Source Collection: Migration
Introduction to this collection
This collection explores the movement of people from Europe and Asia to the Americas.
Guiding question to think about as you read the documents: What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
WHP Primary Source Punctuation Key
When you read through these primary source collections, you might notice some unusual punctuation like this: . . . and [ ] and ( ). Use the table below to help you understand what this punctuation means.
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ELLIPSES words … words |
Something has been removed from the quoted sentences by an editor. |
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BRACKETS [word] or word[s] |
Something has been added or changed by an editor. These edits are to clarify or help readers. |
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PARENTHESES (words) |
The original author of the primary source wanted to clarify, add more detail, or make an additional comment in parentheses. |
Contents
Source 1 – Roughing It by Mark Twain, 1870–1871 (0:30)
Source 2 – Dearth of Women in the State of California, 1893 (5:10)
Source 3 – Photographs of Indo-Caribbean women, nineteenth century (9:15)
Source 4 – Folk Songs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai’i, nineteenth and twentieth centuries (11:25)
Source 5 – Some of the Evils of Immigration, 1891 (15:15)
Source 6 – Saint Malo, a lacustrine village in Louisiana, 1883 (19:25)
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Timestamps are in the source title. To locate a specific source in the audio file:
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Source 1 – Roughing It by Mark Twain, 1870–1871 (0:30)
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Title Roughing It |
Date and location 1870–1871, United States of America |
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Source type Primary source – semi-autobiographical travel book |
Author Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835–1910) |
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Description Mark Twain is one of the most famous American authors. In his book, Roughing It, he writes about his travels into the American West. During these travels, he came across Chinese immigrant enclaves; an enclave is a part of a country or city where the population has a different religion, culture, or nationality than the surrounding area. The excerpt details Mark Twain’s impression of the Chinese immigrants. Note that Twain’s writings contain nineteenth- century stereotypes and terminology that would not be used today. |
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Key vocabulary resenting vilest tractable industrious testify quarter |
exorbitant swindle disposed Chinaman cipher [verb] |
Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
Of course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia [City, Nevada]—it was the case with every town and city on the Pacific coast. They are a harmless race when white men either let them alone or treat them no worse than dogs; in fact they are almost entirely harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest insults or the cruelest injuries. They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do. He is a great convenience to everybody—even to the worst class of white men, for he bears the most of their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment for their robberies, and death for their murders. Any white man can swear a Chinaman’s life away in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a white man. …
There are seventy thousand (and possibly one hundred thousand) Chinamen on the Pacific coast. There were about a thousand in Virginia [City]. They were penned into a “Chinese quarter”—a thing which they do not particularly object to, as they are fond of herding together. … The chief employment of Chinamen in towns is to wash clothing. … Their price for washing was $2.50 per dozen—rather cheaper than white people could afford to wash for at that time. … The house servants, cooks, etc., in California and Nevada, were chiefly Chinamen. There were few white servants and no Chinawomen so employed. Chinamen make good house servants, being quick, obedient, patient, quick to learn and tirelessly industrious. They do not need to be taught a thing twice, as a general thing. …
All Chinamen can read, write and cipher with easy facility … In California they rent little patches of ground and do a deal of gardening. They will raise surprising crops of vegetables on a sand pile. They waste nothing. What is rubbish to a Christian, a Chinaman carefully preserves and makes useful in one way or another. … In California he gets a living out of old mining claims that white men have abandoned as exhausted and worthless—and then the officers come down on him once a month with an exorbitant swindle to which the legislature has given the broad, general name of “foreign” mining tax, but is usually inflicted on no foreigners but Chinamen. This swindle has in some cases been repeated once or twice on the same victim in the course of the same month—but the public treasury was not additionally enriched by it, probably. …
Citation
Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1872.
Source 2 – Dearth of Women in the State of California, 1893 (5:10)
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Title Dearth of Women in the State of California. Thirty-four States Have More Men Than Women—The Remedy: More Marriages and Less Immigration |
Date and location 1893, Los Angeles, California |
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Source type Primary source – newspaper article |
Author J. C. Fletcher (1823–1901) |
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Description J. C. Fletcher submitted an article to the Los Angeles Times on 28 March 1893. In the article, he responds to analysis from Europe about California’s gender imbalance. He argues that the gender imbalance is worse in other states, and he gives his proposed solution to the issue. |
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Key vocabulary sarcastic disproportion plodded immense remedy |
towed dearth suitors suing |
Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
THE SEXES
Dearth of Women in the State of California
Thirty-four States Have More Men Than Women—The Remedy: More Marriage and Less Immigration
A friend in Paris sent me … a very sarcastic article based on a statement made in some American Journal that the disproportion between the number of men and women was so great in California that no decent woman could arrive from the east without having thirty or forty suitors immediately [suing] for her hand in marriage. Furthermore, women are represented as so scarce in some parts of the “Bear Flag” State, that men will make long journeys to get a peep at one … The article … shows a remarkable ignorance concerning California. … But I wish to call attention to the fact that California is not the only state in our union, nor the only country in the world that has a larger proportion of men than women. …
Without going to other countries, I wish to show that this case of California is by no means unique in the United States. I have this week plodded through an immense pile of statistics connected with our American census of 1890, and the result, I think, will be surprising to a great many of our own people, for between five and six-sevenths of states have a surplus of men. …
Of the forty-four states composing our union, thirty-four have a great number of men than women. By the last census (1890), … there were 191,988 more men than women, in California. If a census could be taken next June it will be found that in three years the disproportion has been considerably lowered. Each year more mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are coming to California. …
What is the remedy for this disproportion? The answer most apparent is, “more marriages.” It would be well if Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia North Carolina were towed around the pacific Coast, and moored for about six years, and the disproportion would soon disappear. Within the last two decades, perhaps, 200,000 wifeless foreigners have come into our country, and, into Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island, have poured many thousands of husbandless women. Let wise laws limit immigration, and in a decade the sexes would lose their present disproportion.
J. C. Fletcher
Citation
Fletcher, J.C. “The Sexes: Dearth of Women In the State of California. Thirty-four States Have More Men Than Women—The Remedy: More Marriages and Less Immigration.” Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1893.
Source 3 – Photographs of Indo-Caribbean women, nineteenth century (9:15)
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Title Postcards relating to Indo-Caribbeans |
Date and location nineteenth century, modern day Caribbean |
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Source type Primary source – photographs |
Author Unknown |
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Description These photographs show migrant women from India to the Caribbean, who were described as “coolies”. These migrant women were often indentured laborers. The Indian indenture system saw over a million Indian people transported to European colonies, including the Caribbean, to work for limited or no pay for a specified period. After the abolition of slavery, this became more common as a substitute, as it provided inexpensive labor. The Indian women in the Caribbean pictured here were photographed for a thriving postcard industry. Most women “coolies” were widows or outcasts and did not have male guardians. Most were not literate, so we do not have their written testimonies. These photos give us a brief glimpse of this often forgotten history. The photographs were taken professionally by studios and then used as postcards to be sent around the world. |
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Key vocabulary coolie |
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Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
Notes or additional materials
For further reading, see https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/postcards-from-empire Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (University of Chicago Press, 2013) and “Postcards relating to Indo-Caribbeans from the late nineteenth century to 1975, Print Collection 40, Finding aid prepared by Alexandra M. Wilder.” University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/detail.html?id=PACSCL_UPENN_RBML_PUSpPrintColl40
Source 4 – Folk Songs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai’i, nineteenth and twentieth centuries (11:25)
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Title Folk Songs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai’i, nineteenth and twentieth centuries |
Date and location nineteenth century, Hawaii |
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Source type Primary source – folk songs |
Author Various authors |
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Description Holehole Bushi is the name of the folk songs sung by Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. These workers tended to the cane sugar fields. The work was often backbreaking. These songs, 4 lines each, were passed down from generation to generation and act as a record of the experiences of those early immigrants in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. |
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Key vocabulary despicable fertilizer withered pail |
remittance pathos tassel |
Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
Beloved homeland
Staring into the sky
Who crosses that bridge
Into the void?
In a light drizzle
The wake-up bell clangs
Plantation cops crack
Their whips
A real look at the
Man I am to marry
This picture bride1 system is
Despicable
So early in the morning
Lunch pail on my shoulder
Once more holehole2 work3
To put food on the table
Off to work so early to our
Konpan4 cane fields
Oh, to return to our homes
But when?
All that greasy sweat
Money from the konpan harvest
At home they wait impatiently
For the remittance
The workers keep coming
Overflowing these Islands
But it’s only middleman Nakayama5
Who rakes in the dough
“Go head, go ahead!”
The luna6 barks at us to work faster
I trashed the bastard
In my dream
Hawai’i, Hawai’i
I come, chasing a dream
Now my tears flow
In the cane field
After one or two contracts
The poor bastards who don’t go home
End up in Hawai’i
Fertilizer for sugar cane
When my contract ends
I’ll send for her
If we are patient
We will have money
Money trees were
In my thoughts when I came but
Hawai’i turned out to be a
Living hell
My husband cuts the cane
While I do holehole
With sweat and tears
Together we get by
With but one willow trunk
I arrived, a lone bachelor
Now I have children and grandchildren
And even great-grandchildren
Citation
Odo, Franklin. Voices from the Canefields: Folksongs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai’i. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. https://academic.oup.com/book/27231
Notes or additional materials
Further reading: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Holehole%20bushi/
1 Using a catalogue to find a potential spouse from Japan.
2 Holehole: Hawaiian for dead or dying leaves of a sugar cane
3 Holehole work: the act of removing the leaves from sugar cane plants. It was arduous work that was often given to women.
4 Konpan: the act of a husband and wife working together in the fields.
5 A Japanese name
6 Plantation overseer
Source 5 – Some of the Evils of Immigration, 1891 (15:15)
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Title Some of the Evils of Immigration |
Date and location January 1891, US Congress |
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Source type Primary source – Congressional record |
Author C. C. Monero, Henry J. Jackson, Stephenson, and T. V. Powderly |
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Description At a joint committee set up by Congress, testimony is given regarding the Italians in the United States. Specifically, it describes the Padrone system of workers’ contracts and the impact on Italian immigrants. |
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Key vocabulary extracts joint committee lucrative agriculturists |
necessaries passage haphazard abject |
Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
The Following extracts are from the testimony taken by a joint committee of investigation appointed by the last Congress and reported in January, 1891.
ITALIAN IMMIGRATION.
Statement of C. C. Monero
If Italian immigration should come into this country free it would be welcomed on the part of this country. … But if the Italians should be permitted to come under the Padroni7 system of slavery it would be a curse to this country and a permanent disgrace.
The Padroni system of slavery began in the year 1867. … [T]he padroni … have found a way to get around [the outlawing of the system]. [They] have carried on the slavery just as before, and … made it very lucrative; but it has dishonored … the Italian race.
I am sorry to say that … tens of thousands [of Italians] are kept in the most abject slavery by the cruel padroni … [they] grow fat on the sweat and blood of their unfortunate countrymen, the Italian slaves, men, women, and children. …
In California they are free. There now is not one slave under a padrone there, and they are the best agriculturists, gardeners, and fishermen in California.
TESTIMONY OF HENRY J. JACKSON
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Q. What nationality of immigrants bring the smallest amount of baggage at this time?
A. The Italians.
Q. Do you think they bring their small amount of baggage because they can buy their belongings and necessaries at a cheaper rate than they can bring them from the old country?
A. No, Sir: I would not say that of the Italians.
Q. So the reasons is … because the quality of the immigrant has changed, and so many of the immigrants now coming have not any household goods; have not anything [but their clothes]?
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Q. In your observation of these different classes, who are the least desirable of the immigrants?
A. I should say the Italians.
STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION STEPHENSON
The Italians … are virtually under a contract before they even come here. A large portion of them have their passage paid there, which they agree to pay back, and 100, and in some cases 200 per cent of it in addition. … Every one of [the Italians] is identically alike. They have their leaders with them: they take them direct to the mines. Now, they do not come at haphazard. It is evident that the inspectors are unable to catch them under this law.
Citation
“Some of the evils of immigration: Uncovered by the Joint Committee of Congress …” The Independent … Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848–1921) 43, issue 2235 (Oct 1, 1891): 5.
7 A system of contracts that often was a very bad deal for the worker
Source 6 – Saint Malo, a lacustrine village in Louisiana, 1883 (19:25)
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Title Saint Malo, a lacustrine village in Louisiana |
Date and location nineteenth century, Louisiana |
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Source type Primary source – drawing, wood carving, and article |
Author Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), writer Thure de Thulstrup (1848–1930), artist Charles S. Graham (1852–1911), artist Julian Oliver Davidson (1853–1894), artist |
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Description “Saint Malo” was the name of the first Filipino settlement in the United States. It was a community of fishermen in inland Louisiana. The community started in the eighteenth century and remained until it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1915. The excerpts detail life in this community at the end of the nineteenth century. It was featured in Harpers Weekly and includes illustrations. |
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Key vocabulary inhabitants chartered vessel desolation dwellings aquatic |
liquor lacustrine Oriental lugger banneretted |
Guiding question
What were the causes and effects of new patterns of migration from c. 1750 to 1900?
Excerpt
For nearly fifty years there has existed [in] Louisiana a certain strange settlement of Malay fishermen—Tagalas from the Philippine Islands. The place of their lacustrine village is not precisely mentioned upon maps, and the world, in general. … [The] Times-Democrat of New Orleans chartered and fitted out an Italian lugger for a trip to the unexplored region in question—to the fishing station of Saint Malo. And a strange voyage it was. Even the Italian sailors knew not whither they were going, none of them had ever beheld the Manila village, or were aware of its location. …
[After a long and difficult journey] [s]uddenly the mouth of a bayou appears—“Saint Malo Pass.” … Out of the shuddering reeds and banneretted grass on either side rise the fantastic houses of the Malay fishermen, poised upon slender supports above the marsh. …
They speak the Spanish language; and a Malay dialect is also used among them. … [C]ommunication is still kept up with Manila, and money often sent there to aid friends in emigrating. Such emigrants usually ship as seamen on board some Spanish vessel bound for American ports, and desert at the first opportunity. …
There is no woman in the settlement. … Men who have families keep them at New Orleans. … [I]t would seem cruel to ask any woman to dwell in such a desolation, without comfort and without protection, during the long absence of the fishingboats. …
[If a community member did not] keep a chalk record of the days of the week, none might know Sunday from Monday. There is absolutely no furniture in the place; not a chair, a table, or a bed can be found in all the dwellings of this aquatic village. …
A fisherman dies; he is buried under the rustling reeds, and a pine cross planted above his grave. …
There is no liquor in the settlement, and these hardy fishers and alligator-hunters seem none the worse therefor. Their flesh is as hard as oak-wood and sickness rarely affects them, although they know little of comfort, and live largely upon raw fish, seasoned with vinegar and oil. …
Citation
Hearn, Lafcadio. “Saint Malo, a lacustrine village in Louisiana.” Harper’s Weekly, 31 Mar. 1883: 198–99.
Eman M. Elshaikh
Eman M. Elshaikh is a writer, researcher, and teacher who has taught K-12 and undergraduates in the United States and in the Middle East and written for many different audiences. She teaches writing at the University of Chicago, where she also completed her master’s in social sciences and is currently pursuing her PhD. She was previously a World History Fellow at Khan Academy, where she worked closely with the College Board to develop curriculum for AP World History.
Image credits
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following:
Cover: Words from ‘The New Colossus’ poem by Emma Lazarus are engraved on a replica bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island August 14, 2019 in New York City. On Tuesday, acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli reworked the words of the Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus as he defended the Trump administrations immigration policies. The poem appears on a plaque inside The Statue of Liberty. The 1883 poem by Lazarus is often cited as an inspiration statement about America’s attitude toward immigrants. © Drew Angerer/Getty Images.