ties. The English led the way. Next to them in numerical
importance were the Scotch-Irish and the Germans. Into the melting pot
were also cast Dutch, Swedes, French, Jews, Welsh, and Irish. Thousands
of negroes were brought from Africa to till Southern fields or labor as
domestic servants in the North.

Why did they come? The reasons are various. Some of them, the Pilgrims
and Puritans of New England, the French Huguenots, Scotch-Irish and
Irish, and the Catholics of Maryland, fled from intolerant governments
that denied them the right to worship God according to the dictates of
their consciences. Thousands came to escape the bondage of poverty in
the Old World and to find free homes in America. Thousands, like the
negroes from Africa, were dragged here against their will. The lure of
adventure appealed to the restless and the lure of profits to the
enterprising merchants.

How did they come? In some cases religious brotherhoods banded together
and borrowed or furnished the funds necessary to pay the way. In other
cases great trading companies were organized to found colonies. Again it
was the wealthy proprietor, like Lord Baltimore or William Penn, who
undertook to plant settlements. Many immigrants were able to pay their
own way across the sea. Others bound themselves out for a term of years
in exchange for the cost of the passage. Negroes were brought on account
of the profits derived from their sale as slaves.

Whatever the motive for their coming, however, they managed to get
across the sea. The immigrants set to work with a will. They cut down
forests, built houses, and laid out fields. They founded churches,
schools, and colleges. They set up forges and workshops. They spun and
wove. They fashioned ships and sailed the seas. They bartered and
traded. Here and there on favorable harbors they established centers of
commerce--Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Charleston. As soon as a firm foothold was secured on the shore line
they pressed westward until, by the close of the colonial period, they
were already on the crest of the Alleghanies.

Though they were widely scattered along a thousand miles of seacoast,
the colonists were united in spirit by many common ties. The major
portion of them were Protestants. The language, the law, and the
literature of England furnished the basis of national unity. Most of the
colonists were engaged in the same hard task; that of conquering a
wildernes