North American
colonization was a unique era in history. In a short
amount of time, a great number of
people found themselves in this
“new”
land; and a country was formed. These
population shifts were driven by
religious
opportunity,
overpopulation and
vocational interest, as well as forced
labor and
involuntary removal.
The land of
Europe was often thought of as being one of
persecution; most
specifically to outstanding,
minority groups, and especially those with markedly
unique religious values. Many
New England colonists -
Pilgrims,
Puritans, et al
– were thus motivated by persecution in their
mother country.
Additionally, a saturation of the
economy of Europe, including a lack of
jobs and
land and resulting in a lower
quality of life, frustrated many in the
lower-class. Likewise, they would
migrate to find either a.) land of their own
and
a higher place in the world, or b.) a simple
job and a manner of
income.
The final, and most
atrocious, form of movement was that of
African
slaves. Economic need for
reinforcement, and
southern agriculture, required
cheap,
dependable, and long-term
labor. To them, this was the
ideal solution,
and thousands of Africans were
ripped from their lives to work on plantations in
Virginia,
the Carolinas, and
Georgia.
However
dejected these immigrants may have been upon arrival in America
(for almost all of them met with some initial
disappointment), the result was
the
founding of a great nation, composed of a
variety of individuals that would,
eventually (okay,
200 years later), be considered equally
free.