Immigrants
With the exception of Native Americans, all the Americans of 1776 were either immigrants or descended from immigrants. No information on the number of Native Americans during the Revolutionary Period is available, but census data from a few years after the Revolutionary War provides information on the number of European- and African-Americans. The largest group of immigrant Americans was from England, with forced immigrants from countries in Africa being the second largest group. Immigrants from the rest of Britain and Continental Europe were present in small but significant numbers.
National/Ethnic Groups in the United States, 1790
Group Approximate % of non-Native American population English..............................48.0 African (mostly West African) ..............20.0 Irish....................................7.5 Ulster..................................4.7 Irish Free State.....................2.8 German................................6.8 Scotch..................................6.5 Unassigned Caucasian............5.4 Dutch..................................2.5 French................................1.8 Swedish..............................0.5 Spanish...............................0.6
According to some historians, the English colonists came to America with the intention of "civilizing" the indigenous people, eventually assimilating them into the supposedly superior English culture. These intentions were not carried out to any large degree so that the English, unlike the Spanish colonialists, did not incorporate Native Americans into their society and culture. In addition, they clearly assigned African-Americans to a sub-human underclass. The presence of these disenfranchised peoples made the assimilation of non-English European immigrants into English culture much easier. European immigrants tended to band together against both Native Americans and African-Americans, labeling themselves as "the civilized" and the others as "the savages." This racial/ethnic solidarity made economic and class differences among European settlers relatively unimportant.
