Humans are constantly on the move, packing up and resettling in different towns, in a neighbouring country, or on the other side of an ocean. Humans have migrated for various reasons since their emergence as a species. Among the natural causes of migration are prolonged droughts, changes in climate, and floods or volcanic eruptions that render sizeable areas uninhabitable.
Social reasons have prompted many more migrations than natural phenomena. Examples are inadequate food supply caused by population increase or by soil loss; defeat in war; the desire for material gain, as in the 13th-century invasion of the wealthy cities of western Asia by Turkish ethnic groups; and the search for religious or political autonomy, as in the migrations of the Huguenots, Jews, Puritans, Quakers, and others to North America.
Barriers and Passageways
People who migrate tend to seek an environment similar to the one they left, but they are influenced by natural barriers, such as large rivers, seas, deserts, and mountain ranges. The belts of steppe, forest, and arctic tundra that stretch from central Europe to the Pacific Ocean encouraged east–west migration of groups situated along their length.
On the other hand, migrations from tropical to temperate areas, or from temperate to tropical areas, have been rare. The Sahara in northern Africa separated the African from the Mediterranean peoples and prevented Egyptian and other cultures from spreading to the south. The mountains of the Himalaya in South Asia cut off the northern approach to the subcontinent of India.
As a consequence of these and similar barriers, certain mountain passes and land bridges became traditional migratory routes. The Sinai Peninsula in north-eastern Egypt linked Africa and Asia, the Bosporus region of north-western Turkey connected Europe and Arabia, and the broad valley between the Altai Mountains and Tian Mountains of Central Asia enabled Central Asian peoples to sweep westward.
Effects of Migration
The effects of migration are widespread because such movement:
- Stimulates further migration through the displacement of people living in the area.
- Reduces the numbers of the migrating group because of hardship and warfare.
- Decimates indigenous populations through warfare with invaders and through vulnerability to new diseases.
- Alters physical characteristics of ethnic groups through intermarriage.
- Changes cultural characteristics through adoption of the cultural patterns of peoples encountered.
- Modifies language.
Many native groups, such as the Aborigines of Australia and Native Americans, have lost their traditional homelands, their languages, and many of their traditions as they have been absorbed into larger societies.
Early Migrations
Civilizations of the ancient world settled in cities and countries around the Mediterranean Sea and along the coasts of Arabia, India, China, and the continents of Europe and Asia. Nomadic tribes, such as the Huns in the 3rd century bc, dominated various parts of the huge interior area of Eurasia. One of the most astonishing military migrations was that of the 13th century ad Mongol tribes under Genghis Khan, who captured China, southern Russia, Turkistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, and even parts of eastern Europe. Such invasions drove before them subsidiary waves of displaced tribes and peoples, including Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Ottoman Turks.
Periodic invasions occurred in northern Europe as well. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who were displaced by the Visigoths, sailed from north-west Germany and overran southern Britain. From the 7th to 10th centuries, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic groups captured various areas of northern Europe.
Under the banner of Islam in the 7th and early 8th centuries, Arab tribes swept eastward through Persia (Iran) to Chinese Turkestan and into north-west India. They also spread westward through Egypt and across northern Africa into Spain and southern France, and north-westward through Syria into Asia Minor.
The growth of nation states in Europe after ad 1000 restored some balance there, and no important ethnic invasions occurred thereafter. After Europeans learned of the Americas in the late 1400s, steadily increasing numbers migrated to North and South America.
Many groups and individuals have migrated involuntarily. From the 15th century to the first half of the 19th century, millions of Africans, often captured by other Africans, were forced from their homes and sold into bondage in distant lands. They were sent first to Portugal, then to other European countries, as far east as India, and as far west as the United States and Central and South America. Slave traders forcibly relocated as many as 20 million Africans to the Americas.
Another example of forced migration occurs when governments compel certain populations to move to other parts of the country or to leave the country altogether. The oppressive Christian Inquisition, for example, forced Jews and Muslims to flee Spain in the 15th century. In the 1930s the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) denounced millions of peasants as enemies of the state and sent them to labour camps in Siberia and other remote regions. During World War II, the Nazi German leadership under Adolf Hitler, responsible for the deaths of millions of people, deported 2 million to 3 million more.
England banished thousands of convicts overseas, first to North America in the 17th and 18th centuries, and later to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries. This banishment was called transportation. Natural disasters, including floods and earthquakes, and political events, such as the creation of new political entities dominated by particular ethnic or religious groups, also lead to forced migrations. In the mid-19th century, famine forced nearly one million Irish people to migrate to the United States and Canada.
Before and After World War I
In the 19th and 20th centuries, millions of western, and later eastern Europeans seeking political or religious freedom or economic opportunity settled in North and South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the globe. Millions of Chinese settled in South East Asia or moved overseas to work in the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, and the Americas. A large colony of Hindus established homes in southern Africa, and many people from Arab lands migrated to North and South America.
The peak of modern migration occurred in the 50 years preceding World War I. After 1920, however, many nations, particularly those that had been receiving the bulk of the immigrants, placed restrictions on immigration. Tightening passport and visa requirements cut voluntary migration to much smaller proportions during the 1920s.
The partition in 1947 of the Indian subcontinent into two independent states, Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, resulted in large-scale population transfers. Some 6.6 million Muslims entered Pakistan from Indian territory, and an estimated 5.4 million Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India. The establishment of Israel in 1948 resulted in the migration of hundreds of thousands of Jews to that state and the displacement of about 720,000 indigenous Palestinians into neighbouring countries.
Another major migration of Jews to Israel began in 1989, when the USSR eased emigration restrictions; the emigration increased after the break-up of the Communist state. In an upheaval reminiscent of the India–Pakistan partition, the violence that accompanied the break-up of Serbia into separate, ethnically based states in the early 1990s has forced millions to leave their homelands.
Elsewhere in Asia, revolution and war have caused Iraqi Kurds and Shi’tes, Iranians, and others to flee their countries. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, more than 5 million Afghans left their homeland, most settling in Pakistan and Iran. In 1991 Afghans made up the world’s largest refugee group.
In Europe, the trend of migration has been a relatively peaceful movement from east to west and from south to north. Millions left Eastern Europe, at first to escape repressive Communist governments and later to flee the chaos and poverty that came after those governments fell. From the south—from Mediterranean countries such as Turkey and from former African colonies such as Senegal—migrants have come in search of economic opportunity. In Germany and France there have been protests, sometimes violent, against immigrants.
In North America, the international movement has been mainly from south to north. Millions of migrants from Cuba and other Caribbean Islands, from Mexico, and from elsewhere in Central and South America have settled in the United States, mostly in California, Florida, and Texas. Large numbers of South East Asians, including refugees from the Vietnam War, have also emigrated to the United States.
Africa, with more than 40 nations and 600 ethnic groups, has about one-third of the world’s refugees. Caught in the turmoil that characterizes developing nations in the 20th century, some African nations have both an inflow and outflow of refugees, and in time their exiles often return. Political and ethnic fighting in Rwanda displaced more than 2 million people in 1994. Of those, about 400,000 were refugees.
Internal Migration
The Industrial Revolution gave rise to an important kind of migration within nations. The most significant example of this migration pattern was the great movement of people from rural and agricultural areas to urban centres. This movement came to the industrial countries in the 1800s, then exploded in the developing countries in the 20th century. Another type of internal migration involves travelling to agricultural areas to harvest crops. In many cases, internal migration is temporary, as labourers work for parts of the year, then return home.
Migration within nations also involves shifting centres of population. In the United States, the movement of workers and their families west and south to the warmer temperatures of the Sunbelt has revamped the demographic map of the nation. In addition, the United States has seen the gradual diffusion of ethnic groups throughout the country; for example, blacks have migrated northwards out of the southern States.
New Homes
Immigrants face many difficulties, especially when they do not speak the language. Many migrants move to a community populated by people originally from their home country. These earlier migrants speak the same tongue and can help the newcomers adapt. Thriving communities such as Chinatown in Brisbane, Australia, not only help new immigrants feel at home, but also encourage other residents to experience different cultures.
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