Why did the early settlers come to America? Who were the Pilgrims? Who were the Puritans? What were the features in the colonial period which had influence on later American development?

A Nation of Immigrants Composed Mainly of the White People　　The United States of America has long been known as a nation of immigrants and a “melting pot”, because the great majority of its people are immigrants and descendants of settlers who came from all over the world to make their homes in the new land, seeking their dream in America. The　　first immigrants in American history came from England and the Netherlands. Now the descendants of European immigrants make up 80.3% of the American population of about 250 million.　　English colonization in North America in the sixteenth century repeatedly failed. It was not until 1607 that the first English permanent settlement in America was establish. The first wave of colonizing activity, which began in 1606 and lasted until 1637, planted three groups of English colonies: Virginia and Maryland on the Chesapeake, the Puritan commonwealths of New England, and the British West Indies, and also the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, which became New York. Some other European countries also established their colonies along North America’s Atlantic coastline. In 1713, the population of the twelve continental colonies was nearly 360,000, a fourfold increase. Quite a lot of them were German and Scots-Irish. Discontented Germans came to English America because the German states had no overseas possessions, and no colonies except those of the English would admit foreigners. Most Germans entered America at Philadelphia, whence they spread out fanwise into the back-country and became the most prosperous farmers in North America. The English-speaking Scots-Irish came from Ulster. They were largely descendents of the Scots who had colonized Northern Ireland when the English were first setting Virginia. After 1713 the pressure of the native Catholic Irish and the restrictive legislation of the British. Parliament forced them to emigrate in drove. As land was dear in the eastern colonies, these fighting Celts drifted to the frontier. A considerable number of southern Irish, mostly Protestants but including Catholic families came at the same time. They were mostly men of property who invested in land and remained in the older-settled regions.　　Britain gradually established its dominance over North America’s Atlantic coast. It successfully planted 13 colonies by edging out other colonial powers and by driving off the native Indians. Though the first English permanent settlement in America was established in Jamestown in1607, modem America was established in Jamestown in 1607, modem Americans choose to look back to the Pilgrim Father, a group of Puritans who came from England in 1620 for a symbol of the origin of their new country. They were followed by other Englishmen. They were generally known as the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP), who played the leading role in winning America’s independence. Their mother tongue, English, became the official language of the new nation. Today about 33% of Americans are of British origin. They control most of the national wealth and political power. The other white Americans, whose forefathers were from other European countries, are not so influential as the WASPs. All these white European immigrants and their descendants together constitute the majority of the American population.　　After the American Civil War, a large number of the “new immigrations” came to the United States of America. Even during the Civil War some 800,000 immigrants had entered the United States, and in the ten years after the ending of the war, some 3.25 million immigrants flooded into the cities and the farms of the North and the West. In the single generation from 1880 to 1910 a tidal wave of immigration spilled almost 18 million persons on American shores. Unlike the old immigrations, who were “pushed out” of West Europe by religious persecution or impoverishment, the new immigrations were “pulled to” the United States by the prospect of good jobs and happy life. Most of them were unskilled. The large influx of the new immigrations resulted in the adoption of the Immigration Quota Law by the American government.　　A lot of Chinese coolies were brought into America after the discovery of gold in California. and for the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. The Chinese-Americans made a great contribution to the development of the American West. But, Chinese-Americans and other Asian-Americans never constitute a majority of the American population. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants composed mainly of the white people.　　Immigrants from different nations all over the world joined together to make one nation, the American. They speak almost the same kind of English with far less class or regional variety than in Great Britain. They have the same way of life, similar habits and manners. They have established a new universal national culture. With only a few exceptions, the national origins have well been mixed. In this sense, the United States of America has been known as a “melting pot”.

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Why did the early settlers come to America? Who were the Pilgrims? Who were the Puritans? What were the features in the colonial period which had influence on later American development?