the total number of people of each nationality in America
-
Period: to
America’s foreign-born -> population decreased from 14.2 -> 10.3 million
-
Period: to
World War two plummeted immigration
-
Congress -> after the war they passed a legislation enabling refugees from Europe + Soviet union to enter the U.S
-
Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act
-
Communist Revolution in Cuba -> hundreds of thousands of refugees from that island nation gained admittance to the U.S
-
Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act