| 1607 | Founding of Virginia by English colonists, to “fetch treasure” and enjoy “religious and happy government.” |
| 1619 | First shipload of twenty Negro slaves arrives at Jamestown. |
| 1620 | Voyage of the Mayflower, carrying Pilgrims who welcome opportunity of “advancing the gospel of . . . Christ in those remote parts of the world.” |
| 1623 | Settlement of New Netherland as a trading post by Dutch West India Company. |
| 1630–40 | Puritans migrate to New England to establish a form of government that will allow them to worship as they desire. |
| 1634 | Lord Baltimore founds Maryland as a refuge for English Catholics. |
| 1642 | Outbreak of English Civil War and decrease in Puritan migration. |
| 1649 | Passage of Maryland Toleration Act, extending toleration to all bodies professing trinitarian Christianity. |
| 1654 | First Jewish immigrants to reach North America arrive at New Amsterdam fleeing Portuguese persecution in Brazil. |
| 1660 | Emigration from England officially discouraged by government of Charles II, acting on mercantilist doctrine that the wealth of a country depends on number of its inhabitants. |
| 1670 | Settlement of the Carolinas by a group of English courtiers, anxious to promote national self-sufficiency—and their own fortunes. |
| 1681 | Founding of Pennsylvania by the Quakers, as William Penn’s “holy experiment” in universal philanthropy and brotherhood. |
| 1683 | First German settlers, Mennonites, to reach New World arrive in Pennsylvania, in a desire to withdraw from the world and live peaceably according to the tenets of their faith. |
| 1685 | Revocation of Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, culmination of growth of religious intolerance in France, leads to arrival of small but important group of Huguenots. Most settle in South Carolina. |
| 1697 | Royal African Company’s monopoly of slave trade ends and the business of slavery expands rapidly. New Englanders find it extremely profitable. |
| 1707 | Act of Union between England and Scotland begins a new era of Scottish migration. Scots settle as merchants and factors in colonial seaports; lowland artisans and laborers leave Glasgow to become indentured servants in tobacco colonies and New York. |
| 1709 | Exodus from German Palatinate in wake of devastation wreaked by wars of Louis XIV. Palatines settle in Hudson Valley and Pennsylvania. |
| 1717 | Act of English Parliament legalizes transportation to American colonies as punishment; contractors begin regular shipments from jails, most (of some 30,000) to Virginia and Maryland. |
| 1718 | Large-scale Scotch-Irish immigration begins, sparked by discontent with Old Country land system: absentee landlords, high rents, short leases. Most settle first in New England, then in Maryland and Pennsylvania. |
| 1730 | Colonization of Virginia valley and Carolina back country by Germans (Pietist and pacifist sectarians) and Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania. |
| 1732 | Georgia founded by James Oglethorpe, as a buffer against Spanish and French attack, as a producer of raw silk and as a haven for imprisoned debtors. (Silk scheme fails; only a handful of debtors come.) |
| 1740 | Parliament enacts Naturalization Act conferring British citizenship on alien immigrants to colonies in hope of encouraging Jewish immigration. Jews enjoy a greater degree of political and religious freedom in the American colonies than anywhere in the world. |
| 1745 | Jacobite rebellion in Scotland to put Stuarts back on throne fails. Some rebels transported to American colonies as punishment. |
| 1755 | Expulsion of French Acadians from Nova Scotia on suspicion of disloyalty. Survivors settle in Louisiana. |
| 1771-73 | Depression in Ulster linen trade and acute agrarian crisis bring new influx of Scotch-Irish, around 10,000 annually. |
| 1775 | British Government suspends emigration on outbreak of hostilities in America. |
| 1783 | Treaty of Paris ends Revolutionary War. Revival of immigration; most numerous group: Scotch-Irish. |
| 1789 | Outbreak of French Revolution. Emigration to the United States of aristocrats and royalist sympathizers. |
| 1791 | Negro revolt in Santo Domingo; 10,000–20,000 French exiles take refuge in the United States, principally in towns on the Atlantic seaboard. |
| 1793 | Wars of the French Revolution send Girondists and Jacobins threatened by guillotine to the United States. |
| 1798 | Unsuccessful Irish rebellion; rebels emigrate to U.S., as do distressed artisans and yeoman farmers and agricultural laborers depressed by bad harvests and low prices. Alien and Sedition Acts give President arbitrary powers to seize and expel resident aliens suspected of engaging in subversive activities. Though never invoked, Acts induce several shiploads of Frenchmen to return to France and Santo Domingo. |
| 1803 | Resumption of war between England and France. Disruption of transatlantic trade; emigration from continental Europe practically impossible. British Passenger Act limits numbers to be carried by emigrant ships, effectively checks Irish emigration. |
| 1807 | Congress prohibits importing of Negro slaves into the U.S. (prohibited by Delaware in 1776; Virginia, 1778; Maryland, 1783; South Carolina, 1787; North Carolina, 1794; Georgia, 1798; reopened by South Carolina in 1803). |
| 1812 | War of 1812 brings immigration to a complete halt. |
| 1814 | Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812. Beginning of first great wave of immigration: 5,000,000 immigrants between 1815 and 1860. |
| 1818 | Black Ball Line of sailing packets begins regular Liverpool–New York service; Liverpool becomes main port of departure for Irish and British, as well as considerable numbers of Germans and Norwegians. |
| 1825 | Great Britain repeals laws prohibiting emigration as ineffective; official endorsement of view that England is overpopulated. Arrival in U.S. of first group of Norwegian immigrants in sloop Restaurationen, consisting of freeholders leaving an overpopulated country and shrunken farms. They are followed by cotters, laborers and servants. |
| 1830 | Polish revolution. Thirty-six sections of public land in Illinois allotted by Congress to Polish revolutionary refugees. |
| 1837 | Financial panic. Nativists complain that immigration lowers wage levels, contributes to the decline of the apprenticeship system and generally depresses the condition of labor. |
| 1840 | Cunard Line founded. Beginning of era of steamship lines especially designed for passenger transportation between Europe and the United States. |
| 1845 | Native American party founded, with minimal support in fourteen states; precursor of nativist, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party which reached its peak in 1855, when it elected six governors, dominated several state legislatures and sent a sizable delegation to Congress. |
| 1846 | Crop failures in Germany and Holland. Mortgage foreclosures and forced sales send tens of thousands of dispossessed to U.S. |
| 1846-47 | Irish potato famine. Large-scale emigration to the United States of all classes of Irish population, not only laborers and cotters, but even substantial farmers. |
| 1848 | Revolution in Germany. Failure of revolution results in emigration of political refugees to America. |
| 1855 | Opening of Castle Garden immigrant depot in New York City to process mass immigration. |
| 1856 | Collapse of Know-Nothing movement in Presidential election; candidate Millard Fillmore carries only one state. Irish Catholic Colonization Convention at Buffalo, New York, to promote Irish rural colonization in the U.S. Strongly opposed by Eastern bishops, movement proves unsuccessful. |
| 1861–65 | Large numbers of immigrants serve on both sides during American Civil War. |
| 1882 | First federal immigration law bars lunatics, idiots, convicts and those likely to become public charges. Chinese Exclusion Act denies entry to Chinese laborers for a period of ten years (renewed in 1892; Chinese immigration suspended indefinitely in 1902; many return home). Outbreak of anti-Semitism in Russia; sharp rise in Jewish migration to U.S. |
| 1885 | Foran Act prohibits importing of contract labor, but not of skilled labor for new industries, artists, actors, lecturers, domestic servants; individuals in U.S. not to be prevented from assisting immigration of relatives and personal friends. |
| 1886 | Statue of Liberty dedicated, just when the resistance to unrestricted immigration begins to mount. |
| 1890 | Superintendent of the Census announces disappearance of the frontier. |
| 1891 | Congress adds health qualifications to immigration restrictions. Pogroms in Russia. Large Jewish immigration to U.S. |
| 1892 | Ellis Island replaces Castle Garden as a reception center for immigrants. |
| 1893 | Economic depression brings a vast accession of strength to anti-Catholic American Protective Association. |
| 1894 | Immigration Restriction League organized, to be the spearhead of restrictionist movement for next twenty-five years. Emphasizes distinction between “old” (Northern and Western European) and “new” (Southern and Eastern European) immigrants. |
| 1894–96 | Massacres of Armenian Christians by Moslems set emigration to U.S. in motion. |
| 1897 | Literacy test for immigrants vetoed by President Cleveland. |
| 1903 | Immigration law denies entry, inter alia, to anarchists or persons believing in the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the U.S., or any government, or in the assassination of public officials (as a result of President McKinley’s assassination by the American-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz). |
| 1905 | Japanese and Korean Exclusion League formed by organized labor in protest against influx of coolie labor and in fear of threat to the living standards of American workingmen. |
| 1907–08 | Gentleman’s agreement, whereby Japanese Government undertakes to deny passports to laborers going directly from Japan to U.S., fails to satisfy West Coast exclusionists. |
| 1913 | California legislature passes Alien Land Law, effectively barring Japanese, as “aliens ineligible for citizenship,” from owning agricultural land in the state. |
| 1914–18 | World War I. End of period of mass migration to the U.S. |
| 1916 | Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race calls for exclusion, on racist grounds, of “inferior” Alpine, Mediterranean and Jewish “breeds.” |
| 1917 | Literacy test for immigrants finally adopted after being defeated in Congress in 1896, 1898, 1902, 1906, vetoed in 1897 by President Cleveland, in 1913 by President Taft, and in 1915 and 1917 by President Wilson. It was passed by overriding the second veto by President Wilson. |
| 1919 | Big Red scare: anti-foreign fears and hatreds transferred from German Americans to alien revolutionaries and radicals. Thousands of alien radicals seized in Palmer raids, hundreds deported. |
| 1921 | Emergency immigration restriction law introduces quota system, heavily weighted in favor of natives of Northern and Western Europe, all but slamming the door on Southern and Eastern Europeans. Immediate slump in immigration. |
| 1923 | Ku Klux Klan, at heart a virulently anti-immigrant movement, reaches its peak strength. |
| 1924 | National Origins Act adopted, settling ceiling on number of immigrants, and establishing discriminatory national-racial quotas. |
| 1929 | National Origins Act becomes operative. Stock market crash. Demands that immigration be further reduced during economic crisis lead Hoover administration to order rigorous enforcement of prohibition against admission of persons liable to be public charges. |
| 1933 | Hitler becomes German chancellor; anti-Semitic campaign begins. Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany come to U.S., though barriers imposed by the quota system are not lifted. |
| 1934 | Philippine Independence Act restricts Filipino immigration to an annual quota of fifty. |
| 1939 | World War II begins. |
| 1941 | U.S. enters war. All immigrant groups support united war effort. |
| 1942 | Evacuation of Japanese-Americans from Pacific Coast to detention camps, victims of deep-seated suspicion and animosity, and unjustified fear of espionage and sabotage. |
| 1945 | Large-scale Puerto Rican migration to escape poverty on island. Many settle in New York. |
| 1946 | War Brides Act provides for admission of foreign-born wives of American servicemen. |
| 1948 | Displaced Persons Act (amended in 1950) provides for admission of 400,000 refugees during a four-year period; three-quarters regular displaced persons from countries with low quotas, one-quarter Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans), special groups of Greek, Polish and Italian refugees, orphans and European refugees stranded in the Far East. |
| 1952 | Immigration and Naturalization Act, codifying existing legislation, makes the quota system even more rigid and repressive, except for a token quota granted those in the Asia-Pacific triangle. |
| 1953-56 | Refugee Relief Act grants visas to some 5,000 Hungarians after 1956 revolution; President Eisenhower invites 30,000 more to come in on parole. |
| 1954 | Ellis Island closed. Symbol of ending of mass migration. |
| 1957 | Special legislation to admit Hungarian refugees. |
| 1959 | Castro revolution successful in Cuba. |
| 1960 | Cuban refugees paroled into U.S. |
| 1962 | Special permission for admission of refugees from Hong Kong. |
| 1963 | Congress urged by President Kennedy to pass new legislation eliminating national origins quota system. |