1 HISTORY OF MIGRATIONS: MODERN AGE Fabio Baggio Introduction Historians generally set the beginning of the Modern Age in the late fifteenth century, with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus to America (1492), and its end at the dawn of the nineteenth century, with the fall of Napoleon’s Empire (1815). This is a period marked by conquests, colonization, religious controversies and revolutions that lead to the creation of new nations and the massive displacement of millions of people at the inter-­‐continental and intra-­‐continental levels for different reasons. XV Century: The Exploration of the African Continent The Portuguese exploration of the islands and coasts of West Africa began at the beginning of the fifteenth century, especially thanks to the efforts of Prince Henry the Navigator, son of John I, King of Portugal. The Lusitanian expeditions led to the colonization of the island of Porto Santo in 1418, Madeira in 1419 and the Azores in 1445, finally reaching Cape Verde in 1445 and discovering the islands of the same name. Many Portuguese migrated to the new African colonies. From the coast of West Sub-­‐Saharan Africa the Portuguese sailors were able to admire the greatness of the Empire of Mali, although it was close to its decline. Founded in the early eleventh century, the Mali Empire grew enormously during the next two centuries century, thanks to the massive conversion of its people to Islam, which secured the trade monopoly with the Berbers of Mauritania. The empire reached its zenith in the fourteenth century, thanks to gold and a series of enlightened rulers who promoted the culture, science and art. In this period the imperial territories extended from the coasts of Senegal to Gao, counting approximately 20 million inhabitants. The development of four major cities (Gao, Timbuktu, Djenné and Kumbi Saleh) attracts large masses of population. From 1350 the Mali Empire began to show clear signs of political-­‐administrative weakness and in the following century it became easy prey to the growing power of Songhai1. The Kingdom of Songhai was subjected to the Empire of Mali until the middle of the fourteenth century, when it regained its independence. One hundred years later it began to expand westward, succeeding in the occupation of the cities of Timbuktu and Djenné. In the mid-­‐sixteenth century, the Songhai Empire extended from Morocco to today's Nigeria. The new empire reached its apogee in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, taking the trade monopoly (gold, kola nuts and slaves) that was of the empire of Mali. The capital, Gao, reached 10.000 inhabitants. At the end of the sixteenth century Moroccans defeated the imperial troops and destroyed the capital. The empire fell and was never able to get up2. The Kanem-­‐Bornu Empire was established around the thirteenth century, near Lake Chad. The Kanuri people migrated to this area and established a kingdom. In mid-­‐1200 they converted to Islam and began to conquer neighboring territories, from Libya to Nigeria. Soon the Kanan-­‐Bornu Empire took control of all trade in textiles, salt, minerals and slaves bound to North Africa. The consolidation of the empire led the transition from original nomadism to the creation of large urban centers such as Njimi, 1 See Mali Empire and Djenne Figures, http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/resources/mali/index.htm, visited on 6 April 2012 and The Mali Empire, http://mali.pwnet.org/history/history_mali_empire.htm, visited on 6 April 2012. 2 See The Songhai Empire, http://mali.pwnet.org/history/history_songhai_empire.htm, visited on 6 April 2012. 2 first capital of the empire. After a century of crisis (fifteenth century), due to internal conflicts and migration, in the sixteenth century the empire of Kanem-­‐Bornu recovered and remained until 18403. The quest for a direct trade route with India, which would make unnecessary the mediation of the Arab caravans, led the Portuguese navigator Vasco de Gama to attempt the circumnavigation of Africa aiming at reaching the Indic Ocean in 1497. Despite repeated attacks by Arab ships, the enterprise succeeded. In 1498 the expedition led by de Gama arrived at the port of Calicut (India), the capital of the spice trade4. A long series of naval expeditions bound for the South and East Asia followed. They resulted in the construction of the pillars of Portuguese colonization in those territories (Goa, Malacca, Ceylon, and Hormuz) and the migration of thousands of European military and traders to the Far East. Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of the “New World” The theories of Copernicus had thrown dawn the challenge of the circumnavigation the globe westwards, across the Atlantic Ocean, till reaching India. The Genoese navigator at the service of the Most Catholic Kings of Spain responded to challenge with three caravels in August 1492. After just two months of sailing the ships of Columbus sighted land, an island in the Caribbean that the Italian navigator called "San Salvador". The following expeditions made it clear that it was a new continent that stretched from pole to pole. The one who first realized the discovery was the navigator Amerigo Vespucci, hence the name "America". The most powerful European kingdoms did not miss the opportunity to expand their territorial domains. The kingdoms of Portugal, Spain, France, Holland and England vied in sending military expeditions to seize the lands of the New World that promised untold riches. Together with the “conquistadores,” the troops sent to conquer new colonies, other “migrants” arrived: administrators, traders, adventurers and missionaries. The first strongholds on the Atlantic coasts were founded, while Magellan was able to find a passageway in the south to continue the circumnavigation of the globe across the Pacific Ocean. Much has been written on the discovery/conquest of the Americas. Modern historians distinguish between two stories written from two different perspectives: the "White Legend", narrated by the Conquistadors, and the "Black Legend", told by the natives. The first tells of the great work of civilization and Christian conversion undertaken by the European kingdoms in the Americas. It celebrates the erection of cities embellished with palaces and churches that had nothing to envy to the European capitals. The Black Legend shows the brutality perpetrated by the conquistadors, the extermination of entire native populations, the ruin of excellent civilization, the forced conversion of the indigenous people and the theft of enormous treasures that were stolen to satisfy the greed of the European monarchs5. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a massive internal displacement of indigenous population following the conquests and wars between the European kingdoms for rule over the American territories. Many indigenous people were forced to migrate from their ancestral lands to work in the plantations and mines of the European rulers. First European Migration Flows to the Americas The flourishing prospects of the colonization of the American territories convinced hundreds of thousands of Europeans to emigrate overseas. South America, in particular, received the first mass arrivals. In two centuries (XVI-­‐XVII) 200.000/250.000 Spanish people migrated to the New World. At 3 See Impero di Kanem-­‐ Bornu, http://encyclopedia.it/i/im/impero_di_kanem-­‐bornu.html, visited on 6 April 2012. 4 See HARTIG Otto, "Vasco da Gama", The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1909, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06374a.htm, visited on 7 April 2012. 5 See TODOROV Tzvetan, La conquista dell’America. Il problema dell’“altro”, Einaudi, Torino 1984. 3 the end of 1600 more than 200,000 Portuguese were estimated to live in Brazil6. Though constituting a minority in the American possessions of Spain and Portugal, due to the mechanisms of the colonial process, these immigrants caused a deep economic and social impact. Very often their settlement produced a migration of indigenous peoples to the inner land or their subjugation as slaves. Despite the evident discrimination that characterized the Spanish and Portuguese colonial societies, interethnic marriages were not that rare, generating the phenomenon of “mestizaje” (mestizo population). The large areas of undeveloped land waiting for new owners had enticed many European immigrants headed to the New World. Many of them were farmers who wanted to disengage from the landowner system that did not allow them any social mobility. Thanks to their creativeness a flourishing agriculture developed in South America. It was structured in huge monoculture plantations. Among the pull factors of European migration one should also list the myth of American gold, which included even a secret city built entirely of gold (El Dorado). The frantic search for mines of gold, silver and precious stones often caused rapid internal migration, with the subsequent construction of new cities. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth century, in the territory of today's Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, the so-­‐called "reductions" were established. They were a kind of indigenous reserves where Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries tried to gather the native tribes threatened with extinction by the conquest first and later by the settlement of colonists. In some cases reductions were true independent cities, autonomous from the authority of the colonizers. They were ruled by the commandments prescribed in the Bible. Always opposed by Spain and Portugal, reductions were definitely suppressed in the eighteenth century. The African Slaves’ Trade One of the darkest pages of modern history has been written with the blood of African slaves, bought, sold and deported to Europe and the New World. This devastating trade began in the fourteenth century, when Portuguese sailors began selling the first Africans to European nobility. The sale of slaves captured in the African territories became much more profitable when the plantations of the New World were in need of strong and numerous manpower to replace the indigenous people who had proved unable to work the fields. The slave trade was an absolute monopoly of Portuguese and Spanish until 1500. In the seventeenth century French, Dutch and English companies took over, catering to new plantations in North America. Slaves were taken from their villages and confined in sorting centers on the coasts and islands of West Africa. After a careful selection, they were loaded like animals in cargo ships and transported to the Americas to be sold to the public markets. From the fourteenth century to the nineteenth century, which marked the abolition of slavery in the Americans states, it is estimated that between 9.5 and 12 million African slaves were transported to the American continent. To these numbers one should be add all those who died during the terrible journey. This is undoubtedly the hugest phenomenon of human trafficking in all history7. 6 See SANTOS MATIAS Magda, La emigración portuguesa, con Oriente o sin él, p. 2, http://www.culturaviva.com.pt/textos/ magda%20matias/LA%20EMIGRACION%20PORTUGUESA.pdf, visited on 7 April 2012. 7 See. PÉTRÉ-­‐GRENOUILLEAU Olivier, La tratta degli schiavi. Saggio di storia globale, Il Mulino, Bologna 2010. 4 The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain In Spain, towards the end of 1400, there were about 400,000 Moriscos, meaning the descendants of Muslims officially converted to Christianity but secretly loyal to the Islamic traditions. Their conversion was dictated by convenience willing to keep their wealth and possessions after the Christian Reconquista of Spain. Many of them were concentrated in the regions of Valencia, Aragon and Castile, where they constituted separate communities that managed large amounts of capital, which were craved by Christian nobles. During the sixteenth century there were a series of discriminatory measures intended to promote the emigration of the Moriscos with no significant result. In 1609 Philip III of Spain decided to resort to enforcement action and ordered the expulsion of all Moriscos from the territories of the Kingdom. It is estimated that over 325,000 people were forced to leave Spain. Their houses and lands were expropriated and handed over to new Christian owners. Such deportations had deleterious effects at the economic and social levels. In Valencia and Aragon the countryside were depopulated and many agricultural activities were abandoned. Many crafts, prerogative of the Moriscos, became stagnant and the economy of these regions entered a phase of acute recession. Religious Controversies and Forced Migrations in Europe After an unhappy period for the Christian Church in Europe, marked by schisms and fights for the papacy, many people waited for a reform, which was slow to come. Some theologians and charismatic leaders, called “reformers,” decided to take action without waiting for the approval of the hierarchy. Martin Luther (1483-­‐1546), an Augustinian religious, started the protestant reform in the Germanic Confederation. Although the reform of Luther was principally dealing with religious issues, it was used politically by the German princes, who wanted to become independent from the young Emperor Charles V. In the first half of the sixteenth century there were schisms and religious wars that ended only in 1555 with the "Peace of Augsburg." The agreement between the German princes was based on the principle Cuius region eius et religio (who has the power is to determine the religion). Thus the confederation was divided between Catholic states and Protestant states, forcing people of other faith than that of the prince to migrate to another territory. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-­‐1531), an army chaplain, was the reformer of Zurich and promoted the spread of the reform by force in neighboring territories. For the subjected peoples there was no alternative: either accept the Protestant Reformation or chose exile. The French reformer Jean Calvin (1509-­‐1568) was called to Geneva to spread the Protestant doctrine and organize the city according to the dictates of the new confession. Willing to be the “New Rome,” Geneva became the intellectual capital of Protestantism, attracting many immigrants. Its society was organized according to strict rules and police controls. All dissidents were regularly exiled. In the sixteenth century the Lutheran Reformation was adopted by the kings of Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden. Many Catholics were forced into exile. Initially loyal to Rome, the United Kingdom of Henry VIII broke away from Catholicism and founded the Anglicanism, more due to political reason than religious differences. The young successor of Henry VIII, Edward VI, opened the doors to the Lutheran Reformation. Many Catholics were forced into exile. At his death, the scepter passed the half-­‐
sister, Mary Tudor, who restored Catholicism and persecuted the Protestants, who must find refuge outside the Kingdom. However, Elizabeth I managed to kill her half-­‐sister Mary and seize the throne. She changes radically the religious situation in favor of Anglicanism. Two centuries of persecution and exile for Catholics followed. The Kingdom of France had remained at the borders of the religious conflicts, alternating openness to the Protestant Reformation with restoration of Catholicism. In the sixteenth century, with Henry IV, the loyalty to the papacy definitely triumphed and a massive persecution of French Protestants called "Huguenots" began. The internal resistance caused eight religious wars and mass migrations to more tolerant states. 5 Immigration and Population of North America In the sixteenth century, English Calvinists, commonly called "Puritans," were victims of cruel persecution by the Anglican Church and they had to migrate to Holland. Still not feeling safe from the threats, many Puritans decided to sail for the English colonies of North America. The first group (Pilgrim Fathers) left with the Mayflower from Plymouth and landed on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. The colonial government of North America proved to be very tolerant towards religion confessions and sects that began to arrive after the Pilgrim Fathers. The religious freedom that was essentially guaranteed in colonial territories served as a pull factor for the massive immigration of Catholics and Protestants that started in the seventeenth century. The annexation of the Catholic Ireland to the Anglican United Kingdom occurred in 1603 by military action. However it produced a very unstable socio-­‐political situation that the British government tried to solve through the massive settlement of English families in Irish territory. The instability, however, continued and the Britons had to turn several times to force in order to quell the frequent revolts of Irish patriots. In the eighteenth century the constant frustration of patriotic movements was matched by a serious economic crisis caused by the famine. Thousands of Irish people decided to migrate to North America. The Ottoman Empire of Suleiman the Magnificent From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, Islam succeeded in advancing into Eastern Europe, conquering vast territories. Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-­‐1566), Sultan of the Ottomans, extended the imperial rule from Belgrade to Baghdad, thanks to strategic alliances with Protestant European kingdoms. The new configuration of politics and religion of the conquered territories caused significant migrations. Too busy to affirm its vast domain, the Ottoman Empire lost control of the Mediterranean See after the battle of Lepanto in 15718. The Moghul Empire with Prince Babur Zahir ad-­‐Din Muhammad (1483 -­‐ 1530), known as Babur, was grandson of Tamerlane, the creator of the second great Mongol empire at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Babur, through a series of successful military campaigns managed first to conquer Afghanistan and later to found the Mughal Empire in northern India, which lasted until the mid-­‐nineteenth century. In the empire of Babur elements from different cultures (Turkish, Mongolian, Persian and Hindu) were wisely merged. The Unified Russia under Ivan III In the second half of the fifteenth century, the Grand Principality of Moscow, under the able leadership of Ivan III (1440-­‐1505), succeeded in conquering the tough Republic of Novgorod, which was allied with the Catholic Lithuania. In the same years were Ivan III also annexed the principality of Yaroslavl, Rostov and Tver. The Unified Russia was born as an autocratic state, protector of the Orthodox Church. To permanently quell the constant revolts in the territories of Novgorod, Ivan III ordered to deport thousands of families belonging to the feudal nobility ("boyars") to Moscow and other Russian cities. Cape Town and the Colonization of South Africa Cape Town was the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. It was created by the Dutch Company of East Indias in 1652 as a safe stopover for sailing to India and the Far East. In the following years the prospect of colonizing the fertile land in South Africa attracted a considerable number of European settlers (mostly Dutch, French Huguenots, Bavarian and Nordic). These settlers, known as 8 See MANTRAN R., L'Empire ottoman du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle: administration, économie, société, London 1984. 6 "Boers", founded autonomous communities and moved eastward and northward without coming into conflict with indigenous peoples of the Cape ares. In fact they were nomadic by nature and migrated northward in response to the Boers’ expansion. The situation changed when the settlers arrived in are of today’s Port Elizabeth and has to fight against the Xhosa, an indigenous population conquering new territories, for the possession of the land. The New Colonization in the XVIII Century Between the sixteenth century and the eighteenth century, the religious conflicts and the wars between France and Great Britain, with mutating alliances, significantly blocked the colonial expansion of the European kingdoms. The Kingdom of Holland, who had kept at the margins of the conflicts, took advantage of the weak competition and expanded its dominance in Asia, so to contend with Great Britain and Portugal the control of the spices’ islands. Thousands of soldiers, settlers and traders migrated from the Netherlands to strengthen the Dutch presence in the new colonial territories. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Kingdom of France began the conquest of Quebec (Canada) and the colonization of its territories. In 1760 there were already more than 70,000 French in Quebec. At the same time Spain extended its domination in the current Texas and founded the city of San Francisco in California and the vice-­‐kingdom of the Río de la Plata in Argentina. Across the globe, meanwhile, British troops were able to conquer new territories in India, which were handed over to the British Company of East India aiming at strengthening its commercial dominance in Asia. The Independence of the United States of America The American Revolution in 1776 decreed the independence of thirteen North American colonies that would later constitute the United States of America. Later there were eight long years of wars against the British army that ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Over 170,000 “Loyalists,” loyal to the British crown, decided to migrate to Europe and other English, Spanish or French colonies. The ideals of freedom and equality, clearly encoded in the American Constitution, attracted new immigration flows from Europe. The Chinese Empire of the Qing Dynasty In the early seventeenth century, the Qing dynasty, vassals of the Ming emperors, separated from the great Chinese empire and founded the empire of Manchuria. In the following decades the Qing succeeded in conquering all the imperial territories and even incorporated Tibet and Vietnam. Towards the end of the century the Chinese empire of the Qing counted thirteen million square kilometers of territory. It was a time of huge internal migration within the empire in order to consolidate the conquest and ensure the administration of new territories. New Push Factors in Europe The French Revolution of 1789 caused deep changes in French society, with escapes, illustrious exiles and voluntary migration of thousands of dissidents. But the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood, which had forged the French Republic, then had to bow down to the charisma of Napoleon Bonaparte. In few years this great general, born in Corsica, managed to build a real empire, conquering most of the European kingdoms. Large movements of troops and population marked this period.