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Pennsylvania's history of human habitation extends to thousands of years before the foundation of the Province of Pennsylvania. Archaeologists generally believe that the first settlement of the Americas occurred at least 15,000 years ago during the last glacial period , though it is unclear when humans first entered present-day Pennsylvania.
Large-scale immigration to this region ended before 1700, but a small but steady trickle of later arrivals continued. [5] Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of European settlers known as the pilgrims who had left Europe to separate from the Church of England and wanted religious freedom. They sailed from England on the Mayflower and arrived ...
Thomas Holme's 1687 map of Pennsylvania. "The Welch Tract" appears to the left of center. In the late 17th century, there was significant Welsh immigration to Pennsylvania for religious and cultural reasons. In about 1681, a group of Welsh Quakers met with William Penn to secure a land grant to conduct their affairs in their language.
Many immigrants, particularly children, died before reaching America in June 1710. [32] The Palatine immigration of about 2100 people who survived was the largest single immigration to America in the colonial period. Most were first settled along the Hudson River in work camps, to pay off their passage.
The Immigration Act of 1891 led to the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and the opening of the Ellis Island inspection station in 1892. Constitutional authority (Article 1 §8) was later relied upon to enact the Naturalization Act of 1906 which standardized procedures for naturalization nationwide, and created the Bureau of ...
The Palatines transported to New York in the summer of 1710 totaled about 2800 people in ten ships, the largest group of immigrants to enter British America before the American Revolution. Because of their refugee status and weakened condition, as well as shipboard diseases, they had a high rate of fatalities.
Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under indentures. [6] The practice was sufficiently common that the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, in part, prevented imprisonments overseas; it also made provisions for those with existing transportation contracts and those "praying to be transported" in lieu of ...
The German Palatines and Scotch-Irish immigrants arrived in huge numbers because of bloody religious conflicts and persecution of Protestants by monarchies in Great Britain and Europe. The mostly Protestant German Palatines (also known as Pennsylvania Dutch ) tended to find rich farmland and work it zealously to become stable and prosperous.