Immigration Timeline

1618 - Headright system, come to the English colonies or pay the passage for someone else to come to the colonies and get 50-100 acres of land - if you're a European.

Plymouth, Mass

Pennsylvania Dutch

Georgia free then slave colony

1705 - Virginia Indenture Statutes - masters are required to give their white indentured servants 50 acres of land, 30 shillings, 10 bushels of corn and a musket when they finished the contract of their indenture. Black servants didn't get anything, not even their freedom. (Same year as the Virginia Slave Codes were legislated - masters got sweeping new authority over their black slaves, also made it ilegal for black people to hire white people.)

1785 Land Ordinance Act - 640 acre townships, $1/acre, section 16 set aside to support the education of white settler children

1790 Naturalization Act - "any alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof..."

1862 Homestead Act - "free" land claims with some strings attached, only citizens (no enslaved blacks, ? free blacks), eventually transferred 10% of all land in the US to settlers.