Motivations For Immigration 1500s - 1700s

As a student of culture in all its forms, the writing below was my response to the questions in blue that were given to me for a course on immigration at Metro.

Discuss the process and motivations for immigration as identified by Daniels in chapter one.  What factors in Europe created the right atmosphere for the era of American exploration and colonization from the 1500s through the 1700s?  Identify and describe the migration theories of E.G Ravenstein and Frank Thistlewaite, and how they apply to the North American experience of these years.  Do their arguments still seem applicable to discussions over immigration to the United States in the early twenty-first century?

The people who took part in the populating of America came over for many different reasons. Events in Europe created pressures that made people look to new opportunities outside of the continent. Several theories have arisen to explain why people thought it best to leave the homes of their ancestors for areas unknown. These theories can be used to look at why people are still moving around today. The key aspect of immigration is that people thought by going elsewhere, that they could change their lives for the better.

            On a large scale, faith and empire were two of the strongest factors that defined the colonization of the Americas (Daniels, 5). When looked at on the scale of the individual faith was a key factor, but overall it was the chance to improve one’s life. These improvements could be anything from more religious freedom then they had back in Europe, to being able to find work that could potentially change one’s status from the accrual of wealth/land. The different branches of Christianity were coming head to head and the losers in areas were willing to leave in order to be able to worship how they saw fit. Land ownership in Europe for the most part was locked up and if people wanted the chance to get cheap land they had to look to the Americas for the chance to become land owners. Labor policies varied depending on who controlled the colony and many times were different than the ones back in the home country (Daniels, 9). With land becoming scarcer in the old world, people were encouraged by cheap land or land grants to populate the new world. People started to move either in groups or by themselves out of Europe seeking lives different then what they could have in their home countries. Trying to understand why and how all of this worked can be complicated and theorists have come up with a few ideas to explain how migration worked/s.

            One such theorist was E.G. Ravenstein whose main concept can be broken into three parts: “characteristics of migrants, patterns of migration, and volume of migration” (Daniels, 18). The first part points out that “only a minority of any population is likely to migrate” and that the migration will be very selective in who goes (Daniels, 18). The parts of a population that start moving out are the ones that are unhappy with some aspect of their lives and hope to be able to changes things by going somewhere new. Characteristics (such as gender or age) can be tracked based on who was going where. Next, patterns of migration take the form of “well-defined streams” with people moving from one well defined area to another (Daniels, 19). People would flock together with others that shared similar views, nationalities, hopes, and dreams. At the same time though, counter-streams develop where people return to where they first came from (Daniels, 20). These people did not find the conditions favorable to the changes that they wanted to make in their lives or hardships made them rethink their motives for leaving. For the last part of his theory, the volume of migration is affected by things like diversity of territory, means, economic conditions, and “the state of progress in both countries” (Daniels, 21). His theories mostly focused on movement between Europe and the United States, but other theorists felt that there were shortfalls in doing this.

            One such theorist was Frank Thistlewaite who pointed out that “there was also a massive movement elsewhere” that other theorists did not take into account (Daniels, 23). He thought that theorists/historians saw European emigration as American focused and did not take into account other places that they went (Daniels, 24). Most of Europe’s 22 million emigrants that did not go to the United States went to other British dominions, such as Australia or Brazil (Daniels, 24). The people moved to areas that they could either “afford” to get to or to places where they felt that they had the best chance to improve their lives. They knew that they had options and not everyone thought that moving to America was the right choice. Thistlewaite wanted theorists/historians to take into account the much larger picture. Even though theorists looked at things differently, many of their ideas can still be used today.

            Immigration to the United States can still be looked at with the theories that were developed in the past. E.G. Ravenstein’s three part concept could help law makers understand the who and why behind the movement of people coming into the United States. The first part of the theory could point out what parts of a population are being persecuted in their home country and the government could try to address issues relating to them on a global level in a forum like the United Nations. The second part of his theory could show where these people feel more comfortable living and what areas of the country could use extra support for social programs to support them. For “the state of progress in both countries” from last part of his theory, could point out the state of other countries when compared to the United States and which countries they could help to slow the flow of immigration. Frank Thistlewaite’s point could allow governmental officials to understand why immigrants chose to go to other countries instead of the United States. These theories have many practical uses to help governmental officials respond to immigration in the United States in the early twenty-first century.

            The pressures in Europe had gotten so bad that exploration and colonization started to look really good to people from all social classes. People were willing (and still do) to try and brave new lands to find opportunities that they couldn’t find at home, and sometimes they ended up returning to the countries that they left. Theorists such as E.G. Ravenstein and Frank Thistlewaite tried to build an understanding of immigration from all the data that would be useful for understanding why and how people were from one place to another. These theories could still be used today to help with discussions on immigration to the United States in the past and today. Over all, it comes down to people doing whatever they thought would improve their lives.

Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A Story of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, Second Edition (ISBN 9780060505776)