Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World

by Alison Games

England's seventeenth-century colonial empire in North America and the Caribbean was created by migration. The quickening pace of this essential migration is captured in the London port register of 1635, the largest extant port register for any single year in the colonial period and unique in its record of migration to America and to the European continent. Alison Games analyzes the 7,500 people who traveled from London in that year, recreating individual careers, exploring colonial societies at a time of emerging viability, and delineating a world sustained and defined by migration.

The colonial travelers were bound for the major regions of English settlement--New England, the Chesapeake, the West Indies, and Bermuda--and included ministers, governors, soldiers, planters, merchants, and members of some major colonial dynasties--Winthrops, Saltonstalls, and Eliots. Many of these passengers were indentured servants. Games shows that however much they tried, the travelers from London were unable to recreate England in their overseas outposts. They dwelled in chaotic, precarious, and hybrid societies where New World exigencies overpowered the force of custom. Patterns of repeat and return migration cemented these inchoate colonial outposts into a larger Atlantic community. Together, the migrants' stories offer a new social history of the seventeenth century. For the origins and integration of the English Atlantic world, Games illustrates the primary importance of the first half of the seventeenth century.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, 17th Century, European History

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 1999

About the author

Alison Games is the Dorothy M. Brown Distinguished Professor of History at Georgetown University.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I have wanted to read since about 2008, and it is nice to finally add it to the completed pile. That said, in many ways Games's book is such a classic, that by this point most of her ideas have usurped into the Atlantic World (AW) literature, so there was very little new for me to assimilate.

The one new piece of information for me was Games' discussion of Puritans who settled elsewhere in the AW (in this case Provincetown Island) other than New England. My advisor and I had an interesting discussion on this particular point, and he raised the question his former advisor, Ed Morgan, liked to ask "Would the Puritans have been different had they settled somewhere else other than New England?" (Apparently Morgan didn't know about this puritan colony in the Sugar Islands either.) The answer, we determined is "Yes." Place matters and the culture of the colony matters. The island Puritans quickly became involved in the slave trade, which is quite a different attitude toward this brutal institution than the NE Puritans held, but because of the nature of business in the islands, this influence eventually outweighed religious concerns. This answer flies in the face of Fisher's conclusions in Albion's Seed that the character of the colonies and their inhabitants was shaped solely by the place of origin of their migrants.

[Marion Vermazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting study of early 17th Century migration to the Atlantic World. Especially the 5,000 people who sailed for America from the port of London in 1635.
Interesting things:
. The puritans settled all over. Barbados, Virginia, New England, St. Kitts, Bermuda and Providence.
. In 1630 the colonial population was estimated at 9,500. by 1640 despite the high mortality the population was 53,700.
. A couple of quotes I like - "a Puritan who minds his own business is a contradiction in terms." and the description of Hugh Peter on of the immigrants as an "energetic Busybody".
. A large number of the immigrants made not just one move. They moved around a lot after they emigrated to the new world. It makes me realize I need to look for my ancestors in other colonies too.
. Most of the puritans held very strong opinions (zealous piety) and fought a lot about religion and government. When it came to religion there could be no compromise.
. Alison Games the author points out that as persecution increased in England in the 1630s there was " a shift from the Utopian migration ofhte Winthrop fleet to persecution migration".