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Welcome�Early American Migration�Denise Beeson�beeson@sonic.net

2025

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You Will Learn

  • World Immigration to North America
  • Early Passengers’ Lists
  • Reasons Why They Came
  • Who Came & Resources for You
  • Timeline of Migration Events
  • Early United Colonies of America-challenging research

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Settlers from around the World

In the early 1600s,

  • the English began a colony (Jamestown) in Chesapeake Bay in 1607,
  • the French built Quebec in 1608,
  • and the Dutch began their interest in the region that became present-day New York.
  • and the Spanish claim of Florida and the Southwest
  • Economic interests grew another generation, the Plymouth Company (1620), the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629), the Company of New France (1627), and the Dutch West India Company (1621) began to send thousands of colonists, including families, to North America.
  • Successful colonization was not inevitable. Interest in North America was a halting, yet global, contest among European powers to exploit these rich lands.

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Early Passenger Lists

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Early Passenger Lists�

Not available but see Books, microfilm and digitized records for incomplete databases.

See WorldCAT or NARA

  • Best Book: Passenger and immigration lists bibliography, 1538-1900: being a guide to published lists of arrivals in the United States and Canada. Supplement with combined index to basic volume and supplement.

Authors:

Filby, P. William (Percy William), 1911-2002 (Main Author)

View this catalog record in WorldCat for other possible copy locations

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Early Passenger Lists-additional resources

Passenger Lists

Pre-1820 there were no laws requiring captains to maintain lists, although some did. No central repository holds manifests from this era. While some have been lost, there are some that have survived or were published in one form or another.

  • See links in Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org:

Example: Emigrants from England to the American Colonies, 1773-1776

Example: Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1948

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Early Passenger Lists- Lists-additional resources

  • Check biographical publications as well.

Example: Great Migration Begins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan_migration_to_New_England_(1620%E2%80%931640)

Example: Directory of Scots in the Carolinas, 1680-1830

  • Check the Card Catalog on Ancestry /Family Search to locate relevant collections. Such as:

Search by: Immigration & Travel USA (state and county are optional); Era (decade or century)

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Immigrant vs. Emigrant

  • “Colonists” is used to encompass those European and Africans who came prior to independence.
  • “Immigrant” someone born outside of the U.S. who arrived after 1783.

1607-1880 estimate 650,000 (<1/day)

  • “Emigrant” designates one who has left his home country.

In his new home he is becomes an “immigrant.”

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British Soldiers

Many joined the British Army for a promise of land. “Bounty Land” was awarded to those that enlisted and fought. Most males did not have “status” to claim the farm so serving in the military assured them of food, shelter and a modest stipend.

British soldiers were “housed” with colonists. This was better than what laid ahead for them in England.

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British Soldiers in Colonial Times

  • At its peak, the British Army had upwards of 22,000 men at its disposal in North America to combat the American rebellion. An additional 25,000 Loyalists, faithful to Great Britain, participated in the conflict as well. Nearly 30,000 German auxiliaries, or Hessians, were hired out by German princes and served alongside the British for the duration of the war.
  • Over the course of the war, about 231,000 Patriot men served in the Continental Army, though never more than 48,000 at any one time, and never more than 13,000 at any one place.
  • The sum of the Colonial militias numbered upwards of 145,000 men. France also dispatched a substantial force to North America beginning in 1779, with more than 12,000 soldiers and a substantial fleet joining the Colonial Americans by wars end.
  • After the American Revolution some stayed, and some left for Canada (the Loyalists).

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Reasons for Early Migration

AVAILABLE LAND! LAND! LAND!

Factoid: 1607-1865- 407,000,000 acres and improvement of another 1,000,000 establishing a rural economy in north America

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See Lloyd deWitt Bockstruck’s Bounty and Donation Land Grants in British Colonial America (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007)

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Who Came?

  • “Freemen” (& Women) and “Free Planters”

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  • Indentured servants

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  • Convicts

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  • Slaves

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FREEMEN

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Freemen

In the early colonization of America, free men were not enslaved. The term originated in Europe in the 12th century. In the American colonial period, the definition of freeman varied by colony.

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Freemen

Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628-1691 common or Christian era, CE) was the largest English settlement in New England and the most influential both in the colonization of the region and later developments in what would become the United States of America.

It was founded and developed by Puritans, religious reformers who sought to 'purify' the policies and practices of the Anglican Church of Catholic influences, which put them in conflict with the Church and the Crown. 

Puritan Separatist John Endicott (l. c. 1600-1665 CE) established a colony at Salem in 1628 CE, but a larger influx arrived in 1630 CE led by the Puritan lawyer John Winthrop (l. c. 1588-1649 CE).

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Freemen

  • Between 1630-1640 common or Christian era (CE), 20,000 more colonists would arrive in New England, taking more land as they expanded outward from the established settlements.
  • A man had to be a member of the Church to be a freeman; in neighboring Plymouth Colony, a man did not need to be a member of the Church, but he had to be elected to this privilege by the General Court.
  • Being a Freeman carried with it the right to vote, and in Plymouth only Freemen could vote by 1632.

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Oath of a freeman�

  • Initially, all persons seeking to be free needed to take the Oath of a Freeman, in which they vowed to defend the Commonwealth and not to conspire to overthrow the government.
  • The first handwritten version of the "Freeman's Oath" was made in 1634; it was printed by Stephen Daye in 1639 in the form of a broadside or single sheet of paper intended for posting in public places.

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Freeplanter

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�Free planter (c. 1642 - c. 1700)�

Commerce, Cavaliers, and Planters: the Planter Class

With the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, Catholics and Royalists had cause to flee England for Virginia. These immigrants came to be known as “Cavaliers”. In 1660 with the end of Cromwell's Protectorate and restoration of Charles II, immigration grew rapidly.

By 1660, some Freemen had managed to create permanent settlements from wilderness, bringing with them a modicum of British civilization. Everyone--Cavaliers, Puritans, and especially English businessmen--found Virginia the land of opportunity. See Flag of Colonial Virginia

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Free planter (c. 1642 - c. 1700)�

If you could afford to pay passage, the King would grant 40-50 acres per person transported as "headright." By this land allocation system, huge plantations were amassed which would fund many of the most famous families in Virginia history--Washingtons, Lees, Warners, and Lewis’s.

These Planters created an aristocracy not built on peerage but on wealth. They and their descendants were the movers and shakers. Their history is the history of modern Virginia.

Resource: The Planters of Colonial Virginia, History of the Colonial Virginia Series by Thomas J. Wertenbaker

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Free planter�

  • A "free planter" (as opposed to a "freeman") was any land holder who possessed land outright that was usually given to him by the colony after he had finished his probationary period, except in those cases where the landowner had inherited his property.
  • But, if he was deemed legally incompetent, didn't pass his probationary period, or again lost his freedom through some irresponsibility of his own, he would have his land and property confiscated and redistributed among the remaining freemen, even if the inheritor was a well-respected citizen.
  • See this link for the families listed as “free planters” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_planters

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Free planter Aristocracy Emerges

Southern planters emerged as wealthy landowners who owned or were financially connected to plantations, large farms that produced cash crops for sale in European-American markets. 

Planters were planter “aristocracy” and were part of a racial and socioeconomic caste that emerged in the Americas during European colonization. 

Planters were often well-educated, politically astute, and came from successful families. They owned slaves, controlled indentured servants' contracts, and rented land to tenant farmers. 

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Free planter �Aristocracy Emerges

The wealthiest planters, like the Virginia elite, had more land and slaves. In the "Black Belt" counties of Alabama and Mississippi, the terms "planter" and "farmer" were often used interchangeably. 

Planters became part of the upper social class, along with bankers, lawyers, and merchants. Their wealth and position depended on the slave economy, so they were united in their support of slavery.

Demand for tobacco, rum, lumber, cotton fueled their success!

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Post 1700-Scotch-Irish�

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  • Subsequent immigrants could patent land and could gain wealth and could work their way into upper society of Virginia. But those persons would be the exception as opposed to the rule. As immigration to Virginia became open to the average British citizen, Middle-class and even the poor made their way to Virginia 
  • Exiting the boat, these immigrants generally found that they had to move beyond established settlements into the hinterland. These frontiersmen established a buffer between the gentry of coastal Virginia and the Indians. Most of these new immigrants were Scotch-Irish.

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Resources for Colonial Records

See the link https://www.americanancestors.org/publications/great-migration-study-project

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Indentured Servants

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Indentured Servants

  • What is an indentured servant? A person under contract to work for another person for a definite period, usually without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country
  • First arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607.
  • During the seventeenth century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England as indentured servants.
  • Indentured Servitude – YouTube (2min)

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�How did an indentured servant pay for passage to America?�

These settlers needed passage to the New World, and the Joint Stock Companies funded them.

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In exchange for funding their voyage to the New World, they would have to work for 1-7 years and would later be rewarded with tools and a mule at the end of their service.

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Indenture Guides

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See Pennsylvania Archives for many sources:

The Pennsylvania State Archives does not hold “records” of indentured servants. See Example of Thomas Barnett. This bibliography was compiled by Mary F. Schoedel, November 1, 2006, for the Pennsylvania State Archives.

For information about and records of such individuals, consult the following books:

  • Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. (see https://books.google.com/)

Includes each indentured servant's name, date, hometown, occupation, master, length of contract, and destination.

  • Indentured Servants (pa.gov)

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Entry in Database Thomas Barnett

Name

Surname: Barnett Given Name: Thomas Soundex Code: B653

Birth, Christening and Other Information

Gender: Male Date of Birth or Christening: about 1609 Orphan: Unknown Position in Parent's Family: Unknown Landowner: Unknown Literate: Unknown Convict: Unknown

Length of Indenture

Year of Indenture: 1620

Place of Indenture

Colony: Virginia

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Research Notes

Source Citations: (1) John Camden Hotten, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700 (1874; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1983), 222, quoting Musters of the Inhabitants in Virginia, 1624/1625; (2) Mary Newton Stanard, Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs (Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970), 48; (3) Rebekah Ann Buck, “The Decline of Indentured Servitude in Seventeenth-Century Tobacco Coloniesâ€Â� M.L.S. Thesis, University of Oklahoma, 2000, 82, quoting Hotten and others.

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Populating the Colonies with Convicts!�

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Conditions in the Kingdom

  • No police force; chaos reigned!
  • Majority of “criminals” were the poor.
  • “High crimes” included petty theft punishable by death referred to as

“The Bloody Code” 80% nonviolent

  • “Thief Takers” acted for the government as bounty hunters.

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Transportation Act of 1718

Populating the colonies with convicts!

  • Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that established a regulated, bonded system to transport criminals to colonies in North America for indentured service, as a punishment for those convicted or attainted in Great Britain, excluding Scotland. 

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  • The Transportation Act 1717 allowed courts to sentence convicts to seven years' transportation to America. In 1720, an extension authorized payments by the Crown to merchants contracted to take the convicts to America.

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Transportation Act of 1718

  • Between 1615-1776 about 60,000 men, women and children were sent as punishment for crimes committed in Britain.
  • Rising population + unemployment + poor wages = increased the levels of crime.
  • Yearly Wages for unskilled workers ~£5; good paying jobs to those who had money to join the craftsmen's societies or apprenticeship programs.
  • But most of the population est ¼ to ½ of English lived in poverty!

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�What was the purpose of “transportation” as a punishment?�

  • “Transportation” was used as a form of punishment because it removed the person from society, mostly permanently, but was seen as more merciful than capital punishment.

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  • It was also used to banish or deport criminals to some faraway place.

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How Did “transportation” work?

  • Merchants were paid by the Crown to transport felons to the colonies
  • They could then sell them into servitude
  • England used transportation more than any other country until 1851.
  • 1 out 4 of British immigrants during this time was a convict.
  • British convicts were the 2nd largest group forced to America (guess who was the first)
  • Ages ranged from children 9-yrs to as old as men in their 80’s

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-from-an-indentured-servant-to-his-parents/

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Courts responsible for Transportation

  • Court of Assizes
  • Courts of Quarter Sessions
  • Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court) - 2/3 resulted in transportation
  • 70% sent to America
  • 1 out of 7 got death by hanging

*See these records for genealogy research

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Old Bailey�(Central Criminal Court)��The Proceedings of the Old Bailey (oldbaileyonline.org)��See searchable database.

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Slaves vs. Indentured Servants

  • Indentured term was usually 4-7 years for convicts
  • Male slaves cost between £35-50; more valuable!
  • Male Convicts <£5-9
  • Indentured term had an end date; slaves were for life regardless of the Master or circumstances. Were bought and sold.
  • Contracts spelled out the convict’s crime and sentence; slaves did not have contracts for their labor. Slaves were in generational status.

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Slavery in Colonial America

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Slaves

  • The term slave has its origins in the word “slav”. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD.
  • Slavery can broadly be described as the ownership, buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of forced and unpaid labor.
  • Because of the darkness of their skin Africans were ideally suited and captured because they were easily identified in the general population.

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Where were they sent?

  • New England in the 1600s
  • 1700s Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and the Carolinas

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/convict-labor-during-the-colonial-period/

  • Men worked in the fields and women became house servants or cooks.
  • FYI George Washington was educated by a convict servant!

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Slavery in the Colonies

  • Slavery and forced labor began in colonial America almost as soon as the English arrived and established a permanent settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Colonist George Percy wrote that the English held an “Indian guide” named Kempes in “hande locke” during the First Anglo-Powhatan War in 1610.
  • English colonists exploited Virginia Indians—especially Indian children—for much of the first half of the 17th century. Some colonists largely ignored Virginia laws prohibiting the enslavement of Indian children, which the Virginia Assembly passed in the 1650s and again in 1670.

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1619 Arrival of the Slave ships

  • While colonists continued to enslave Virginia Indians, the first unfree Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. In that year, colonist John Rolfe wrote to Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the founders of the Virginia Company and its then-treasurer, of the arrival of the first Africans on Virginia’s shores.
  • According to Rolfe, in late August a 160-ton man-of-war, the White Lion, brought “20 and odd Negroes” to Point Comfort (present-day Hampton, Virginia). Governor George Yeardley and merchant Abraham Piersey purchased them in exchange for victuals and supplies.
  • Days later in September, two or three more Africans disembarked from the ship Treasurer. These Africans were likely from the Angolan kingdom of Ndongo, captured by Angolan warriors allied with the Portuguese.

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Slave Ships

  • Between 1501 and 1867, nearly 13 million African people were kidnapped, forced onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved, abused, and forever separated from their homes, families, ancestors, and cultures.
  • Nearly two million people died during the barbaric Middle Passage across the ocean. 

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1620 census of Virginia

  • The 1620 census of Virginia records 32 Africans living in Virginia, 17 women and 15 men, listed as “in service of the English” and “in ye service of several[sic] planters.”
  • This census also lists four Indians laboring in the service of English planters. A 1624 muster of the inhabitants of Virginia lists some of the Africans by name, including a woman named Angelo, listed as having arrived on the Treasurer.
  • The legal status of these first Africans in Virginia is unclear—whether the English settlers in Virginia intended to enslave the Africans for life, or whether they served for a period of years before gaining their freedom (a system of indentured servitude) is unknown, though some of these early Africans did later become free.

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For example, Anthony Johnson (whom the 1625 census lists as “Antonio the Negro”) gained his freedom and by 1640 lived in a community of other free Africans and African Americans in Northampton County, Virginia. Anthony himself may have even enslaved an African man named John Casar.

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At Auction

  • As Europeans continued to settle the North American colonies throughout the 17th century, the legal codification of race-based slavery also continued to grow.
  • Though many historians agree that slavery and indentured servitude coexisted in the early part of the century (with many Europeans arriving in the colonies under indentures), especially throughout the 1640s-1660s, colonies increasingly established laws limiting the rights of Africans and African-Americans and solidifying the institution of slavery upon the basis of race and heredity. 

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“An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,”

  • On March 1, 1780, Pennsylvania passed “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,” which stopped the importation of slaves into the State, required all slaves to be registered, and established that all children born in the State were free regardless of race or parentage.
  • While individuals who were slaves before 1780 remained in slavery, this Act was the first Act abolishing slavery in a democratic society. This Act became the model for abolition laws across the Northern states. 

 

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End of Slavery�According to a study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the average African American carries 24 percent European ancestry

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African American Resources

  • AfriGeneas An online database that focuses on African American genealogy, including a Slave Data Collection that has transcriptions of primary sources about early American slavery. 
  • Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) A Washington, D.C.-based organization that focuses on the history and genealogy of African American citizens. 
  • The African American Museum of Philadelphia, which covers the roots of African Americans and their role in U.S. history 
  • The National Archives 
  • Family Tree Magazine
  • Ancestry.com see Freedmen's Bureau
  • Google Books
  • FamilySearch.org
  • Cyndi's List African-American (cyndislist.com/African-American)

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TIMELINE�

  • January 24, 1615, King James I authorizes the transportation of convicts who could "yeild a profitable service to the Commonwealth in parts abroade where it shall be found fitt to imploie them."
  • 1617 Transportation of British convicts to the colonies begins.
  • September 1663 Enslaved Africans and British convict servants (once soldiers of Oliver Cromwell's) in Gloucester and York counties plan a mutiny. Their plan is exposed by John Berkenhead, an indentured servant.
  • April 6, 1671, The Virginia General Court reads an order from the king's Council stating that "noe Newgate or Goale [jail] birds should be imported into this Collony or other parts of America."
  • October—November 1671, Hugh Nevett, a merchant who owns a Gloucester County plantation, is caught importing some Newgate "Goale" birds. A month later, the Virginia General Court orders Nevett to "send out the Newgate birds within 2 months."

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TIMELINE�

  • 1697 The process of transporting British criminals to America ceases to function because the colonies refuse to take them, and few merchants are willing to pay for the passage.

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  • 1718 Parliament passes "An Act for the further preventing Robbery, Burglary and other Felonies, and for the more effectual Transportation of Felons," which begins British government—subsidized transportation of felons to Virginia. By 1775, Britain will have sent about 20,000 convicts to Virginia under this law.

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  • 1718 Jonathan Forward, a London convict transport merchant. Merchants' contracts with the British treasury to ship convicts to America. This arrangement is the first of its kind.

�

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TIMELINE

  • 1722 The Virginia Assembly passes an act to set fees and restrictions on the shipment of British convicts to Virginia—fees that would make the practice cost-prohibitive. The law is overturned by the Board of Trade.
  • 1722 Author Daniel Defoe (See photo) publishes The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, in which the heroine is convicted of stealing and sent to Virginia.
  • 1733 The rise in the number of convict arrivals to Virginia motivates John Clayton, Virginia's attorney general, to petition the lords of the treasury in London for a salary increase. The treasury officials grant his request, agreeing that the influx of convicts has increased the colony courts' business.

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TIMELINE

  • May 9, 1751, The Pennsylvania Gazette publishes a letter by Benjamin Franklin, writing under the name "Americanus," in which he rails against the practice of shipping convicts to the colonies.
  • November 1766, The General Assembly passes an act to quarantine those who arrive in Virginia's ports suffering from "goal fever," or typhus. Ships' captains are required to swear upon arrival in Virginia that no one on board has gaol fever; the penalty for making a false oath is ¬£50. The law is renewed at the General Assembly's February 1772 session.
  • March 13, 1774, Captain William McGachen (McCachen) writes to George Washington that Washington's secretary Valentine Crawford has bought "four men convicts, four indented servants for three years, and a man and his wife for four years" on Washington's behalf.

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TIMELINE

  • Spring 1775 With the outbreak of rebellion against Great Britain, most colonial ports cease accepting convict transportees.

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  • April 1776 The ship Jenny arrives on the James River bearing the last boatload of convicts from Britain and is apparently allowed to land them.

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  • After 1770 most sent to Australia

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FURTHER READING�

  • An Act for the Further Preventing Robbery, Burglary and Other Felonies, and for the More Effectual Transportation of Felons, and Unlawful Exporters of Wooll; And for Declaring The Law Upon Some Points Relating to Pirates. London: Printed by John Baskett, 1718.
  • Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988.
  • Coldham, Peter Wilson. Emigrants in Chains: A Social History of Forced Emigration to the Americas of Felons, Destitute Children, Political and Religious Non-Conformists, Vagabonds, Beggars and Other Undesirables, 1608–1776. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992.

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Records

“The history of indentured migration to seventeenth century English America relies heavily on a single body of sources known as the London record, a collection of contracts and registrations of servants who emigrated from the capital between 1683 and 1686. Of the original 1,000 contracts, 189 have long been considered to be missing. This article uses methods from the study of paperwork and print culture to demonstrate that Huntington Library item HM 1365 is one of those missing contracts. Read as a part of its parent collection, this indenture is evidence of how the writing and archiving of late seventeenth-century transatlantic service contracts functioned to constrain would-be servants' choices and protections during recruitment and servitude, while legitimizing new and exploitative practices in colonial labor relations.”

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Highlights of the Early Colonies

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Challenges in Tracing Colonial American Ancestry

  • Colonial American civil Registration didn’t become widespread until the late 1800s-early 1900s so official birth, marriage and death records prior to that time generally either do not exist or do not provide detailed information.
  • Census records didn’t begin until 1790 and didn’t start naming each member of the household until 1850, so it can be difficult to put families together.
  • Passenger lists prior to 1819 rarely survived, and those that did often only include a list of names, with no other identifying characteristics.

Colonial American Records

  • United States Colonial Records • FamilySearch
  • There are some excellent compiled sources of early colonial settlers that can provide information, as well as town vital records, church records, land transactions, tax lists, pension files, town meeting minutes, loyalty oaths, probate records, etc.

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Challenges in Tracing Colonial American Ancestry

  • Records of the American Colonies. Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors.
  • Collections: Records of the American Colonies| HathiTrust Digital Library
  • Rare Books

MSS of Colonial and Revolutionary America – Records

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Conclusion

  • Review the history of the Kingdom of Great Britain
  • Freemen & Planter class
  • Indentured Servants
  • Transportation ACT- Convicts
  • Slaves
  • Timeline of Events
  • See each state overview of the Colonies of America to understand each part of early colonists who came to America! See USGenWeb