myfourleggedstool
  • Home
  • About the Author
  • Blog
  • "The Immigrant"
    • Author's Interview
    • Published Reviews of The Immigrant
    • Resources for The Immigrant
    • 3 September 1650 Dunbar Scotland
    • November 1650 On the North Atlantic
    • Early Winter 1650 - 1651 Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony
    • 22 April 1676 Concord, Massachusetts
    • August 12, 1676 Miery Swamp Bristol, Rhode Island
  • "The Believers"
    • Published Reviews of The Believers In The Crucible Nauvoo
    • 29 June 1844 Nauvoo, Illinois
    • July 1844 Peterborough, New Hampshire
  • Other Timelines
    • 19 April 1775 Concord, Mass
    • 11 July 1863 The First Assault on Morris Island
    • January 2009 Acton, Massachusetts
    • September 2009 Sharon, New Hampshire
  • Alfred's Four Legged Stool
    • Eleven Generations of John Law Descendants
    • John Law of Acton, Massachusetts
    • Reuben Law of Acton, Massachusetts and Sharon, New Hampshire
    • Re-dedication of Woollacott Square, 26 May 2015
    • John Woollacott of Atherington, Devon, England, patriarch of the Fitchburg Woollacotts
    • The Woollacotts of North Devon
    • Early Woollacotts and Variations thereon
    • Élisabeth Isabelle Salé, Les Fille du Roi
  • Jill's four legged stool
    • Russell Clark Germond and two generations of Ancestors
    • Some Chandler's of Androscoggin and Oxford Counties, Maine
    • Thrice-related, only a genealogist could be impressed by it

Immigration, has it changed? January 2018

1/6/2018

6 Comments

 
Picture
Do today’s immigrants face challenges akin to previous waves of foreigners; or is it different ?

The Great Migration (1630 - 1640) consisted of twenty thousand, primary English immigrants trekking to a new world in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This wave was ground zero, a beginning for what would eventually become America. They dealt with the indigenous people in various way to claim the land and built for themselves a Puritan Theocracy, free of diversity.

For a decade the Puritans had their way until another wave, perhaps more appropriately, a trickle of Scottish Prisoners of War arrived in 1651 — Immigration 1.0. These invaders of an erstwhile virgin land spoke differently with a Scottish burr, were Presbyterians not Puritans, and worst of all had fought against the Puritans’ guardian, their beloved Oliver Cromwell. To some, they were the enemy, and to others, a cheap source of labor for the Saugus Iron Works. The Great Migration had consisted of family units often bound by kindred ties or by residing previously in the same English village. These Scots were young males,  rowdy, and lacking the discipline that marriage and a family require.

Picture
Immigration 2.0 and succeeding versions followed. The Great Potato famine (1845 - 1849) caused mass starvation, disease, and desperation, and a wave of Irish came to America. By 1850 these Catholics made up a quarter of Boston’s once Protestant population. By the 1860s, NINA (No Irish Need Apply) accompanied help wanted signs. A song of the same name became popular in 1862 in London, which Irish-Americans adapted the lyrics to reflect the discrimination they felt as they sang.

Later, French Canadians streamed down from Quebec, cheap labor  to work the textile mills along the Merrimack River in Manchester, NH, and Lowell and Lawrence, Mass. By the mid-twentieth century, French-Canadian Americans comprised thirty percent of Maine, and towns like Lewiston had their enclaves known as “Little Canada”.

Similarly, at the turn of the last century Italians arrived, congregating in an enclave in Boston’s North End. Like the waves before, they faced challenges - poverty, discrimination, and a language barrier. They were full of emotion and more swarthy than the reserved, pale Yankee Puritans who were Boston’s establishment, seemingly under siege.

And the waves continue. Today, Hispanics and Muslims are in the news. Even on this tiny island of Martha’s Vineyard, we have a significant minority of Brazilians. Some come seeking jobs and, as a source of cheap labor, their opportunities abound. They seek a new start, some seek asylum. They speak different languages, and certain groups are viewed by some Americans as terrorist, the enemy similar to the view some Puritans had of the Scottish Prisoners of War who arrived 367 years earlier.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Did John Law face greater discrimination than subsequent immigration waves would face? And how about today’s immigrants? If you read The Immigrant, you might find some answers to these questions. ​

6 Comments
Paula Lofting
1/18/2019 10:02:46 am

Interesting post Alfred, I think there's little difference in how immigration presents itself, there's always a need for a better life, as why else would people go to lands leaving all they have known behind them, other than to escape something be it poverty, oppression, the threat of death... no, nothing changes.

Reply
Al
1/18/2019 12:30:59 pm

I agree as regard to motivations for leaving. As regards to welcoming immigrants, we have softened with time, become more nuanced as we allegedly become more civil. We don't hang Quakers on Boston Common anymore like the Puritans did in 1660

Reply
Bobby M link
1/16/2021 06:09:45 am

Thankss great blog

Reply
Alfred Woollacott III
1/16/2021 08:12:07 am

Thank you. Reading about what previous immigrants and witnessing today's immigrants challenges helped me to visual what John Law, my seven-greats grandfather, might have experienced.

Reply
Brunette Escorts Richmond Hill link
3/18/2025 02:30:12 pm

It is interesting that history repeats itself with the challenges faced by different immigrant groups.

Reply
Alfred Woollacott
3/19/2025 07:13:40 am

Indeed - If we don’t learn from our mistakes we’re doomed to repeat them. With immigration, we’re still learning.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    In 2002, Alfred Woollacott, III retired from KPMG and began pursuing his family history. His research is meticulous and in December 2017, he began blogging about it, giving further insight to his novels

    Archives

    August 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.