Powell J. Encyclopedia Of North American Immigration

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ood reference books on immigration are plentiful today, for the subject

has been in vogue for two decades. Still, there is room for a well-orga-

nized, easy-to-use volume devoted to the historical context of immigration

to English- and French-speaking regions of North America during the past

500 years (Mexico and Central America are not covered). Many reference

books deal exclusively with the individuals and circumstances related to a

single ethnic group. Others cover the whole range of immigration topics,

most in lengthy articles with particular ethnic groups or conceptual topics as

their organizational focus. Some deal primarily with the process of accul-

turation after immigration, while others seek to demonstrate the vitality of

culture groups through organization and identification with the values of the

“old” countries. Almost all have a heavy sociological bent and were written

within the pre–September 11, 2001, framework of cold war and labor mi-

gration themes. Most pay little attention to the Canadian experience, which

is an important component in understanding the overall process of migra-

tion to North America. In considering British immigration in the colonial

period—by far the largest early element—there was no clear legal demarca-

tion between “Canadian” and “American” colonies. British policy making

often incorporated considerations regarding both areas. Even after the Amer-

ican Revolution, the close geographical and cultural relationship between the

Canadian colonies and the United States continued to influence immigra-

tion patterns in each region. Immigrants frequently first went to Canada

with the intention of continuing on to the United States. It was not un-

usual for dissatisfied immigrants, particularly in agricultural areas, to cross

the border in either direction. Finally, when restrictive legislation was passed

in the United States, Canada was frequently a second choice. In Encyclope-

dia of N

th American Immigration, I hope to address some of these needs

y providing a convenient one-volume reference full of straightforward and

concise information on people, groups, policies, and events that defined the

world’s greatest migration of peoples to a continent and shaped their recep-

tion in North America. Each of the more than 300 articles includes an ex-

tensive and up-to-date bibliography that will facilitate further research.

Finally, information on ethnic groups is based on the most recent census fig-

ures (U.S. Census 2000; Canadian Census 2001) and a variety of U.S. and

Canadian governmental sources.

Author’s Preface

}

AUTHOR’S PREFACE xi

General Historiography

The transformation of the culture of the North American continent since the

15th century is one of the great historical events of the past 500 years. For

good or ill, it has shaped the destinies of millions of people of all ethnic groups,

transformed the nature of international politics, and altered the concept of

personal possibilities in every country. The magnitude and diversity of the

migration to North America has made analysis of the process as a whole diffi-

cult. While there are excellent studies of particular peoples, specific locales, and

isolated time periods, no one has yet encompassed this great movement of peo-

ples in a single conceptual framework. The most important reason for the dif-

ficulty is that the peopling of North America was not a single movement but

hundreds of separate movements, each with its own story, foundations, ratio-

nale, and outcome. Some immigrants, including slaves and convicts, were

forced to resettle; others were free to make the choice; still others were living

in such desperate conditions that the choice was only nominally free. Of

those who came freely, some longed for nothing more than the ability to feed

and clothe their families, while others were lured from their families and fa-

miliar surroundings by the hope of wealth. Some came with charters from

kings; others fled from those same monarchs. Some immigrants had ideologi-

cal purposes, while others were wanderers, merely wanting to get away from a

deadening social order. Even when studying the movement of a specific eth-

nic group, one is constantly reminded that motivations varied from year to

year and from one village to the next. It may truly be said that every immigrant

story is unique.

Nature of the Encyclopedia of North American Immigration

I have undertaken this work with the following goals in mind:

1. To focus attention on the historical factors that made immigration

necessary, desirable, or possible. With cultural studies today infused

with presentism, and with an eye toward specific political agendas re-

garding ethnicity, I have chosen to emphasize historical factors.

2. To examine immigration factors and results for both Canada and the

United States. There are many reasons why scholars focus on a partic-

ular country in the course of their research. Canada and the United

States are both sovereign states, each exercising the prerogatives of an

independent immigration policy. On the other hand, both regions

were part of the same British empire for almost 200 years prior to

1776; immigrants to Canada frequently continued on to the United

States; and since 2001, the two countries have worked closely to de-

velop an integrated approach to common immigration problems.

3. To provide data from the most recent census undertaken in each coun-

try, as well as up-to-date figures regarding immigration. In most arti-

cles, I have employed figures drawn from the United States census of

2000 and the Canada census of 2001.

4. To provide extensive and up-to-date further reading lists with all en-

tries, enabling users to quickly locate the most detailed and recent

studies related to their areas of interest.

The goal of each entry’s further reading list is to provide readers

readily accessible research materials, preferably in English. The study of

immigration, however, presents some unique challenges. The great pe-

riod of global migration that began in the 1820s has involved the

movement of hundreds of ethnic groups from their homelands to

xii ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NORTH AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

North America. Some of the smaller groups, or those arriving recently,

have as yet received relatively little attention from English-speaking

scholars. It is natural, too, that men and women would write the his-

tories of their migration in their own languages. Canada itself, one of

two focal points in this study, has large numbers of Anglophone and

Francophone citizens, and English and French are both official lan-

guages of the country. Research on Canadian immigration topics often

has been published in both English and French but usually not in both.

As a result of these considerations, important non-English publications

are sometimes included in the further reading lists and bibliography.

5. To provide a thorough system of indexing and cross-referencing in

order to provide maximum ease of access to specific historical and

bibliographic information. Terms set in

SMALL CAPITAL

letters indicate

another entry in the book.

A Note on Immigration Statistics

Quantifying immigration, tracing immigrants, and assessing their impact in

North America has always been a difficult task. Prior to 1850, it was scarcely

attempted, but since that time the process has become more complex, varied,

and thorough. For the period following World War II, numbers and assess-

ments provided by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

and since spring 2003 by the Office of Immigration Statistics, the Canadian

Department of Manpower and Immigration (DMI), Statistics Canada, and

the U.S. Census Bureau do provide a reasonably accurate picture of the broad

landscape of immigration and of its relation to the ethnic composition of

American and Canadian societies. One should not seek for more precision

than the numbers will bear, however. Anytime one reads that “125,000”

Cubans immigrated to the United States in 1981, or “40,000” Hungarians to

Canada in 1956–57, for example, the statement should be read as an approx-

imation; and the farther back in time, generally speaking, the less precise the

number. It is possible to cite exact numbers as they are reported by official

agencies, but the official reports themselves clearly acknowledge the limitations

of their own data. In the INS table “Immigration by Region and Selected

Country of Last Residence for Fiscal Years 1820–2002,” for instance, there are

25 qualifications indicated in footnotes, in addition to a general note on data

limitations. Thus, in using this work, one should bear in mind the variety of

reasons that numbers should be used with caution:

1. Official records often were not kept in the 18th and 19th centuries,

and when they were kept, they recorded kinds of information accord-

ing to the perceived needs of the day. The earliest immigration records

were simply ship manifests, varying widely in terms of information.

The British government, for instance, theoretically registered the

name, age, and occupation of all emigrants from December 1773 to

March 1776. Newspaper accounts and individual ship registers, how-

ever, suggest a 15–30 percent underregistration. In the United States,

information from 1820 to 1867 represented alien passengers arriving

at seaports; thereafter, official numbers sometimes represented all ar-

rivals, sometimes only those admitted for permanent residence. There

was no attempt to fully document land arrivals until 1908. Even when

related information is available, it often is not comparable. Prior to

1906, for instance, data was collected on the country from which the

AUTHOR’S PREFACE xiii

alien emigrated; from 1906 to 1979 and 1984 to 1998, the country

of last permanent residence; and from 1980 to 1983, country of birth.

2. Changing geopolitical boundaries undermine precise counting of cer-

tain ethnic groups. Polish immigrants, for instance, were included in

numbers for Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia or the Soviet

Union between 1899 and 1919. Data for the Austro-Hungarian Em-

pire, composed of more than a dozen ethnic groups, was not recorded

until 1861, and thereafter the various ethnic groups were not delin-

eated. Thus, it is impossible to know with any precision how many

Czechs or Hungarians entered the United States or Canada. Prior to

1934, Filipinos were considered U.S. nationals and thus not subject

to either immigration restrictions or registration that would enable

exact numbers to be determined. Immigrants from British India in the

19th and early 20th centuries were often classed as “Hindus,” though

most were in fact Muslims. In Canada, immigrants from modern

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka were frequently referred to

as “East Indians,” along with immigrants of Indian descent from Fiji,

the West Indies, Uganda, South Africa, and Mauritius.

3. The nature of immigration varies widely, thus making it impossible to

create a single category for accurately comparing either numbers or the

immigrant experience. In some cases, culture groups seem to be the

relevant category; in other cases, country of origin. Jews, for instance,

were usually counted as immigrants from their country of birth or of

last residence, along with non-Jewish immigrants from the same coun-

try. Any estimates involved in sorting the subgroups from the total—

Russian Jews from other Russian immigrants, for instance—must take

into account further differences among those who actually practiced

Judaism, nonobservant Jews, and radicalized Jews who specifically re-

jected religion as a basis for social organization. In some cases, the co-

hesion of an immigrant group such as the Doukhobors or the

Mennonites proved more powerful than cultural ties to their home

countries, thus leading to a virtually clean break with the source coun-

try. On the other hand, immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, the Philip-

pines, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh frequently immigrate in order

to maintain economically their families at home, remitting billions of

American and Canadian dollars to their source countries each year.

4. Illegal immigration has always been present and officially uncounted.

In most cases, this does not greatly alter the overall immigration num-

bers or affect the general government response. In some cases, however,

such as illegal immigration of Mexicans into the United States, the

flow becomes so great as to require separate study based on unofficial

sources, projections, and secondary figures related to provision of gov-

ernment services. In monitoring the U.S.-Mexican border, officials

have apprehended aliens from 63 different countries.

5. Multiple agencies are responsible for varying aspects of the immigra-

tion process, and their numbers are often at odds. Sometimes these dif-

ferences are reconciled in the course of future reporting, but not

always. For instance, in the United States, newly arriving aliens are

granted visas by the U.S. Department of State, while aliens already

temporarily in the United States and eligible to become adjusted to

legal permanent resident status are granted immigrant status by the

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a bureau of the

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There have been a variety of

xiv ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NORTH AMERICAN IMMIGRATION

methods for determining the date by which an alien is determined to

have “immigrated” to the United States, depending on the original sta-

tus as permanent resident alien, refugee, asylee, parolee, or other.

Methods include date of approval, most recent date of data entry, or

the application of a specific formula to a specific circumstance.

6. The U.S. and Canadian censuses, upon which much of the national

ethnic profiles are based, are compiled using unscientific methods of

self-identification. As a result, one person might identify him- or her-

self as a part of every ethnic group in his or her ancestry, and another

might only select a predominant ancestry group for identification.

Respondents may even report family traditions or hearsay, without

actual knowledge of ancestry. Thus, for some groups such as Germans

and Poles, numbers may be overreported in the sense that there is no

strong sense of ethnic identity for most of those reporting. In the case

of nationals from many Central and South American countries, num-

bers are underreported, as a large percentage of their populations are

unauthorized and therefore subject to official proceedings should their

ethnic origin become known. Also, ethnic identification is confused

across time by marriages between members of different ethnic groups

and the variation of group cohesion from one ethnic group to an-

other. This led Census Canada to reinstate in 2001 a question on

“birthplace of parents,” in order to more accurately trace developments

in the second-generation community.

7. Some migrants may reside permanently in a country without being re-

quired to adjust to permanent resident status and thus are not officially

counted as immigrants. Parolees, refugees, and asylees generally fall

into this category. These numbers are generally small but can fluctu-

ate dramatically in times of international crisis or war.

In most cases, the figures available are sufficient for establishing the scope

of immigration and for pointing toward specific areas requiring more detailed

study. The implications of introducing a new people to a prairie, village, town,

or country have been dramatic throughout North America. Immigration has

changed the way North Americans think and do business, the way they enter-

tain and interact with the world. Immigration changed the immigrants too

and the countries they came from, as thousands of separated kinsfolk elo-

quently testified in letters, diaries, and articles. Though the number of immi-

grants who touched the shores of the United States and Canada will never be

known precisely, the impact of their presence is clear. In the end, the people

matter more than the statistics anyway.

A to Z

Entries

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Acadia

Acadia is the region of North America bounded by the St.

Lawrence Seaway on the north, the Gulf of St. Lawrence on

the east, and the Atlantic Ocean on the south. It includes the

present-day Canadian provinces of N

RUNSWICK

OVA

COTIA

, Prince Edward Island, and parts of the

province of Q

UEBEC

and the U.S. state of Maine. It was first

colonized in 1604, when S

AMUEL DE

HAMPLAIN

and

Pierre du Gua, sieur de Monts, established a settlement on

St. Croix Island in the Bay of Fundy. After a disastrous win-

ter that killed half the settlers, the colony was moved across

the bay to Port Royal, though this too was abandoned when

Champlain and de Monts lost their fur-trading monopoly.

French settlers returned in 1610, but Port Royal was

destroyed by an English force from Virginia in 1613. King

James I of England (r. 1603–25) granted the region to Sir

William Alexander, who named it Nova Scotia, Latin for

“New Scotland.” In 1632, it was returned to France.

With the rapid influx of British settlers into New Eng-

land during the 1630s, the French government hoped to

establish firm control of Acadia. In 1632, Governor Isaac

de Razilly took control of Port Royal, imported “300 gen-

tlemen of quality,” and moved the capital to Le Heve on

the Atlantic seaboard. Territorial disputes among the great

fur merchants and frequent warfare between Britain and

France nevertheless inhibited development of the region.

The limited flow of immigrants, chiefly from the French

region of Poitou, came to a standstill between 1654 and

1667, when the region was under British control. In 1686,

French intendant Jacques de Meulles counted only 885

colonists in the entire region, most living along the Bay of

Fundy. Meulles reported that “receiving no help from

France,” many Acadians were following their commercial

interests and immigrating to Boston. As a result, the Aca-

dian population remained small and isolated. The farmers,

hunters, and fishermen of Acadia became known for their

self-reliance and were immortalized in Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline.

Throughout the 18th century, contr

ol of A

cadia was

disputed by France and Britain. The Treaty of Utrecht

(1713), ending Queen Anne’s War (1702–13, the Ameri-

can phase of the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe),

ceded Acadia to Britain, though only Nova Scotia was

clearly turned over. In 1730, it was agreed that Acadians

could swear loyalty to the British Crown without being

required to bear arms against France or its Indian allies.

British settlers established Halifax, Nova Scotia (1749), and

encouraged settlement by French, German, and Swiss

Protestants during the 1750s. Despite their traditional com-

mercial contacts with the British, most Acadians remained

loyal to France and sometimes encouraged American Indian

attacks on British settlements. During the French and

Indian War (1754–63, which corresponds to the European

EVEN

EARS

’W

), the British deported some 6,000

Acadians who refused to swear loyalty to George II

(r. 1727–60), an event that came to be known as Le Grand

Dérangement (The Great Disturbance). When the principal

French fortress of Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758,

the fate of Acadia and Canada was sealed. The formal sign-

ing of the Capitulation of Montreal in 1760 led many

French inhabitants to return to Europe and some 4,000 to

migrate to L

OUISIANA

, which remained in French hands.

Only about 1,000 French settlers remained in Acadia. In

their place came hundreds of New Englanders in the 1760s

and, during and after the American Revolution (1775–83;

see A

MERICAN

EVOLUTION AND IMMIGRATION

), thou-

sands of United Empire Loyalists who had refused to take up

arms against the British Crown.