EMIGRATION (Lat. cmigratio, removal from a place. from entigrarc, to emigrate, from r, niigrarr, to depart). In the broadest sense emigration denotes the transfer of resi dence from one place to another. But so broad a definition includes many phenomena, such as the movement from rural districts to the cities or the settling of the West by pioneers from the :Want ic Stales. which are not commonly desig nated as emigration. To he an emigrant usually implies that a person leaves his own State and places himself under the jurisdiction of a for eign power, that his destination is widely dis tant from the mother country, and that he is one of many Who are doing the same thing. Immi gration is obviously the same thing as emigra tion, however we define the latter, viewed from trio of the count ry Nrhieh receives per• sons from other lands.
Iltsmity. The movement of tribes and races, some aceouni of which will be found in the article NIGRATIONS, is one of the chief features of history from the earliest times. On tne other hand, emigration is a comparatively modern phenomenon; it is a movement of individuals rather than tribes and communities, and while it may assume 'vast proportions, the initiative proceeds from individuals. The history of emi gration in this sense really begins with the dis covery of America, particularly with the estab lishment of English colonies on the North Ameri can continent. Though the Spanish power was planted in South America and about. the Gulf of Mexico much earlier, the Spanish administration was monopolistic in the extreme and did not pro mote emigration to the New World. As all for eigners were excluded from the Spanish colonies, and no Spaniards permitted to betake themselves thither without special permission of the Crown, it will be understood that no considerable stream of immigrants flowed into them. Nor were the French more successful. As they copied in the New World the feudal privileges and inequalities of the Old, the French colonies offered no refuge to the oppressed. In the period of French rule in Canada, France indeed poured forth or drove forth some of the best elements of the nation in considerable numbers, but these were Huguenots, to whom Canada was barred.
In marked contrast with these colonies were the English settlements in the New World.
Widely scattered, they offered to the Pilgrim in Ne• England, the Quaker in Pennsylvania, and the Catholic in Maryland freedom from the re strictions of the Old World, while most of the colonies offered complete religious freedom to all comers. It was therefore to the North Ameri can continent that the stream of emigration which had its principal sources in England and Germany flowed. During the brief period of Dutch rule on the Hudson, there was some influx of Netherlanders, with whom were associated some Huguenot refugees, while the Swedish set tlements on the Delaware were too ephemeral to leave many traces behind them in the population of the region. From central, eastern, and south ern Europe there was no emigration in the eighteenth century; nor did it assume consider able proportions until the close of the nineteenth century. The numbers of such emigrants were very small compared with those of modern times; precise records do not. exist, but it may y be re called that in 1800, after at least a century and a half of occupation. the United States had a population of 5.308.483, and this fact. may lie contrasted with the immigration record for the ten years 1881 to 1890 of 5,246,616 persons.
Modern emigration begins in the nineteenth century, though its earlier years showed no marked increase on the shifting population dur ing the preceding century, as is evidenced by the paucity of records. It was not until 1820 that the first statistics on the subject, namely those of immigration into the United States, were established, while until 1840 only 742,564 ar rivals were recorded. In the meantime Aus tralia had been opened up for settlement, but before the gold discoveries (1850) it had not attained a population of half a million souls. The potato famine in Ireland. the economic distress of Europe generally in the period of 1845-50, and the discovery of gold in California and Australia stimulated an emigration far in excess of anything which had previously oc curred. While the number fell off somewhat after 1860, due in large measure to the condi tions in the United States, the principal goal of the emigrants from Europe, it rose again after 1870 until it reached its highest point in the early eighties.