Immigration: A World Movement and its American Significance

Henry Pratt Fairchild

Jan 1910 · Library of Alexandria

About this ebook

The study of immigration is a part of the study of the dispersion of the human race over the surface of the earth, but only one of the most recent parts. The most important population movements by which the habitable portions of the globe became peopled took place long before there was anything which might accurately be styled immigration. The dawn of the historical period found the principal sections of the earth’s surface already inhabited by races not widely different from those now native to them.

About the early movements by which man was scattered from his original home to the four corners of the globe we have as yet little definite information. It seems safe to conclude that they must have resembled the instinctive movements of animals more closely than the rational movements of modern man. They must have been gradual, by slow stages, and in immediate response to the demands of the food supply or of the changing climate. Such movements, which may be designated by the term “wandering,” were the necessary precursors of the more recent developments. They furnish the background for the historic period, and constitute the original factors in modern relations. They may be taken for granted, and a detailed knowledge of them is not necessary for an understanding or investigation of such a historic question as immigration.

The word “immigration” is one of those terms which are in common use in everyday speech, and which convey a certain general impression to the hearer, but which need to be given a limited and specific meaning when used in a scientific study. Many vague and erroneous notions about immigration may be traced to the failure of those using the word to form an exact idea of its connotation. Particularly is it necessary to distinguish clearly between immigration and certain other forms of population movements to which the term is frequently applied.

There are three of these forms of movement. They all fall within the historical period, and consequently we have some definite information about them. They may be designated as invasion, conquest, and colonization. These, with immigration, all have this in common, that they are reasoned movements arising after man had progressed far enough in the scale of civilization to have a fixed abiding place. That is, they are definite movements from one place to another. This distinguishes them from what has been called “wandering,” and justifies including them in a separate category, to which the general name “migration” may be given. In using this term for this purpose, however, we must rid our minds of the association which it has with the movements of animals and birds. When we speak of the migrations of birds we customarily refer to seasonal changes of location, occurring regularly year by year. They are not cases of a change of home, but of having two homes at the same time.