The Disappearance of Organized Markets for European Immigrant Servants in the United States: Five Popular Explanations Reexamined

1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. W. Grubb

Organized markets for European immigrant servants in North America began in Jamestown around 1620 and ended in the ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans around 1820. For two centuries these markets survived, even flourished, in spite of numerous wartime interruptions, political revolutions, depressions in the transatlantic shipping market, cyclical recessions in the American economy, and competition from both slave and native-born free labor. During the eighteenth century roughly half of the European emigrants to British North America entered servitude to pay for their transatlantic passage (Galenson 1981; Grubb 1992b).

Rough Waters ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Codignola

This chapter explores the late eighteenth century relationship between North America and the states of the Italian Peninsula, in attempt to challenge the notion of a homogenous Atlantic world. It reveals a myriad of complex networks - commercial, political, and familial - that facilitated trade between Tuscany, Genoa, Naples, British North America, and the United States. It examines these networks primarily through the cod trade, but also considers wheat, tobacco, sugar, and others. It follows case studies of prominent traders, including Filippo Mazzei; Anton Francesco Salucci; Nicola Filicchi; and Stefano Ceronio, and concludes that, despite popular scholarly opinion garnered from factors such as the failure of diplomacy between the nations, trade between the United States and Italy before 1815 was consistently strong and bolstered through business and familial networks.


2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Balthazar

This paper's objective is to bring forth some elements which confirm the following hypothesis : Canada is consigned to continentalism, namely to economic and cultural integration with the United States though this fact is shrouded in a Canadian nationalism of sorts. The continentalist mentality is rooted in the history of British North America, inhabited mostly by refugees from America who have remained inherently "Yankees" in spite of their anti-americanism. The Confederation itself is based on a sort of complicity with the United States. More recently there were talks of a "North American nationality", and continentalism both cultural and economic has come to be seen as a 'force of nature" which the governments, at the most, put into a chanelling process. Still, it is possible for Canadian nationalism to exist provided it does not go beyond the threshold whence it would run headlong into the continental mentality. Canada has defined itself through an international or non-national perspective far too long for today's nationalism not to remain weak and poorly established. But the Americans whose "manifest destiny" has succeeded in spreading over Canada without even their having tried to hoist their flag there find it to their advantage to maintain some form of Canadian sovereignty. Canada as a "friendly nation" can be of use to Washington. That is why there are almost as many advocates for Canada's independence in the United States as there are north of the border. Canadian nationalism can thus further the interests of some Canadian elites without seriously prejudicing continental integration which can very well afford not to be set up into formalized structures.


1938 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
J. Owen Stalson

Colonial America gave little thought to life insurance selling. The colonists secured protection against marine risks from private underwriters, first in London, eventually at home. It has been asserted that Philadelphia had no fire insurance until 1752; Boston none before 1795. The first corporations formed in this country for insuring lives were those of the Presbyterian Ministers Fund (1759) and a similar company organized for the benefit of Episcopal ministers (1769). Neither of these corporations offered insurance to the general public. In the last decade of the eighteenth century many insurance companies were formed in the United States. At least five were chartered to underwrite life risks, but only one, The Insurance Company of North America, appears to have accepted any. There is no basis for saying that any of these early companies tried to sell life insurance.


1968 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 598-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Officer ◽  
Lawrence B. Smith

The Reciprocity Treaty between the British North American Provinces (Canada) and the United States was ratified in February 1855 and terminated in March 1866. It provided for free trade in all natural products, free access for United States fisheries to the Atlantic coastal waters of British North America, and access to the St. Lawrence River for American vessels under the same tolls as native vessels.


Itinerario ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-32
Author(s):  
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

Historians have traditionally paid relatively little attention to the French migrations to America. Although in the early modern period France was a demographic giant, had a deep – yet not enough recognized – maritime tradition, had many colonies in the Americas from the Gulf of Saint-Lawrence to the Amazon, and suffered from a tumultuous political history comparatively few of its people migrated to British North America and the United States. France has therefore and to some extent understandably enjoyed minimal visibility in the American ethnic landscape. There is, however, a long tradition of French migrations to America, beginning with the Huguenots at the end of the seventeenth century. At times these influxes were important in terms of number and influence, indeed in 1690 and in 1790 French was spoken in the streets of Charleston and of Philadelphia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-53
Author(s):  
Ted Binnema

The importance of decisions regarding the allocation of jurisdiction over Indigenous affairs in federal states can only be understood well when studied transnationally and comparatively. Historians of Canada appear never to have considered the significance of the fact that the British North America Act (1867) gave the Canadian federal government exclusive jurisdiction over Indian affairs, even though that stipulation is unique among the constitutional documents of comparable federal states (the United States and Australia). This article explains that the constitutional provisions in Canada, the United States, and Australia are a product of the previous history of indigenous-state relations in each location, but also profoundly affected subsequent developments in each of those countries. Despite stark differences, the similar and parallel developments also hint at trends that influenced all three countries.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (157) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Shane Lynn

AbstractIn September 1828, societies of the ‘Friends of Ireland’ were founded throughout the United States and British North America for the purpose of raising funds and disseminating propaganda in support of the O’Connellite campaign for Catholic emancipation. In March 1831, the societies were briefly revived to agitate for repeal of the Union. The first Irish diasporic social movement to appear in Britain’s overseas empire, the British North American Friends of Ireland enjoyed greatest support in French-speaking Lower Canada, where for a time sympathetic local patriotes perceived a common cause with their new Irish neighbours. This article explores the transatlantic reciprocal interactions, cross-ethnic alliances and regional distinctions which characterised early O’Connellism in Lower Canada. It follows its initial successes to its virtual collapse in the early 1830s, as an increasingly polarised Lower Canada slid towards rebellion. Comparisons are employed with similar agitation elsewhere in British North America, in the United States, and in Ireland. It is argued that instrumentalist explanations for Irish diasporic nationalism, typically drawn from studies of post-famine Irish-America, do not convincingly account for the appearance and form of O’Connellite nationalism in British North America.


Author(s):  
Tanja Bueltmann ◽  
Donald M. MacRaild

Chapter 2 explores, first, the development of elite English associations in North America, focusing on St George’s societies. These earliest English societies were more than gentlemen’s dining and drinking clubs, and extended beyond the cultural life of the colonial tavern where they often met. Their roles encompassed social, cultural, civic and also emotional aspects of immigrant community life. Critically, however, the idea of charity underpinned them and provided the basis for all their activities, with the societies established for the purpose of aiding fellow English migrants who were in distress. This associational anchor of benevolence continues to be a mainstay for the St George’s societies that are still active today. And it was one that spread with the St George’s tradition—first to the largest centres of the original Thirteen Colonies and then, in the 1830s, to British North America. All this was in tune with the patterns of English migration, as well as its overall volume, with a plethora of new societies being founded in the mid-nineteenth century to cater for the mass arrival of migrants. Hence, while the associations’ leaders were comprised of the migrant elite, the work of St George’s societies had wider resonances for it embraced the poorest and most unfortunate of their fellow countrymen and women. Importantly, charitable culture also signifies the extent to which the English formed an active diaspora: that is, one denoted both by the geographical range of its adherents, transnational communication between them, and persistent social action. Indeed, transnational integration and the quest for consistently was fostered by the North America St George’s Union, which was founded in the 1870s for the purpose of bringing closer together the St George’s societies of the United States and Canada.


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