3.4 - Human Geography of North America
The Peopling of North America
Exactly how and when the peopling of the Americas took place has long been one of the hottest debates in science. For every new paper that emerges with evidence of an interior or coastal route, it seems another team publishes contradictory conclusions.
Advocates of the interior route believe people from northeastern Siberia traveled on foot, likely following large herds of game animals, eastward over the land bridge across the Bering Sea into what’s now Alaska. Sometime during the end of the last Ice Age, humans began their move from Siberia across the Bering Straits and eventually into Alaska. The interior route has been the dominant model for decades.
Then we’ve got the coastal route, often called the Kelp Highway model, which has gained traction particularly in the last couple years. It suggests people from northeastern Siberia followed the coast by boat, including along sea ice at times, around the northern Pacific and all the way to the Americas, continuing down the coast potentially as far as modern-day Chile. The resource-rich waters, full of fish, shellfish, seals and kelp, plus birds overhead, would have sustained the explorers.
Ben Potter, an anthropologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, believes both perspectives may be correct. He summed it up this way: “We can’t exclude either the coastal or interior route. Both could be used, actually; I suspect both probably were used. But again, that’s speculation…and we shouldn’t be as firm as some have been that we know the answers now.”
The Indigenous Peoples of North America
In Canada, the First Nations are the predominant indigenous peoples south of the Arctic Circle. Those in the Arctic area are distinct and known as Inuit. The Métis, another distinct ethnicity, developed after European contact and are people of mixed European and indigenous descent. There are 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada with distinctive cultures, languages, art, and music. Roughly half are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. As of the 2016 census, Indigenous peoples in Canada totaled 1,673,785 people, or 4.9% of the national population, with 977,230 First Nations people, 587,545 Métis, and 65,025 Inuit. 7.7% of the population under the age of 14 are of Indigenous descent.
Estimates of the population of Aboriginal people in what would become Canada at the beginning of sustained European contact in the early 16th century vary. Anthropologists and historians have, however, given a tentative range of between 350,000 and 500,000 people, with some estimates as high as two million. By 1867, it is thought that between 100,000 and 125,000 First Nations people remained in what is now Canada, along with approximately 10,000 Métis in Manitoba and 2,000 Inuit in the Arctic. The Aboriginal population of Canada continued to decline until the early 20th century. This dramatic population decline is attributed to disease, starvation and warfare directly stemming from European settlement and practices.
In the United States, indigenous population estimates prior to European contact range from 2.1 million to 18 million. By 1800, the Native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s.
Native American societies had diverse cultures and languages, much like Europe. When the British staked their claim to the east coast of the modern United States, they could not have dreamed of the complexity of the peoples they were soon to encounter. There are between 140 and 160 different American Indian tribes. There is no single Native American language. It would be as difficult for the Mohawk Indians of the East to converse with Zuni Indians of the West as it would be for Germans to converse with Turks. Before Europeans arrived in North America, Native peoples inhabited every region.
Twenty-seven U.S. states derive names from Indian languages. Native Americans turned wild plants such as corn, potatoes, pumpkin, yams, and lima beans into farm crops for human consumption. More than half of modern American farm products were grown by Native Americans before British colonization.
European Colonization of North America
While some Norse colonies were established in north eastern North America as early as the 10th century, systematic European colonization began in 1492, when a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East but inadvertently landed in what came to be known to Europeans as the "New World". He ran aground on December 5, 1492 on Cat Island (then called Guanahani) in The Bahamas, which the Lucayan people had inhabited since the 9th century. Western European conquest, large-scale exploration and colonization soon followed. Columbus's first two voyages (1492–93) reached Hispaniola and various other Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and Cuba. In 1497, Italian explorer John Cabot, on behalf of England, landed on the North American coast, and a year later, Columbus's third voyage reached the South American coast. As the sponsor of Christopher Columbus's voyages, Spain was the first European power to settle and colonize the largest areas, from North America and the Caribbean to the southern tip of South America.
France also founded colonies in the Americas: in eastern North America, a number of Caribbean islands and small coastal parts of South America. The relatively late, British colonization of the Americas started with the unsuccessful settlement attempts in Roanoke and Newfoundland. The English eventually went on to control much of Eastern North America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America. The British also gained Florida and Quebec in the French and Indian War.
Eventually, most of the Western Hemisphere came under the control of Western European governments, leading to changes to its landscape, population, and plant and animal life. In the 19th century over 50 million people left Western Europe for the Americas. The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange, a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), ideas, and communicable disease between the American and Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following Columbus's voyages to the Americas.
Slavery
The Portuguese were the first to bring slaves from Africa to the Americas during the 1500s. England, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands would all later join in the transatlantic slave trade, with England dominating the slave trade by the late 17th century. The vast majority of slaves were destined for sugar colonies in the Caribbean and Brazil. Less than 10 percent would be brought to the North American colonies, but this number still represented hundreds of thousands of people. It is estimated that a total of 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World as slaves.
British colonies had highly specialized economies – commerce in Massachusetts, in the mid-Atlantic small farms. But in Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas there were large plantations. Initially, these plantations were worked by indentured servants. Half the Europeans who came to North America came as indentured servants. As they earned their freedom, they were replaced by slaves.
Slavery’s history in the United States is widely known but Canada’s history is less well known. Historians estimate that there were fewer than 4,200 slaves in Canada between 1671 and 1831. The majority, two-thirds of these, were of indigenous ancestry (2,700 typically called panis, from the French term for Pawnee) and one-third were of African descent (1,443). They were house servants and farm workers.The number of black slaves increased during British rule. Atlantic Canada saw 1,200 to 2,000 slaves arrive prior to abolition. A small portion of Black Canadians today are descended from these slaves. Slavery was banned in all British colonies in 1833.
Four Waves of Immigrants
Of course immigration to North America started with the native peoples who first settled here. It was followed by early colonists and then slaves. But the big immigration in the U.S. is often seen as coming in 4 waves.
The first wave, was from 1680 to about 1776 where Scots-Irish and Germans were the major immigrant groups. After, the War of Independence, there was not much immigration until 1820. The early immigrants were primarily Protestants from northwestern Europe, as can be seen from the ethnic breakdown of the U.S. population in the first census of 1790: English 49%, African 19%, Scots-Irish 8%, Scottish 7%, German 7%, Dutch 4%, French 3%, other 3%. The symbolic Port of Entry for the first wave of immigrants was Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims landed in 1620
Reason for the immigration:
1. Economic Opportunity
2. Slavery
3. Political Freedom
4. Religious Freedom
The second wave of immigration was from 1820 to 1890, a period where America went from being mainly a rural and agricultural society to the beginnings of an industrial society. It was during this second wave, that many Irish and Germans emigrated. . Because they arrived in large numbers and differed from the existing Anglo-American society in religion and culture, they became the first immigrant groups to experience widespread hostility and organized opposition. The immigrants spurred economic growth in America by providing a steady supply of cheap labor and an increased demand for mass-produced consumer goods.
Reasons for Increased Immigration:
1. Transportation Improvements
2. European strife
3. The “American Dream
The third wave, was from 1890 to about 1930. During the third wave, the United States received a whole new type of immigrant. They mostly came from Eastern and Southern European cities and moved into American cities and worked in industry. Immigrants found themselves in tenement buildings in over-crowded cities and worked in factories often under deplorable conditions. This wave continued until the Great Depression and World War II. Whereas in 1880, 87% of immigrants had been from Northwestern Europe (the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia), by 1900, over 80% were from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Russia, Austro-Hungary). Many factors increased the numbers and diversity of immigrants after 1890:
“Push” Factors drove Southern and Eastern Europeans to leave their native countries:
1. High population growth in Southern and Eastern Europe.
2. Lack of jobs and food.
3. Scarcity of available farmland.
4. Mechanization of agriculture, which pushed peasants off the land.
5. Religious persecution of Russian Jews, who fled their villages after pogroms.
“Pull” Factors attracted immigrants to the USA:
1. Democracy.
2. Freedom of religion.
3. Available land.
4. Other forms of economic opportunity.
5. Booming industries like steel and railroads advertised for workers in Hungary and Poland. These new immigrants helped build new railroads and took jobs in steel mills.
The United States is now experiencing the fourth wave of immigration and it is the most diverse to date, with over 80% of immigrants coming from Latin America and Asia, bringing with them a veritable kaleidoscope of cultural traditions.
Fourth Wave Immigrants have come to the US to escape Communist dictatorships (Cubans, Vietnamese, and Chinese) and civil wars (Salvadorans). Most have come in search of economic opportunity (Filipinos, Dominicans, and Indians). All these groups, together with the Irish (the only traditional source that continued to supply large numbers of immigrants) today have more than a million of their countrymen now living in the US, along with an estimated nearly 10 million Mexicans.
The Impact on America
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- The Fourth Wave has primarily settled in 7 states: California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey have over 70% of the immigrant population.
- The new immigrants have revitalized many of America's cities, moving into depressed neighborhoods and made them thrive again.
- The Fourth Wave brought an astounding new ethnic and religious diversity. Now the US has almost as many Muslims as Jews and an increasing number of Buddhists. Mexican, Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern restaurants have sprung up all over.
- The new immigration is drastically altering the ethnic demography of the Untied States. As recently as the 1970s, the US was still about 85% white, but that figure has dropped to about 60% today. If present trends continue, the percentage of Americans who are white will drop below 50% before 2050.
- Long split on lines of black and white, America is fast becoming a "rainbow society" composed of all the different peoples on earth. Latinos have now overtaken African-Americans as the largest US "minority group," and may well comprise 1 in 4 Americans by 2050. Asian immigrants, a minuscule percentage of the US population before the Fourth Wave, may comprise nearly 10% of the population by mid-century.
Urbanization
The traditional North American city had a core commercial area, called the central business district (or CBD), surrounded by worker’s homes. Density was generally highest near the city center and decreased as you traveled outward away from the urban center and into the rural areas. As deindustrialization occurred, suburbanization replaced the previous rural to urban migration. Counterurbanization, the shift in populations from urban centers to suburban and rural settlements, has been prevalent in North America since the end of World War II.
In some areas, the metropolitan area has grown so large that it actually overlaps with neighboring metropolitan areas. This is referred to as a megalopolis. The Northeast Megalopolis extends along the Interstate 95 corridor from the southern suburbs of Washington, DC north through Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York to Boston.
As urban to suburban migration has continued, people are showing a renewed interest in moving back from the sprawling suburbs to be closer to the amenities of the downtown area. This has often led to gentrification, where increased property values displace lower-income families and small businesses.
Large metropolitan areas (including cities and suburbs) dominate North America. Canada’s main urban corridor includes Toronto (6 million) and Montreal (4 million). The largest settlement cluster in the US includes Baltimore/DC (8.8 million), Philadelphia (6.1 million), New York City (20 million) and Boston (4.8 million).
Other large population centers include Chicago (9.5 million), Dallas (7.2 million) and along the west coast (LA – 17.8 million, SF Bay Area – 7.1 million, Vancouver – 2.5 million).
Rural North America
60 million Americans or 19% of the population lives in rural areas and 7 million Canadians or 18.5% of the population lives in rural areas. These rural areas have a higher percentage of people over 65; have less minorities, have fewer immigrants, and are not growing as fast as cities and suburbs and in many cases are losing population. The poverty rate is slightly higher in rural areas than urban or suburban areas and fewer have completed high school. Only the states of Vermont, Maine, West Virginia, Mississippi, and the Atlantic provinces and the territories of Canada still retain a majority rural population.
