Colonial Immigration

1. Colonial Immigration “remember always, that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

2. Introduction • The history of immigration to the United States is a continuing story of peoples from more populated continents, crossing oceans to the new land. • Starting around 1600 British and other Europeans settled primarily on the east coast. • Later Africans were brought as slaves. • During the nation's history, America experienced successive waves of immigration which rose and fell over time, with the cost of transoceanic transportation. • At other times, immigration rules became more restrictive.

5. American Nations "American Nations" offers a history of the varied cultures of Greater Appalachia, the Midlands, the Deep South, New Netherland and the German-Scandinavian Midwest The United States, is not a country but an uneasy conglomeration of 11 rival nations. Author Colin Woodard debunks the simplistic notions of Left Coast, red state, blue state and other broad brush efforts to peg America’s differences, arguing instead that there are not just a couple but 11 regional and cultural divides in the nation. ‘American Nations’ is a study of our ‘rival regional cultures’ An endlessly fascinating look at American regionalism and the eleven "nations" that continue to shape North America

6. American Nations The author steps back from politics and examines how we have emerged as groups of separate people with different world views and solutions for the problems confronting us. Woodard allows a portrait of national identities within America to emerge. The settlers of each of the original colonial clusters came from various regions of Europe and had distinct religious, political and ethnographic characteristics. These cultures developed in distinct and often contradictory values, practices, and ideals. All continue to champion some version of their original ideals in the present day, frustrating attempts to build a national consensus. Forget the state boundaries. They’re illusions masking the real forces that drive the 11 regional cultures of North America.

7. American Nations Who are these 11 Nations and Makes Them Unique?

8. Yankeedom Yankeedom was founded on Massachusetts Bay by radical Calvinists as a religious utopia in the New England wilderness. From the outset, there was emphasis on education, local political control and the pursuit of the greater good, even if it required individual self-denial. Yankees have the greatest faith in government’s ability to improve lives. For more than four centuries, Yankees have sought to build a more perfect society here on earth through social engineering, extensive citizen involvement in the political process and the aggressive assimilation of foreigners.

9. New Netherland The 17th-century Dutch colony of New Netherland had a lasting impact by laying down the cultural DNA for New Amsterdam (now Greater New York City) that was, from the start, a global commercial trading society. Multiethnic, multi religious, materialistic, and free-trading, the future metropolis was not entirely democratic city- state where no one ethnic or religious group has ever been truly in charge. It nurtured two innovations considered subversive: a profound tolerance of diversity and an unflinching commitment to freedom. Forced upon other nations at the Constitutional Convention, these ideals have been passed on to us as the Bill of Rights.

10. Midlands Arguably the most “American” of the nations, the Midlands was founded by English Quakers and organized around the middle class. The Midlands represented the culture of Middle America, where ethnical purity has never been a priority. Government has been seen as an unwelcome political opinion. These people are of German descent, who, like Yankees, believe society should be organized to benefit ordinary people and are skeptical of government intervention, as many of their ancestors fled from European tyrannies. The Midlands is home to a dialect long considered “standard American,” for political attitudes and national debates from the abolition of slavery to the 2008 presidential contest.

11. Tidewater Tidewater was the most powerful nation during the colonial period and the Early Republic. It has always been a fundamentally conservative region where a high value is placed on respect for authority and tradition and very little on equality or public participation in politics. Tidewater elites played a central role in the foundation of the U.S. and are responsible for many of the aristocratic inflections of the Constitution, including the Electoral College and Senate, whose members were to be appointed by legislators, not chosen by the electorate.

12. Greater Appalachian Greater Appalachia was founded in the early 18th century by wave upon wave of rough, bellicose settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of northern Ireland, northern England and the Scottish lowlands. Lampooned in popular culture as “rednecks,” and “hillbillies,” these clannish Scots-Irish, Scots and northern English frontiersmen spread across the highland South and on into the southern tiers of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks; the eastern two-thirds of Oklahoma; and the Hill Country of Texas.

13. The Deep South The Deep South, was founded by Barbados slave lords as a West Indies-style slave society, a system so despotic and cruel that it shocked even 17th-century English observers. For most of American history, it remains the least democratic of the regions, a one-party entity where race remains the primary determinant of one’s political affiliations. After successfully resisting a Yankee-led occupation, it became the center of the states-rights movement and racial segregation, as well as labor and environmental deregulation. It is also the wellspring of African-American culture in America and, 40 years after it was forced to allow blacks to vote, it remains politically polarized on racial grounds.

14. New France Another independence-inclined nation is New France, which can trace its origins to the fall of 1604 -- 16 years before the Mayflower’s voyage. Today, New France is the most nationalistic of the 11 nations. New French culture blends the folkways of the northern French peasantry with the traditions and values of the aboriginal people whom the French explorers and colonists encountered in northeastern North America. Down-to-earth, the New French are far and away the most liberal people on the continent. Long oppressed by their British overlords, the New French have, since the mid-20th century, imparted many of their attitudes on the Canadian federation.

15. El Norte The oldest European subculture in the U.S. is in northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, El Norte, where people of Spanish heritage have been living since 1595. They remain fiercely protective of their Spanish heritage, and not wanting to be being lumped in with Mexican-Americans who appeared in the region only in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, this rapidly growing nation spreads from the U.S.- Mexico border for a hundred miles or more in both directions. Overwhelmingly Hispanic, it has long been a hybrid of Anglo and Spanish America, with an economy oriented toward the U.S.

16. The Left Coast A wet region of staggering natural beauty, this region was colonized by two groups: New England merchants who arrived by sea and gained control of the coastal towns, and fur traders from Greater Appalachia who arrived by wagon and dominated the countryside. Originally slated to become a “New England on the Pacific”, the Left Coast retained intellectualism and idealism even as it embraced a culture of individual fulfillment. The Left Coast has been the birthplace of the modern environmental movement and the global information revolution. It is home to Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Twitter and Silicon Valley

17. The Far West is the only one where environmental factors have truly trumped ethnic ones. High, dry and remote, the interior West presented conditions so severe that they effectively destroyed would-be settlers who tried to apply the farming and lifestyle techniques they had used in other nations. With minor exceptions, this vast region couldn’t be effectively colonized without the deployment of vast industrial resources: railroads, heavy mining equipment, dams and irrigation systems. As a result, the colonization of much of the region was directed by large corporations based in distant east coast cities or by the federal government which controlled much of the land.

18. First Nation Like the Far West, First Nation encompasses a vast area with a hostile climate of the far north. The difference, however, is that the indigenous inhabitants are still in the area having never given up their land by treaty. They still retain cultural practices and knowledge that allow them to survive in the region. American Indians have recently begun reclaiming their sovereignty. First Nation’s people now have a chance to put native North America back on the map culturally, politically and environmentally.

19. Summary The U.S. is wracked by internal discord between two blocs formed by seven of its 11 regional nations: The conservative bloc that includes the Deep South, Tidewater and much of greater Appalachia. Pitted against the more liberal alliance of Yankeedom, New Netherland, the Midlands and the Left Coast. Increasingly, through American history, the conflict between these two blocs has been driving the nation apart.