Emigrant
Sunday, August 10th, 2008When preparing my approach to studying colonial immigration, I try to picture the multitude of emigrants who came settle in the “Americas”. Nothing made me appreciate the sheer overwhelming presence of such multitudes of people until I witnessed it tonight on my 62 Inch screen at home. As I write, I sit watching with over 70 million others at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Opening Celebration ceremonies. I must admit, I am in absolute awe by the horde of 15,000+ Chinese performers and an estimated 91,000 in attendance at Hope Stadium heralding in the “commercial” hope for global unity. In my mind experiencing this rare unified monumental culmination of people from all around the world enabled the impact of emigration really to “sink in” for me when I directly compare this mass of people on my screen to the aspirations of new opportunities for emigrants of Colonial America. During the 1730s in England, the economy was improving. Rising real wages for common laboring families began to increasingly enable potential emigrant prospects to stay rooted with their motherland. Factors such as this re-direct the shift of colonial emigration to non-English emigrants. In contrast, at that same time non-English colonial immigrant movements grew with the estimated magnitude of 100,000 Germans who migrated to British America. Three-quarters of these Germans landed in Philadelphia where a “great magnet” for colonial migration emerged. Then as many as 400,000 Germans were encouraged to be driven from their homeland to settle in Hungary, Prussia and Russia due to being pushed toward religious conformity by homeland princes, heavily taxing them and conscripted their youth for waging war and palace construction. Even the forces that be discouraged colonial emigration as an appealing alternative; however word of material success of fellow Germans in Pennsylvania intrigued growing numbers from their own homeland. There are factors as to why Britain was not so Great after all, it had an increasing population exodus because the Crown drove the majority of Scots out of Northern Ireland for they had already served their military purpose. The kingdom centuries before had become a nuance in many ways that go beyond the topic of this dissertation. A majority of traced Ulster Scots landed in Boston whose safe passage was brokered by Presbyterian ministers. Colonial laws and prejudices by Presbyterian influences discouraged and suppressed the immigration of Catholics and Jews. In fact, selective “Immigrant Recruitment” was even invented by Slave owners seeking out Highland Scots and Germans who they knew were rigid and hardworking people. They were considered skilled tradesmen not just unskilled and uninspired “war fodder” like most 80% of all English convict emigrants. Geodemographic evidence of overlay maps studied in class present the clear segregated social climate between emigrant cultures. It seems that they choose to cling to their native customs and language. Due to factors of cultural differences, formed two distinct groups the Highland Scots and Germans migrated more withdrawn to the remote frontier hills edging along the Appalachian mountains where land was cheap and withdrawn. They identified similarities in this terrain to that of their respective homelands, Highlanders and “Redemptioner” Germans anchored in American history to bear the extreme hard rugged lifestyles which lay beyond the colonies along the coast. They pioneered the forests further inland than other any other set of emigrant cultures. There in the wild frontier both cultures were to encounter and push back native Indians. In a sense interestingly enough, they created a technological and social demilitarized zone acting as a domesticating buffer between the frontier and advanced coastal colonies. In addition to British emigrants, most coastal colonies were addicted to slave labor. This profound work force dependence kept slave labor the principle foundation of most all early plantation riches. Driven by disillusioned promoters of a “consumer revolution” the wealthy elite colonists could only thank themselves for impoverishing their peer settlers and further depress their life-long slaves. Contrary to popular misconception, most emigrants did not come to America of their own free will in search of liberation. IT is an unfortunate fact that almost all of the imported Africans remained slaves for life, passing the same status to their children. Europeans simply exploited and expanded slavery that was long before practiced by Africans of their own people. Increased hardships within the different clusters of emigrants initially posed “no threat” to the colonial elite. On the colonial mainland slave encompassed births exceeded the people’s deaths enabling in the explosion of this population. So as larger numbers of enslaved Africans poured across the Atlantic and as the number of colored labor force escalated it monumentally eclipsed all “free” white emigrants. The colonies took notice of this trend and began to exclusively pursue only white “free” slaves in fear of an increasing risk of an uprising or rebellion. History repeats itself in pure cyclic form as just this last week in Mauritania Africa guerrilla militants overthrew the country’s first democratic voted government. This is a real-world example of how cultural attitudes have an invisible connection to political consequences… In contrast, another historic story within direct genre of Colonial America I’d like to study is the history behind how Liberia was originally founded by free American slaves. Many cultural contributions of colonial time can still be identified in lifestyle choices of today. Such a simplistic example is the subconscious application of listening to heavy (almost ritualistic in nature) rhythms of base phonemes found in rap and screamo music of today . This cultivating behavior can be traced back to Jamaican drums beat in African slave quarters as a form of rebellious opposition toward plantation owners. With my being originally from the area, I know that Jews and Germans settled Cincinnati, Ohio. Germans in particular were attracted to the region because it reminded them of the hills of home. These Germans spread their culture with the timeless independent micro-breweries which are still abundant in that marketplace today. Another is due to the increase of shipping goods across the Atlantic enabled women of that time to find new self-expressive outlets for fashionable and decorative sense within the household can be now evidenced by fashionable channels such as QVC at the fingertips of all American women today. Interestingly, information and shipping goods themselves could also be evaluated as immigrants. Today, these immigrants have political consequence daily with globalizing economics and innovations such as the internet. Today’s multi-media is changing faces of cultures everywhere; unifying them around the globe hybridizing the world. The country’s predominant English culture did and still does place a distinct economical disadvantage in America. One good example of this is the Philadelphia Restaurant named Gino’s where unless you can correctly annunciate your order in English, you cannot place orders at all. This presents a new political stage for cultural differences between the official practices of majority and clustered immigration. Self empowering drivers of change such as these mentioned, when explored deeper in cultural differences of immigrant culture combined with the attitudes evolved into today’s lifestyle show me that as a people we are now unfortunately merely dedicated to ourselves and our social justice agendas. I fear we are not dedicated to our country nor to community oriented prosperous opportunities as was with colonial generations ago when those who emigrated here sought to make a better future for themselves and their children. Even those who had no choice in the matter still had just as much spirit and hope of a new beginning. Such resolve; I am afraid the spirit has all too completely vanished and a subversive un-objectified sense of mobocracy and entitlement has crept into the common American mindset. Our plurist society has grown so obtrusive upon itself that In ways at times I feel I am a “new emigrant” today in my own country.
