European settlement had overwhelmingly negative consequences for Native Americans. Though Native American tribes did occasionally form positive relationships with European settlers, permanent European settlement in America eventually led to disease and displacement. Native Americans had no immunity to European illnesses and their population was devastated by the (sometimes deliberate) introduction of diseases like smallpox. Over time, most surviving tribes were forcibly relocated from their traditional lands to make way for expanding European settlements.

The first Africans brought to an English colony in North America were forcibly landed in Virginia in late August 1619. Tobacco grower John Rolfe wrote that the “20 and odd” Africans came from a Dutch warship, but modern research has shown a more complicated story.

The process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world.

where Scots-Irish and Germans were the major immigrant groups. After, the War of Independence, there was not much immigration until 1820.

famine that occurred in Ireland in 1845–49 when the potato crop failed in successive years. The crop failures were caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant.The Irish famine was the worst to occur in Europe in the 19th century.

By settling, building housing and farming the land, they were granted 160 acres (about 600 mål) of fertile soil, a farm that would make their former landlords’ farms seem like peanuts. They could write home to family and friends and brag about being large landowners.

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. The promised land began to seem less and less promising as immigrants were stuffed into tenement buildings in over-crowded cities and forced to work in factories under deplorable conditions. The immigrants soon discovered that American streets were not paved with gold.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers.

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 Norwegians emigrated. The Irish were highly dependent on the potato and when the potato crop failed in the 1840’s many either emigrated or faced starvation. Emigration was largely to Northern England or the United States.

the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers.