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| ELLIS ISLAND IN 1905 |
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| IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND IN 1902 |
IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND 1902
This article 'Land of Opportunity' will, hopefully, shed more light onto
the reason why the Native American lost their land and their way of life.
Although the reason does not justify the means.
In the second half of the 19th
century about half a million immigrants a year flooded into the United
States. They came from poverty, hunger and persecution and hoped to find a
better way of life.
People came from so many countries
and spoke a multitude of languages. They endured hardship on the voyage because
they were crammed in stinking holds of immigrant ships. In the days of sailing
ships, the fastest journey was a month from Europe but the notorious weather of
the Atlantic added another month to it. Whole families died of hunger and/or
diseases. Some families had their possession stolen by the crew members or, it
was said, the Captain threw them into the sea if they weren't willing to pay
their fare again.
When they arrived in America the
immigrants found work in cities like New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh. They
worked in clothes manufacturer, stoked furnaces in steel mills, packed meat or
worked on assembly lines. They lived in the worst slums because they took the
lowest wage just to be employed. In the Manhattan district of New York
lived 1,5 million in 43,000 tenements.
Lured by the promise of the federal
Government of 65 hectares of free land for any applicant and having to farm it
for five year, they left for the territories of the West. At the end of the
century half a million families took the opportunity and turning 32 million
hectares into farms. The Government really pushed white people into the
territories of the Native Indians and it led to bloodshed on both sides.
The Federal Government again offered
land to immigrants who would serve in the Union armies during the Civil War. By
the end of the war one in five of the Northern soldiers were an immigrant.
Immigrants helped to build the
American railroad. The railroad started in 1863 and crossed the continent.
Most of the workforce was Chinese and the Central Pacific was built to the east
from California. Irish built the Union Pacific west from the Mississippi River.
10 May 1869 the lines joined at Promontory Point, Utah and a ceremonial golden
spike was driven in.
A Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson
who then became famous with his book 'Treasure Island' made a journey from New
York to California. When he made this journey in 1879 on top of a fruit wagon
he was 29 years old. He describes the plains of Nebraska as a world almost
without feature. An empty sky, an empty earth. The line of railway stretched
from horizon to horizon.
The first immigrants came from
Ireland, Scandinavia and Germany. When 750,000 Irish people had starved to
death because of the Potato Famine; many of the survivors sailed to America. In
1880 immigrants came from Italy, Poland, Greece, Russia and Hungary. Many Jews
were fleeing from persecution.
Because they had such an influx of
immigrants they set up a special reception centre on Ellis Island in New York
harbour. They had to go through an examination for health and to proof they
weren't criminals.
Between 1892 and 1921 there were as
many as 12 million people gone through. After 1921 the Government
limited the number of foreigners.
The immigrants met often hostility from
native-born Americans. The immigrants were accused of taking jobs away and
preaching communism and anarchy.
Chinese labourers, who were brought
in to built the railroad, met with great resentment. They were willing to work
for less pay, had different appearance and spoke different languages. The
Chinese community was attacked in the west and their property destroyed.
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