Why Do People Emigrate?

354 Words2 Pages
Another one left Everybody knew somebody who emigrated. There were stories about people moving to the US everywhere. In every village, families sold their possessions in order to go the US. They could pay the journey with that money. But why did they emigrate? Periods Every year, people emigrated but there were three periods where the emigration to Michigan was enormous: around 1845, around 1880, and the Second World War. The first one began when a new group of religious people was founded in the Netherlands in 1834, who later emigrated in 1845: the Dissentings (later on known as Calvinists). They wanted more religious liberty. They were persecuted in the Netherlands because King William I only accepted the Protestantism and their religious beliefs were not accepted by the king, also know as William of Orange. They hoped to find that in the US. Around 1845 it also wasn't going well economically in the Netherlands due to economic decline, French domination and wars. Agriculture wasn't very prosperous; there were potato blights, cattle plagues, low agricultural prices, high land prices, natural disasters, and cholera. Around 1880 there was another agricultural crisis and there was little available to eat. They couldn't get work elsewhere or cultivate anything themselves, so they emigrated. The last peak was after the Second World War. Things were totally destroyed in the Netherlands. Many people became depressed when they thought about building up everything and they were afraid of another war because Germany was very dangerous and unpredictable at that moment. Other feared that the Netherlands would become communist. Due to these factors, another wave of immigrants entered America, one of the few countries which was still capitalist, democratic, and largely undamaged from the war. Others left for Canada, as well. Conditions
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