The History of America

The United States has always been regarded as the land of opportunity, and over the centuries millions of Europeans have crossed the Atlantic to seek their fortunes in the New World. The Spanish were the first to settle there in what is now Florida, and were followed by the French in Maine in 1604. The English were not far behind; the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia was founded in 1607. Dutch, Swedish and German communities were also established around this time.

For two centuries or so the English and the Irish predominated. In 1780, for instance, three out of four Americans could claim English or Irish ancestry. But over the past hundred years the population has become much more diverse, with mass immigration from eastern and southern Europe, and more recently from Asia. American blacks are a special case: they were unwilling immigrants.

Money was not always the motivating factor. The Pilgrim Fathers sailed to America in order to be able to worship as they pleased; during the years of the Potato Famine tens of thousands of Irish families went there to escape starvation; from 1880 onwards there was large scale emigration of Jews escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe; and in our own time Cubans and South East Asians have sought asylum in America in large numbers.

For every one of these unfortunates, the United States meant hope and freedom, and many were doubtless inspired by the words on the base of the statue of Liberty in New York City harbour:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.