Page 176 - Encyclopedia Of World History

526 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

cultural distance from host societies and are viewed as the twentieth century. As many as 65 million Europeans
unwelcome expressions of U.S. imperial power by local migrated to the Americas, and as many as 40 million Chi-
populations. nese and Indians left their home countries between 1815
and 1930. Most of the Indian migrants and a substantial
Imperial Diasporas minority of the European and Chinese migrants traveled
As in the case of the Greek Mediterranean two millennia under some form of indenture, labor contract, or debt
earlier, mobile merchants often functioned as the van- peonage. The so-called proletarian mass migrations are
guard of empire building in the European empires nevertheless considered voluntary.Workers followed the
formed after 1500. Dutch, Spanish, Portugese, German, money in a global labor market that as often offered tem-
French, and British colonists created settlements around porary and seasonal employment as opportunities for
the world that reproduced their own cultures rather than permanent settlement, especially by the latter years of the
adapting the customs and languages of the natives twentieth century.
among whom they lived. Chinese, Indian, and southern and eastern European
Diasporas formed through empire building often had migrants were especially likely to consider themselves
significant state support, with the government organizing, sojourners who intended to return home again. Perhaps
directing, and financing migrations of their citizens to as many as 90 percent of Chinese and Indian laborers
strengthen some of their colonies demographically. From returned from New World,Asian, or Africa plantations or
the seventeenth century onward, actions taken by the mines. Among Italian laborers in agriculture and indus-
British state—land policies that forced poor Scots or Irish try, rates of return were typically over 50 percent. Male
from their fields and crofts, export of prisoners, spon- laborers in all these groups left home, returned, and then
sored migration of female spinsters—encouraged migra- departed again, often several times over the course of
tion to its colonies, especially in Canada and Australia. their lives. Recent research suggests that the constant cir-
Its military and government bureaucracies also organized culation of mobile men, along with the often violently
the migration of soldiers, civil servants, and teachers to hostile reactions of native workers and host societies, rein-
work in Africa, India, and other parts of Asia.While many forced sojourners’ attachment to their homelands.
so employed expected to return home again, and culti- Between 1880 and 1930, laws passed in Canada, the
vated a pride in their Britishness that held them aloof United States, and Australia to exclude or limit the migra-
from colonized populations, imperial migrants did some- tion of all contract laborers, to prevent the settlement of
times also acquire an attachment to their new homelands Chinese and Indians, and to limit the number of workers
and settle more permanently.This was true for colonial- entering from Italy, Greece, and the Balkans had the same
ists from other European countries as well. In both effect. The result was heightened ethnic and racial con-
French Algeria and British Rhodesia, settlers who had sciousness among even the descendants of workers who
come as empire builders stayed on and violently opposed settled permanently abroad. Many have maintained dis-
independence under native African rule after World War tinctive ethnic identities and a continued awareness of
II, a fact that suggests the complex relationship between their foreign origins over several generations. Some schol-
imperial culture, home, and host societies in imperial ars now refer to these groups, too, as diasporas, although
diasporas. that labeling is controversial.

Proletarian or Labor Diasporas Debates about Migration,
The emancipation of slaves and the industrialization of Ethnicity, and Diaspora
cities in Europe and the Americas in the nineteenth cen- Few scholars would argue that every migration generates
tury provoked vast new migrations that continued into a diaspora. Many, however, accept a wider and more gen-