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Overview
The history and experience of immigration remain central to American culture, past and present. This anthology surveys the recollections of emigrants from around the world who sought new lives in the United States. Their stories range in mood and setting from the misery of an Englishman in colonial Virginia, bound by indentured servitude, to the cultural commentary of an Iranian woman in California. Poignant, eye-opening reflections include those of a Polish sweatshop laborer, a Chinese businessman, an Italian bootblack, and a Ukrainian musician, in addition to observations and reminiscences by Jacob Riis, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Díaz, and other well-known authors.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486783208 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/19/2013 |
| Series: | Dover Thrift Editions: American History |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Sales rank: | 476,270 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Essays on Immigration
By Bob Blaisdell
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-78320-8
CHAPTER 1
RICHARD FRETHORNE
Letters from an Indentured Servant
(England; 1623)
Frethorne's misery, shared by many indentured servants in America, is clearly communicated in these letters from Virginia, near Jamestown. The first is to a "Mr. Bateman"; the second is to his parents, back in England. His father indentured him, which Frethorne would argue was his father's terrible misunderstanding of the desperate conditions under which he, Richard, would have to work. With an eye for business, he pleads for goods that he can resell and thereby purchase his release from the indenture contract. (I have corrected the fitful spelling of the time and added punctuation.)
Letter of March 5, 1623, to Mr. Bateman
Right Worthy, this is to let you understand that I am in a most miserable and pitiful case both for want of meat and want of clothes, for we had meal and provision for twenty and there is ten dead and yet our provision will not last till the Seaflower come in. For those servants that were there before us were almost pined [wasted away] and then they fell to feeding so hard of our provision that it killed them that were old Virginians as fast as the scurvy & bloody flux did kill us new Virginians, for they were in such a case by reason of the murder done all over the land that they could not plant anything at all and at every Plantation all of them for the most part were slain and their houses and goods burnt. Some the Indians kept alive and took them away with them, and now these two Indians that have taken do tell us that the Indians have 15 alive with them. Thus through their roguery the land is ruinated and spoiled, and it will not be so strong again not this 12 years, for at our plantation, of seven-score, there was but 22 left alive, and of all their houses there is but 2 left, and a piece of a church and our master doth say that 3,000 pounds will not make good our plantation again. And the merchants lost by it the last year, and they can get little or nothing this year, for we must plant but a little Tobago, but all corn for bread, and when we have done if the rogues come and cut it from us as they have sent all the plantations word that they will have a bout with them, and then we shall quite be starved, for is it not a poor case when a pint of meal must serve a man 3 days as I have seen it since I came. Wherefore my humble request is that I may be freed out of this Egypt, or else that it would please you to send over some beef and some cheese and butter, or any eating victuals will be good trading and I will send you all that I make of it.
Only I would entreat the gain to redeem me, or if you please to speak to the rest of the parishioners, that a small gathering may be made to send me these things or else to redeem me suddenly, for I am almost pined and I want clothes, for truly I have but one shirt, one ragged one and one pair of hose, one pair of shoes, one suit of clothes, so that I am like to perish for want of succor and relief.
Therefore I beseech you and most humbly entreat and entirely at your merciful hands (not with Pharaoh's butler to forget me, as he did forget Joseph in the prison), but I entreat you to use the words of God ( Jeremiah in his 31st chapter and the 10th verse) where he sayeth, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself," even so you may see me bemoaning myself. Wherefore I entreat you to follow his words in the latter end of the 20th verse of the same chapter, that is, "I will surely have mercy upon him," sayeth the Lord, so I beseech you to have mercy upon me, remembering what Solomon sayeth in the 35th chapter of Ecclesiastes and the 20th verse, that mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction and "as clouds of rain in the time of drought," so now mercy is seasonable to me at this time. I need not set down the words of Solomon in the 37th Ecclesiastes and the 6th verse because the Lord hath endued your heart with many of those blessings. And thus I commit you into the hands of almighty God and entreat you to help me so suddenly as you can. So in Christ.
Your poor servant in command, Richard Frethorne
Letter of March 20, April 2 and 3, 1623, to His Father and Mother
Loving and kind father and mother, my most humble duty remembered to you hoping in God of your good health, as I myself am not at the making hereof, this is to let you understand that I, your child, am in a most heavy case by reason of the nature of the country is such that it causeth much sickness, as the scurvy and the blood flux and divers other diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak, and when we are sick there is nothing to comfort us. For since I came out of the ship, I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is, watery gruel). As for deer or venison, I never saw any since I came into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of watery gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men, which is most pitiful. If you did know as much as I, when people cry out day and night, Oh, that they were in England, without their limbs, and would not care to lose any limb to be in England again. Yes, though they beg from door to door, for we live in fear of the enemy every hour, yet we have had a combat with them on the Sunday before Shrovetide, and we took two alive and make slaves of them, but it was by policy, for we are in great danger, for our plantation is very weak by reason of the dearth and sickness of the company. For we are but twenty for the merchants and they are half dead just; and we look every hour when two more should go, yet there came for other men yet to live with us, of which there is but one alive, and our lieutenant is dead, and his father, and his brother, and there was some 5 or 6 of the last year's 20, of which there is but 3 left, so that we are fain to get other men to plant with us, and yet we are but 32 to fight against 3,000 if they should come, and the nighest help we have is ten miles of us, and when the rogues overcame this place last, they slew 80 persons.
How then shall we do, for we lie even in their teeth. They may easily take us but that God is merciful, and can save with few as well as with many, as he showed to Gilead and like Gilead, soldiers, if they lap water, we drink water which is but weak, and I have nothing to comfort me, nor there is nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death, except that one had money to lay out in some things for profit. But I have nothing at all. No, not a shirt to my back, but two rags nor no clothes but one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, but two bands, my cloak is stolen by one of my own fellows, and to his dying hour would not tell me what he did with it, but some of my fellows saw him have butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak I doubt paid for, so that I have not a penny, nor a pennyworth, to help me to either spice or sugar or strong waters, without the which one cannot live here. For as strong beer in England doth fatten and strengthen them, so water here doth wash and weaken these here, only keep life and soul together. But am not half a quarter so strong as I was in England, and all is for want of victuals, for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in a day at home than I have allowed me here for a week.
You have given more than my day's allowance to a beggar at the door; and if Mr. Jackson had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case, but he like a father and she, like a loving mother, doth still help me, for when we go up to Jamestown that is 10 miles of us, there lie all the ships that come to the land, and there they must deliver their goods, and when we went up to town as it may be on Monday, at noon, and come there by night, then load the next day by noon and go home in the afternoon, and unload, and then away again in the night, and be up about midnight, then if it rained or blowed never so hard, we must lie in the boat on the water and have nothing but a little bread, for whence we go into the boat we have a loaf allowed to two men, and it is all if we stayed there two days, which is hard, and must lie all that while in the boat, but that Goodman Jackson pitied me and made me a cabin to lie in always when I come up, and he would give me some poor jacks home with me, which comforted me more than peas, or watery gruel. Oh, they be very godly folks, and love me very well, and will do anything for me, and he much marveled that you would send me a servant to the company. He saith I had been better knocked on the head, and indeed so I find it now to my great grief and misery, and saith, that if you love me you will redeem me suddenly, for which I do entreat and beg, and if you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for some little money, then for God's sake get a gathering or entreat some good folk to lay out some little sum of money, in meal and cheese and butter and beef, any eating meat will yield great profit.
Oil and vinegar is very good, but, Father, there is great loss in leaking. But for God's sake, send beef and cheese and butter or the more of one sort and none of another, but if you send cheese it must be very old cheese, and at the cheesemonger's you may buy good cheese for twopence farthing or halfpenny that will be liked very well. But if you send cheese you must have care how you pack it in barrels, and you must put cooper's chips between every cheese, or else the heat of the hold will rot them, and look whatsoever you send me, be it never so much, look what I make of it. I will deal truly with you, I will send it over and beg the profit to redeem me, and if I die of it, who hath promised he will.
If you send you must direct your letters to Goodman Jackson, at Jamestown, a gunsmith. You must set down his freight, because there be more of his name there; good Father, do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know if you did but see me you would weep to see me, for I have but one suit, but it is a strange one, it is very well guarded, wherefore for God's sake pity me. I pity you to remember my love to all my friends and kindred. I hope all my brothers and sisters are in good health, and as for my part I have set down my resolution that certainly will be, that is, that the answer of this letter will be life or death to me. Good Father, send as soon as you can, and if you send me anything, let this be the mark.
ROT, Richard Frethorne, Martyns Hundred.
Source: American Memory. The Thomas Jefferson Papers. Series 8. Virginia Records Manuscripts, 1606–1737. Edited by Susan Myra Kingsbury. Records of the Virginia Company, 1606–1626. Volume IV: Miscellaneous. [loc.govuloc.mssumtj.mtjbib026606]
CHAPTER 2GOTTLIEB MITTELBERGER
Journey to Pennsylvania
(Germany; 1754)
Mittelberger arrived in America in 1750 with his organ, the first of its kind in America, and became a teacher and organist. He was so disappointed by the conditions and circumstances of his immigration, however, that when he returned to the Duchy of Wurttemberg, Germany, in 1754, he wrote a short book describing his experiences and discouraging emigrants, particularly those considering indenture, from following in his footsteps. (The complete title of his book is: "Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754, Containing: Not Only a Description of the Country According to Its Present Condition, but Also a Detailed Account of the Sad and Unfortunate Circumstances of Most of the Germans That Have Emigrated or Are Emigrating to That Country.")
When the ships have for the last time weighed their anchors near the city of Kaupp [Cowes] in Old England, the real misery begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless they have good wind, must often sail eight, nine, ten to twelve weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But even with the best wind the voyage lasts seven weeks.
But during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably.
Add to this want of provisions, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions and lamentations, together with other trouble, as c. v. the lice abound so frightfully, especially on sick people, that they can be scraped off the body. The misery reaches the climax when a gale rages for two or three nights and days, so that everyone believes that the ship will go to the bottom with all human beings on board. In such a visitation the people cry and pray most piteously.
When in such a gale the sea rages and surges, so that the waves rise often like high mountains one above the other, and often tumble over the ship, so that one fears to go down with the ship; when the ship is constantly tossed from side to side by the storm and waves, so that no one can either walk, or sit, or lie, and the closely packed people in the berths are thereby tumbled over each other, both the sick and the well—it will be readily understood that many of these people, none of whom had been prepared for hardships, suffer so terribly from them that they do not survive it.
I myself had to pass through a severe illness at sea, and I best know how I felt at the time. These poor people often long for consolation, and I often entertained and comforted them with singing, praying and exhorting; and whenever it was possible and the winds and waves permitted it, I kept daily prayer-meetings with them on deck. Besides, I baptized five children in distress, because we had no ordained minister on board. I also held divine service every Sunday by reading sermons to the people; and when the dead were sunk in the water, I commended them and our souls to the mercy of God.
Among the healthy, impatience sometimes grows so great and cruel that one curses the other, or himself and the day of his birth, and sometimes come near killing each other. Misery and malice join each other, so that they cheat and rob one another. One always reproaches the other with having persuaded him to undertake the journey. Frequently children cry out against their parents, husbands against their wives and wives against their husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances against each other. But most against the soul-traffickers.
Many sigh and cry: "Oh, that I were at home again, and if I had to lie in my pig-sty!" Or they say: "O God, if I only had a piece of good bread, or a good fresh drop of water." Many people whimper, sigh and cry piteously for their homes; most of them get home-sick. Many hundred people necessarily die and perish in such misery, and must be cast into the sea, which drives their relatives, or those who persuaded them to undertake the journey, to such despair that it is almost impossible to pacify and console them. In a word, the sighing and crying and lamenting on board the ship continues night and day, so as to cause the hearts even of the most hardened to bleed when they hear it.
No one can have an idea of the sufferings which women in confinement have to bear with their innocent children on board these ships. Few of this class escape with their lives; many a mother is cast into the water with her child as soon as she is dead. One day, just as we had a heavy gale, a woman in our ship, who was to give birth and could not give birth under the circumstances, was pushed through a loop-hole [port-hole] in the ship and dropped into the sea, because she was far in the rear of the ship and could not be brought forward.
Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water. I witnessed such misery in no less than 32 children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea. It is a notable fact that children, who have not yet had the measles or small-pocks, generally get them on board the ship, and mostly die of them.
Often a father is separated by death from his wife and children, or mothers from their little children, or even both parents from their children; and sometimes whole families die in quick succession; so that often many dead persons lie in the berths beside the living ones, especially when contagious diseases have broken out on board the ship.
Many other accidents happen on board these ships, especially by falling, whereby people are often made cripples and can never be set right again. Some have also fallen into the ocean.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Essays on Immigration by Bob Blaisdell. Copyright © 2013 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Bob Blaisdell [United States] Note (2013),Acknowledgments,
Richard Frethorne [England] Letters from an Indentured Servant (1623),
Gottlieb Mittelberger [Germany] Journey to Pennsylvania (1754),
Hector St. John de Crevecoeur [France] What Is an American? (1782),
Frank Lecouvreur [Prussia] From East Prussia to the Golden Gate (1852),
Emma Lazarus [United States] The New Colossus (1883),
Hans Mattson [Sweden] Reminiscences: The Story of an Emigrant (1891),
Sadie Browne [Poland] The Life Story of a Polish Sweatshop Girl (1906),
Lee Chew [China] The Life Story of a Chinese Businessman (1906),
Rocco Corresca [Italy] The Life Story of an Italian Bootblack (1906),
Jacob Riis [Denmark] The Making of an American (1908),
Abraham Rihbany [Syria] Lights and Shadows (1914),
Edward Steiner [Slovakia] From Alien to Citizen (1914),
Anna Hilda Louise Walther [Denmark] A Pilgrimage with a Milliner's Needle (1917),
Rose Cohen [Russia] Out of the Shadow (1918),
Edward Bok [Holland] Where America Fell Short with Me (1922),
Louis Adamic [Slovenia] Amerikansi in Carniola (1932),
Stoyan Pribichevich [Yugoslavia] In an American Factory (1938),
Andrés Aragon [Spain] After the Death of Spain (1978),
Nicholas Gerros [Greece] Greek Horatio Alger (1978),
Carlos Bulosan [Philippines] My Education (1979),
Edwidge Danticat [Haiti] A New World Full of Strangers (1987),
Vladimir Vernikov [Russia] The ABC of a New Profession (1991),
Dympna Ugwu-Oju [Nigeria] Raising Delia (1995),
Aleksandar Hemon [Yugoslavia / Serbia] Door to Door (2001),
Mela Tannenbaum [Ukraine] A Musician's Journey (2002),
Firoozeh Dumas [Iran] Funny in Farsi: The "F Word" (2003),
Junot Díaz [Dominican Republic] Homecoming with Turtle (2004),
Rose Castillo Guilbault [Mexico] Farmworker's Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America (2005),
Orubba Almansouri [Yemen] University of Kitchen (2009),
