P3 Day 12: Migration

Chinese Exclusion Act

(1882) Denied any additional Chinese laborers to enter the country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate.

kangani system

1834-1937. The British encouraged Indians to settle in Ceylon, Burma, and Malaya and work tea, coffee, and rubber plantations. Originally individuals came as indentured servants but this system recruited entire families to emigrate. About 6 million Indians migrated to Southeast Asia under this system.

Great Potato Famine

1845-1849; Potato blight that destroyed potato crops in Ireland. One million died due to the famine - widespread starvation. To escape death, 3 million Irish emigrated - most to the US but also to England, Scotland, Canada, or Australia.

Gold Rush

1849 - A major pull factor that drew migration to northern California after its discovery. This occurred right after the US defeated Mexico and purchased California as part of the peace treaty. The population of San Francisco multiplied from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 in 1850. Those that came included many Chinese. The rapid growth of California rushed it into statehood and new plans for a transcontinental railroad began.

Colonization Society

1893 - Japanese government decided it should acquire an overseas empire and established this. Its aim was to export Japan's surplus population as well as commercial goods. In 1892 they made an unsuccessful attempt to start an agricultural settler colony in Mexico. They sent 790 Japanese to Peru in 1899 for contract work.

the Dreyfus Affair

1894 - The conviction of an obviously innocent Jewish army officer lead to public disapproval and for some revealed entrenched antisemitism in Europe.

Zionism

A policy for establishing and developing a national homeland for Jews in Palestine. Millions of Jews began immigrating to Palestine from all over Europe and North Africa in the late 1800s. The state of Israel was eventually formed in 1948 after 6 million were slaughtered in the Holocaust. Today almost half of the world's Jewish people live in Israel.

Theodor Herzl

Austrian journalist and Zionist; formed World Zionist Organization in 1897; promoted Jewish migration to Palestine and formation of a Jewish state

White Australia Policy

Before 1973, a set of stringent Australian limitations on nonwhite immigration to the country. It has been largely replaced by a more flexible policy today.

Culture System

Dutch East Indies - Beginning in 1830 the Dutch government introduced this which forced farmers to choose between growing cash crops for export or performing corvee labor (compulsory unpaid work). Under this system, villages either had to set aside one-fifth of their rice fields for such export crops as sugar, coffee, or indigo, or work in a government field for 66 days if they had no land. If the crops failed, the villagers were held responsible. The practice was finally abolished in 1870.

ethnic enclaves

Locations with a high concentration of one specific ethnicity. Example: Chinatowns. Created by chain migration in which new immigrants encouraged family members and friends to join them. These were also places for new immigrants where they could speak their language and find foods and friends and people to help them adjust.

contract laborers

Many were Chinese or Indian and were an early substitute for slave labor for the British after they ended the slave trade in 1806 and looked to other sources for labor. Between 1847 and 1874, the British, French, Dutch, and Spanish had imported between 250,000 and 500,000 Chinese workers to their colonies in SE Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Although not enslaved, they were unskilled and often exploited and given only subsistence wages. Sometimes they were tricked into signing contracts. Many countries banned this practice after the media criticized as a new form of slavery.

settler colonies

Overseas territories that attracted voluntary migration for land and other economic opportunity.

penal colonies

Place where people convicted of crimes are sent. Example: Australia.

Dutch East Indies

Present-day Indonesia. Where the Spice Islands were located. Controlled by the Dutch East India Co (VOC) until 1799 when the Dutch government took direct control of the colony.