Motivations for Immigration to American Colonies in 1700s

The first successful colony in America was in Jamestown, Virginia, established 1607. When it was first founded, the colony contained only several hundred people. During the two hundred years that followed the population increased greatly, due in part to massive immigration from the Old World. By 1790 the colony housed a little under four million people. The high rate of immigration stemmed from a number of different motivators, including the peoples' hope for a better lifestyle than the one they experienced in the Old World, religious zeal, cheaper land and higher wages for manual laborers, and overpopulation in England.…