Page 25 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

844 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

with caution. Even when historical statistics look rela-
Global Migration tively complete, discrepancies in numbers at ports of

departure and arrival demonstrate the unreliability of
in Modern Times some of those numbers.
The majority of long-distance migration from 1840 to
igration to nearly all parts of the world increased 1940 can be divided into three main systems.(See table 1.)
Msteadily from the early nineteenth century until The first is migration from Europe to the Americas.The
1930, with brief fluctuations due to economic depres- second is migration from India and the south of China
sions and World War I. The Great Depression and the into a region centered on Southeast Asia but extending
establishment of national migration restrictions slowed across the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. Smaller flows
these flows in the middle of the twentieth century, but by also came from other regions, crossed these systems, and
the 1990s migration had once again become as signifi- moved into and out of places at the interstices of these
cant in proportion to the global population as in the systems, such as Africa and western Asia. The third is
years surrounding World War I. This expanding migra- migration from Russia, northern China, and Korea into
tion was part of the industrial transformation of the the broad expanse of northern Asia stretching from the
world, with migrants carried by faster modern trans- Russian steppes to Siberia, Manchuria, and Japan.
portation, drawn to jobs in factories, plantations, mines, Over 65 percent of the transatlantic migrants went to
and cities, and to distant frontiers where they provided the United States, with the bulk of the remainder divided
food and resources to supply the growing industrial cen- between Canada, Argentina (which had the largest pro-
ters. Much of this migration was short-distance and tem- portion of foreign-born residents), Brazil, and, to a lesser
porary migration to nearby cities, towns, and agricultural extent, Cuba. Over half of the emigration before the 1870s
areas.The massive long-distance and transoceanic migra- was from the British Isles, with much of the remainder
tion over this period, however, was unprecedented in from northwest Europe. After the 1880s, regions of
world history. The fields of Siberia and North America, intensive emigration spread south and east as far as Por-
the mines of South Africa and Manchuria, the rice pad- tugal, Russia, and Syria. Up to 2.5 million migrants from
dies of Thailand and Hawaii, the rubber plantations of South and East Asia also traveled to the Americas, mostly
Malaysia and the Amazon, the factories of Chicago and to the frontiers of western North America or the planta-
Manchester, the canals of Panama and Suez, the entre- tions of the Caribbean, Peru, and Brazil. Half of this
pots of Singapore and Shanghai, the service jobs of migration took place before 1885, after which the
New York and Bombay, and the oil fields of Qatar and decline of indentured labor recruitment and the rise of
Venezuela have all drawn migrants as key nodes in an anti-Asian immigration laws began to take effect.
expanding global economy. Migration to Southeast Asia and lands around the
Indian Ocean and South Pacific consisted of over 29 mil-
Long-Distance Migration lion Indians and over 19 million Chinese, with much
Before World War II smaller numbers of Japanese, Europeans, and western
Migrants who traveled by ship before World War II were Asians. Most migration from India was to colonies
counted at ports and in ships’ logs, thus providing excel- throughout the British empire. Less than 10 percent of
lent data for estimates of transoceanic migration. this migration was indentured, although much of it was
Government frontier settlement schemes such as the undertaken with assistance from colonial authorities, or
movement of Russians to Siberia, have also left behind under some form of debt obligation under kangani
some excellent data. This material allows us to better labor recruitment systems. Over two million Indians
construct estimates for long-distance than for short- also migrated as merchants or other travelers not in-
distance migration. But all estimates must still be treated tending to work as laborers. Migration expanded with