Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York/Chapter 1
IMMIGRATION TO NEW YORK.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION—LAW OF EMIGRATION—THE UNITED STATES THE FAVORITE LAND OF THE EMIGRANT.
Causes of Emigration FROM the remotest ages down to the present day, from the first Phoenician and Greek colonies down to the settlement of the North Pacific coast, two principal causes have always induced emigration and led to the establishment of new states and empires, viz., political or religious oppression and persecution, and social evils, such as want of prosperity or insecurity, lack of employment, famine, and high prices of living in general. In modern times, either of these causes has proved powerful enough to produce emigration on a large scale from certain countries. People who are happy and comfortable at home do not emigrate; the poor and oppressed only, who cannot find a fair reward for their labor in the land of their birth, or who feel themselves obstructed and thwarted in their religious or political aspirations, seek to better their condition by a change of country.
Development of the United States due to EmigrationThe territory which constitutes the present United States owes its wonderful development mainly to the conflux of the poor and outcast of Europe within it. The adventurers who discovered and first settled it belonged to the feudal aristocracy of Europe. Being neither able nor willing to work, they failed and perished, and gave way to the so-called lower classes of society to the sturdy farmer and the industrious mechanic. Feeble as their efforts were in the beginning, the toils and sufferings, the patience and perseverance of these voluntary and involuntary exiles have, in a comparatively short time, built up a powerful commonwealth, the proud structure of this Republic, which in itself is the glorification, the epopee of free and intelligent labor.
Scanty immigration previous to 19th centuryThe immigration of Europeans in large masses into America, however, is of a more recent date, an outgrowth of the nineteenth century. It is true, in earlier periods, immigrants also found their way to the European possessions in the New World, but their number at any given time was comparatively small. There arrived during the whole year, in all the American colonies, hardly as many as land now on one summer day in the city of New York alone. During the first century of the settlement of the country by the English and the Dutch, a few hundred new immigrants attracted the public attention of the whole colony, and towards the end of the last century the arrival of two ships laden with Germans, on one day, created quite a sensation in New York.
Reasons there for.The reasons for this numerical difference are obvious. Communication between Europe and America was in its infancy. During the favorable season of the year, a vessel now and then sailed from an English, Dutch, or French port for America. No Continental country had any intercourse with the then English colonies except by way of England. The trips required seldom less than eight weeks. Their regular time was from three to four months, but very often the passage occupied six months and more. On the other hand, the horizon of the European masses did not extend beyond their native village and its immediate neighborhood. The great majority of the people were too poor, too degraded even to conceive the idea of throwing off their shackles, of trying, at least, to run away from their misery to the New World. The two countries, which were then, as they are now, the principal sources of emigration, viz., Germany and Ireland, furnished a small number only. In South-western Germany, emigration on a large scale commenced in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in consequence of wars, famine, and religious persecutions; but, during the whole century, only from 80,000 to 100,000 Germans settled in America. Ireland did not send forth as many tens as it does now thousands.
This essay will be confined to the port of New York, and, when the contrary is not expressly stated, it treats of immigration in connection with New York only.
Commercial preeminence of New York, and its orginThe present metropolis of American commerce, although one of the oldest cities built by European emigrants, had become more than two hundred years old before she assumed the leading part in the trade of the country. According to the first census, taken in 1790, the State of New York was the fifth in population, and ranked even after Massachusetts and North Carolina. In 1800, it rose to the third; 1810, to the second, and only in 1820 to the first position, which it has since maintained. The city of New York kept even pace with the State. During the first ten years of the present century, she was inferior to Philadelphia, the then largest city in the United States, in population and commerce. In 1820, she numbered, for the first time, a few thousand inhabitants more than the Quaker City; but, in the decade of 1820 to 1830, she established her superiority beyond any doubt. The Erie canal The noble work of her great statesman, De Witt Clinton, viz., the connection of the Atlantic with the great lakes by a canal, carried out between 1817 and 1825, proved the firm basis on which New York City built her all-controlling influence and power, always steadily advancing and never receding, and to-day mightier than ever before. Had there been no De Witt Clinton, had there been no Erie Canal, in vain would have been the central position and commercial advantages of this city. She was not the first city of America until her great men gave artificial extension and development to those advantages, and thereby fixed on her, for centuries, the honored advantage of being the emporium of the Western World. If she is to maintain this position, she will do it because she will have great men continually able to keep her in advance. As she has seized the canal, telegraph, and railroad and pressed them into her services, so she must be ready, as new inventions are presented, to seize them and turn them to her advantage. Prior to the completion of the Erie Canal, New York had but a small number, if any, of staple articles which she could export. Even ten years expired after that event before she could compete with the other harbors of the Eastern coast. Charleston had her cotton, rice, and indigo, for which European vessels preferred her port; Baltimore was the centre of the tobacco trade for Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio; Philadelphia monopolized the greater portion of the coasting business; but New York had first to build up her export trade. The interior was not sufficiently developed to offer commodities for European markets; even wheat, which forms in our days one of the most important export staples, was imported from the Baltic and Portugal as late as the Exports years 1836 to 1838. About 1830, New York commenced with the export of whale oil, which the whalers brought to New Bedford, Sag Harbor, and smaller ports, where it was purchased by New York merchants for shipment to Europe. Tobacco soon followed, which was sent to New York from the interior, and, in consequence of the Tobacco Inspection established in 1834, could be assorted and purchased here just as well as in Baltimore and Richmond. Every subsequent year added a new article of export. Philadelphia, once paramount to New York, did not follow the latter in the path of progress, and European merchants became every year more satisfied that they would find at all times ready return freights from New York, and for this reason they preferred it before all other Atlantic ports. Thus, with her daily growing commerce, with her better facilities for shipping and freighting, and with her better inland communications, she naturally attracted more emigrants than any other port of the Union, and entered upon the second third of the present century as the great receiving depot of European immigration.
Immigration in 17th and 18th centuries, under Dutch and English rule The facts connected with the immigration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are only imperfectly known to us, and have almost exclusively an historical interest for the present generation. They can be explained in a few short paragraphs.
Under the Dutch rule (1625-1664) emigrants were attracted by land grants and other substantial inducements. At times they obtained a free passage; at other times they had to pay the small charge of one shilling per day. A ship or two per year carried all the reinforcements and supplies to the colony. During that whole period immigration did not exceed a few thousand.
The English Colonial Government did little or nothing for the encouragement of European immigration to New York. The first and only attempt it ever made at settling emigrants was carried out in 1709 and 1710, when, out of about 15,000 Protestant Swabians and Palatines, it sent at its own expense about 3,000 to New York. These poor people, as stated above, were driven from their homes by war, famine, and religious persecution, and now threw themselves in endless numbers upon the sympathies of England. While others of these exiles were sent to Ireland and North Carolina, Governor Hunter settled the above 3,000 on the Hudson River, where he proposed to employ them Colonization of 3,000 Palatine exiles on Hudson River making naval stores. But the experiment failed in consequence of the narrow-mindedness of the colonial officers, the sharp practices of a Scotch speculator, and of the misapprehension of the conditions of an emigrant's success—first among which is freedom of action and of movement. The English Government wanted subjects and servants; the emigrants wanted to become free and independent. Hence first the irrepressible conflict, and finally the victory of the immigrants.
All who thenceforth emigrated came on their own account. Scotch and German immigrants to Central New York Thus the Scotch, under Captain Campbell, who settled near Lake George (1740); the Baden farmers, who, in the middle of the eighteenth century, founded New Durlach, the present Sharon in Schoharie County; thus the Germans, who settled in the Mohawk Valley, and the immigrants who were imported in 1793 and 1794: by the Genesee Association. During the whole of the last century, the immigration of from eighty to one hundred families, in a body, was an event of great and general interest. The ships, which arrived at intervals, seldom had more than a hundred or one hundred and fifty passengers on board. New York had only a secondary importance, and attracted fewer immigrants than Pennsylvania, because they were better treated in the Quaker State. For this reason, Philadelphia had regular communications with Holland and England, and, as an immigrant port, ranked far above New York.
But in Philadelphia, as well as in New York, the great majority Sale of Immigrants for passage money of immigrants were very poor people, so poor that they could not pay their passage, and in order to meet the obligations incurred by them for passage-money and other advances, they were sold, after their arrival, into temporary servitude. During all the last century, the prepayment of the passage was the exception, and its subsequent discharge by compulsory labor the rule. The ship owners and ship merchants derived enormous profits from the sale of the bodies of emigrants, as they charged very high rates for the passage, to which they added a heavy percentage—often more than a hundred per cent.—for their risks. But the emigrants suffered bitterly from this traffic in human flesh. Old people, widows, and cripples would not sell well, while healthy parents with healthy children, and young people of both sexes, always found a ready market. If the parents were too old to work, their children had to serve so much longer to make up the difference. When one or both parents died on the voyage, their children had to serve for them. The expenses for the whole family were summed up and charged upon the survivor or survivors. Adults had to serve from three to six years, children from ten to fifteen years, till they became of age; smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to masters, who had to raise and board them. As all servants signed indentures, Indented servents they were called "indented servants." Whenever a vessel arrived at Philadelphia or New York, its passengers were offered at public sale. The ship was the market-place, and the servants were struck off to the highest bidder. The country people either came themselves or sent agents or friends to procure what they wanted, be it a girl or a "likely" boy, or an old housekeeper, or a whole family. Among the records of this traffic there is a characteristic anecdote, about the wife of Sir Sir William Johnson and his German wifeWilliam Johnson, the Indian agent, and most prominent man of Western New York, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Catharine Weisenberg had arrived in New York a poor German orphan girl, and had been sold as an indented servant to two brothers, Alexander and Herman Philipps, farmers in the Mohawk Valley. Catharine soon became the belle of the settlement, and was courted by a great many swains; but none of them was rich enough to buy her. Johnson, when passing by, saw her, and at once resolved to make her his wife. He offered one of the Philippses five pounds, threatening at the same time to give him a sound thrashing if he did not voluntarily part with the girl. Philipps knew that Johnson was the man to make good his word, took the five pounds, and sold Catharine to Johnson, who married her at once. The match turned out excellent.
"Robust farmers and sturdy mechanics," says D. von Buelow, D. von Buelow on the Emigrant Marketthe celebrated military writer, who first visited the United States in 1791, "find a very easy market. At times, however, an unsalable article creeps in which remains for a long time on the shelf. The worst of these articles are military officers and scholars. The captain who imports that kind of goods does not know the market. I have seen a Russian captain for more than a week on board of a vessel, heavy as ballast, without being able to obtain a purchaser. He was, in fact, unsalable. The captain The unsalable Russianof the vessel entreated him to try, at least, to find a purchaser, and, in order to get rid of him, he offered to sell him at a discount of fifty per cent. He sent the captain on shore to make the people take a fancy to him; but it was of no avail, nobody had a mind to buy him. The Russian always spoke of stabbing with bayonets, which, he said, he had often practised against the Turks and Poles. Strictly speaking, the use of the bayonet was the only art he had mastered. Finally, the captain and consignee released him upon his promise to pay his passage after six months, and flattered him with the hope of obtaining a school-mastership in the country. He really obtained it. What he will teach the boys and girls I do not know, unless it be the bayonet exercise."
Peasants and mechanics generally got along tolerably well. Hardships of early immigrantsMuch, of course, depended on the character of the master. There are instances of immigrants having been treated worse than cattle, and driven to work with blows and kicks, so that the colonial authorities had to interfere. The better educated a man was, the more he had learned at home, the worse it was for him. Hard drinking and suicide were often the fate of the unfortunates of this class. Parents sold their children, in order to remain free themselves. When a young man or a girl had an opportunity to get married, they had to pay their master five or six pounds for each year they had still to serve. Yet a steerage passage never cost more than ten pounds. Run-away servants had to serve one week for each day, one month for each week, and six months for each month of absence. If the master did not want to keep his servant, he could sell him for the unexpired time of his term of servitude. It was a daily occurrence that whole families were separated for ever. In short, the whole system was utterly vicious and little better than slavery. It was only slavery for a term of years, but in all other respects just as cruel and iniquitous as that form of bondage.
immigrant slavery abolished in 1819This mode of making the immigrant pay his passage died out in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The last sales of passengers are reported in 1818 and 1819 in Philadelphia. We do not hear of indented servants after 1819, when immigration began to consist of a much better and well-to-do class of people, and the United States first intervened in behalf of this important economic interest.
Estimated immigrant from 1775 till 1815From 1775 till 1815 immigration had been very slim, partly on account of the American Revolution, and partly on account of the wars ending with the overthrow of Napoleon I. In 1818, Dr. Adam Seybert, member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, in his valuable "Statistical Annals of the United States" (pp. 28 and 29), wrote to the following effect: "Though we admit that ten thousand foreigners may have arrived in the United States in 1794, we cannot allow that an equal number arrived in any preceding or subsequent year, until 1817." Samuel Blodget, a very accurate statistician, wrote, in 1806, that, from the best records and estimates then attainable, the immigrants arriving between 1784 and 1794 did not average more than 4,000 per annum. Seybert assumes that 6,000 persons arrived in the United States from foreign countries in each year from 1790 to 1810. Both averages, however, seem to be too large; 3,000 for the first, 4,000 for the second period named is a very liberal estimate.
Immigration after Napoleonic warsThe difficulty experienced in disposing of property at satisfactory prices prevented many from leaving the Old World immediately after the close of the Napoleonic wars. But the great famine of 1816 and 1817 drove several thousands over the ocean. Here it may be stated that, from that time forward, the material and moral causes of immigration, above alluded to, regularly governed the numerical proportions of the influx of Europeans into the United States in successive years. To prove the controlling influence exercised over immigration by material misery, on the one hand, and political oppression, on the other, a few statistical will suffice.
While, in 1826, of 10,837 immigrants 7,709 came from the Social and political causes influencing Irish and German immigrationUnited Kingdom, in 1827 their number increased to 11,952 out of 18,875, and in 1828 to 17,840 of a total of 27,283; but in 1829 their number fell to 10,594 of 22,530, and in 1830 to 3,874 of 23,322 souls. These fluctuations were due to the great commercial panic of 1826, and the distress in the manufacturing districts of England, as well as the famine in Ireland, which drove thousands from their homes who, under ordinary circumstances, would never have thought of emigration.
Again, in Germany, where the abortive revolutionary movement of 1830-1833, the brutal political persecutions by the several state governments, and the reactionary policy of the federal diet, as well as a general distrust of the future, produced an unusually large emigration: In 1831, only 2,395 Germans had arrived in the United States; in 1832, 10,168; in 1833, 6,823; and in 1834 to 1837, the years of the greatest political depression, 17,654, 8,245, 20,139, and 23,036 respectively.
The emigration from Ireland, which from 1844 rose much Greatest Irish immigrationbeyond its former proportions, reached its culminating point after the great famine of 1846. During the decade of 1845 to 1854, inclusive, in which period the highest figures ever known in the history of emigration to the United States were reached, 1,512,100 Irish left the United Kingdom. In the first half of that decade, viz., from January 1, 1845, to December 31, 1849, 607,241 went to the United States, and in the last half, viz., from January 1, 1850, to December 31, 1854, as many as 904,859 arrived in this country. With this unprecedentedly large emigration Ireland had exhausted herself. Since 1855 her quota has fallen off to less than one-half of the average of the preceding ten years.
Almost coincident, in point of time, with this mighty exodus from Ireland was the colossal emigration from Germany which followed the failure of the political revolutions attempted in 1848 and 1849. Already in 1845 and the following years the German contingent of emigrants to the United States showed an average twice as large as in the same space of time previous to the year named. But a voluntary expatriation on a much larger scale resulted from the final triumph of political reaction. The coup d'état of Louis Napoleon closed for all Europe the revolutionary era opened in 1848. In the three years preceding that event, the issue of the struggle of the people against political oppression had remained doubtful. But the 2d of December, 1851, having decided the success of the oppressors for a long time to come, the majority of those who felt dissatisfied with the Greatest German immigration reactionary régime left their homes. The fact that the largest number of Germans ever landed in one year in the United States came in 1854 showed the complete darkening of the political horizon at that time. The apprehension of a new Continental war, which actually broke out a year later in the Crimea, also hastened the steps of those who sought refuge in this country. People of the well-to-do classes, who had months and years to wait before they could sell their property, helped to swell the tide to its extraordinary proportions. From January 1, 1845, till December 31, 1854, there arrived 1,226,392 Germans in the United States, 452,943 of whom came in the first five years of this period, and 773,449 in the last five.
Domestic causes influencing immigration But the numerical strength of immigration to this country is not governed by material and moral disturbances in Europe, only. While bad crops, commercial and industrial crises, and unfavorable turns in political affairs in the Old World tend to increase immigration, the appearance of the same phenomena in the United States as certainly tends to decrease it. Thus, in 1838 the total of immigration decreased to 38,914, while in the previous year it had amounted to 79,340, and in 1839 and 1840 it increased again to 68,069 and 84,066 respectively. The reason of this extraordinary decrease was the great financial crisis of 1837, which shook the foundation of the whole industrial and agricultural life of the United States. Again, the influx of aliens into New York was smaller in 1858 and 1859 than in any previous year since 1842, for the only reason that the commercial crisis of 1857 had frightened those who wanted to make a living by the labor of their hands. Thus, the total emigration from the United Kingdom, which in 1857 had reached the number of 213,415, in 1858 fell off to 113,972, and in 1859 to 120,431. In 1858 and 1859 only 78,589 and 79,322 emigrants, respectively, arrived in New York, while in 1856 their number amounted to 142,342, and in 1857 to 186,733. In 1860 it rose to 105,162, but, in consequence of the breaking out of the civil war, it fell again in 1861 to 65,539, and in 1862 to 76,306. In 1867 the German immigration in New York increased over that of 1866 by more than 10,000, in which last-mentioned year it had already reached the large number of 106,716 souls. Its ranks were swelled in 1867 in consequence of the emigration of men liable to military service from the new provinces annexed to Prussia in 1866, and of families dissatisfied with the new order of things. Hanover contributed the largest share to this kind of emigration. In 1868 and 1869 the tide subsided again as people began to become reconciled to the sudden change.
In short, bad times in Europe regularly increase, and bad times in America invariably diminish, immigration.
There are many countries which, by the fertility of their soil, Superior attractiveness of the United Statesthe geniality of their climate, and other natural advantages, are among the brightest spots on earth, but yet never have attracted immigration to any considerable extent. Thus, the Crimea, the lower parts of European Russia, and the Danubian principalities in Europe, Algiers in Africa, and, on our continent, parts of Mexico, as well as hundred thousands of square miles in South America, are, in regard to natural resources, equal, if not superior, to any part of the United States; and yet the latter attracts the masses of European immigration, and it is preeminently the country of the immigrant. Canada lies at the door of the Union; it offers about the same advantages as the North-western States, and yet the majority of European immigrants pass through this English colony to become citizens of the Republic.
Why is this, and how can we explain this apparent anomaly? Reasons: high wages, cheap land, social and political freedomHowever equal such inducements to emigrants as fertility of soil, salubrity of climate, security of property, and facility of communication may be in different countries, the emigrant prefers the country where labor is best remunerated, where land is cheap, where government does not interfere with him, where no class privileges exist, and where, from the day of his landing, he stands on a footing of absolute equality with the natives. Thus we find that, in this respect also, moral as well as physical causes control emigration. The first are as powerful, if not more powerful than the latter. In the United States, both are at work in attracting emigrants, and hence why there is a larger European immigration to this country than to any other on the face of the globe.
Requirements of the successful colonistThe secret of the unparalleled growth, and of the daily increasing power of the United States, is that the Government, in its practical working, is confined to the narrowest limits, that it is the agent, not the master of the people, and that the latter initiate all changes in its political and social life. And similarly, it is the condition of the success of a colony or a settlement that the immigrant relies on his own strength, acts on his own responsibility, and seeks by his own efforts the prosperity which he is sure to find, if undisturbed. All mistakes which he may make, all errors of judgment which he may commit, are of no consequence, if his self-relying spirit is not interfered with. In spite of obstacles and disappointments, he will make his way, and ultimately attain his object. After abandoning the laws, the traditions, and the family ties of his old home, he does not wish to be unduly restrained in his aspirations, or owe responsibility to any one except himself. He will willingly undergo all the hardships and danger incidental to settlement in a new country, provided he finds a free government and no improper interference with his self-adopted mode of life. A colonist, in brief, must be his own master, in order fully to develop his mental and physical resources, and to become a useful agent in building up a free commonwealth.
Self-government the vitalizing principle of colonization, represented by Teutonic races All modern colonies which were inaugurated by governments have failed; self-government, in the broadest sense, is the power which sustains colonies and instils into them life and independ ence. In the history of colonization, the Teutonic races represent the principle of self-government, which leads to the success of the immigrant, while the Latin nations represent that of state dependence and protection, which inevitably results in failure. Look at the Spanish republics, from Mexico down to Peru; at the French colonies, the youngest of which, Algiers, has ever since its first days been weak, and is almost dying from the effects of government care; and at the efforts of the Belgian Government to regulate the work of their colonists in Central America by military discipline, and compare them with the flourishing, thriving, and prosperous condition of the English colonies in America and Australia. The difference in the results of the two systems is too striking to require any further demonstration. In this country we had both systems working side by side in New France and New England. French rule, which, with its great captains, brave warriors, and indefatigable priests, tried to seize upon and fetter a continent, is a memory of the past; but New England, the growth of which—to use the eloquent language of Francis Parkman—was the result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence and wealth—New England influences the destinies of a whole continent, and is one of the civilizing factors of the world.
I have shown, in a book on German immigration to this State, Germans on the Hudson, and in the Mohawk and Schoharie valleysthe third German edition of which is just published by Mr. E. Steiger, of this city, how the above-mentioned Germans, who were settled on the upper Hudson by the English Government, were a motley set of shiftless adventurers and vagabonds so long as they depended on the colonial authorities; but these same men, when left to themselves as settlers in the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys, soon became brave and daring pioneers, well-to-do farmers, and good citizens, who formed a living barrier against the inroads of the French and Indians, and conquered the finest parts of our noble State for civilization.
Again, it was from no whim of the immigrant that he avoided Slavery a bar to immigrationthe Southern States while they were cursed with slavery; for a land can have no civil liberty in which freedom of labor and the dignity wherewith respectable employment is invested do not exist. In natural advantages the North-west is much inferior to the northern States of the South. Middle and South Virginia, for instance, are gardens of Eden, which cannot be excelled by any State of the Union, and yet they are partly in a primeval state. Henceforth the North and Europe will send their peaceably conquering armies of farmers and mechanics to take possession of these rich grounds, and raise them to the importance which they would have reached fifty years ago, had it not been for the ban of slavery. So it will be in Tennessee, in Carolina, in Kentucky, and Texas. Foreign immigration, which, before the late war, almost exclusively settled in the free North, will henceforth pour into the South as well. The United States, by the successful termination of the war against rebellion, have indeed increased the attraction of this country for the immigrant, and there is not the least reason to doubt that the great Republic will in the future become more than ever the favorite land of the immigrant. And New York City is the main gateway through which the vast tide of emigration enters, and New York State the great thoroughfare over which it pours to be diffused over the Union.