Why did the British open their colonies to immigration around 1700?

Question

Homework help, please! I can't find the answer in my text book. The question asks why the British opened their colonies to immigration, as opposed to the Spanish and French who didn't, and also asks: How do you explain the ethnic homogeneity of New England and the ethnic pluralism of New York and Pennsylvania?

Answer 1

Because they felt like it.

Answer 2

The English wanted to make their colonies profitable by opening up their colonies to skilled immigrant workers like Jamestown, VA from countries who were friendly to England. After Jamestown was established by the English, they invited German and Polish skilled craftsmen and their families to make their colonies profitable. They also had indentured servants and mercenaries from different parts of Europe. Spain in the beginning were only interested in gold, exotic foods and products (like potatoes, pepper, and tobacco), and Christianizing and civilizing their Native American Indian subjects. They had strict immigration policies because of constant pirate attacks from French, British, Portuguese, and Dutch pirates. However, they did let some foreigners settle in their colonies in the Americas like Filipino sailors/skilled craftsmen (who were called Manilamen and Luzones indios back then), Greek sailors, German and Irish mercenaries/skilled craftsmen, Italian merchants and bankers who helped financed Spanish conquistadors and Portuguese merchant explorers in the Americas, Africa, and Far East Asia. Later on in the early 1800's, after Spain lost many of it's colonies in the mainland Americas to various revolutions, they become open to immigration and invited many non-Spanish Europeans (from European countries friendly to Spain) to settle in their two remaining colonies in the Americas, Puerto Rico and Cuba, to make it profitable and drown out any early independence movements there with large number of immigrants from France/Corsica, Ireland, Germany, Middle East Christians, Italy, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Decre...

Answer 3

Man.. you really will never need this stuff. Dont worry its all over in a few years.. lol

Answer 4

The Spanish mined for gold, and the french were trappers. So they never really settled down. The English wanted to farm, and boom their economy.

New York was more mixed with races because it was founded by the Dutch not the English. The Dutch were the trading leaders of the world, so many different ethnic peoples would come to New Amsterdam(today New York city) and trade, sometimes settling down to live there.