Immigration began in the 1500s. The Spanish and French begun to establish settlements. In 1607, the English found a permanent settlement in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony. The first settlers in America came in “search of freedom to practice their faith”. The Pilgrims fled to Plymouth Massachusetts in 1620. Then the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Immigrants came seeking economic opportunities. The next major immigrant who arrived were black slaves from West Africa. Unfortunately, this group of immigrants was kidnapped and forced into slavery. English convicts were also shipped across the Atlantic ocean to work as indentured servants. There were 7,000 African Slaves in America by 1680. By 1790 700,000 black slaves were in America. Even though Congress outlawed the importation of Slaves to the US in 1808 the practice continued. 4 million slaves were in America by the end of the Civil War (1861-1865). In the Mid 19th Century there was a huge wave of immigration. Most immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe. “In the 1840s, almost half of America’s immigrants were from Ireland alone. Typically impoverished, these Irish immigrants settled near their point of arrival in cities along the East Coast. Between 1820 and 1930, some 4.5 million Irish migrated to the United States”.
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