Americans of English descent ( English. American ) - citizens or permanent residents of the United States of America , born in England , are ethnic British or have full or partial English origin. According to the American Community Survey for 2010, Americans of English origin make up about 9.0% of the total US population (27 million people) and form the third largest group of European descent after German Americans and Irish Americans . However, demographers consider this figure to be understated, since many, if not most people of English origin identify themselves as simply “Americans,” or mixed European origin " [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] .
The vast majority of United States founding fathers were of English descent, including Benjamin Franklin , George Washington , John Adams , James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson .
Content
Quantity
According to the 1980 census , Americans of English origin made up about 24% of the country's population (50 million people), and at that time were the largest ethnic group in the United States. According to the available estimates for 1775 , these individuals prevailed in the population of the American colonies, making up 48.7% of the population. For comparison: people of African descent accounted for 20%, Scottish-Irish (Ulster Scots) 7.8%, German 6.9%, Scottish 6.6%, Dutch 2.7%, French 1.4%. For more than a hundred years, English Americans have undoubtedly dominated the United States, putting their culture at the heart of the American model of society.
According to the 1790 census (the first, already independent United States), people of English origin made up 47.5% of the country's population and 60.9% of European Americans, while European Americans made up 80.7% of the population. However, with a total population of 4 million people. There were about 750 thousand people of African descent in the country, about 700 thousand of whom were slaves at that time.
The states with the largest number of people of English origin were at that time Massachusetts (82%), Vermont , Rhode Island , Virginia , Connecticut , Maryland , and the District of Columbia , North Carolina , New Hampshire , South Carolina , Maine , Delaware , Kentucky , Tennessee , Georgia , New York , New Jersey , PA .
According to the 2000 census , Americans of English descent constituted only 8.7% of the population (24.5 million people), being only the fourth group of people after people of German descent (first place, about 43 million people or 15% of the population), African Americans (36 million people or 13%) and Americans of Irish descent (30.5 million people or 11% of the population). However, this estimate is probably a serious underreporting of more than 30 million, considering that, in the 1980 census, about 50 million citizens stated that they were at least of partial English origin.
It should be noted that more than 20 million people. identified their ethnic origin as “American,” since many of these people had their origins in the United States for many generations and they do not know their pedigrees. This number includes many Americans entirely or partially of English origin. The origin of this population is similar to the origin of the Creoles in Latin America or the Boers ( Afrikaners ) in South Africa (people of Dutch origin who do not consider themselves to be Dutch ). In addition, the Scottish-Irish Americans, the so-called "Scots-Irish", are mostly descendants Lowland Scots from Lowland and people from Northern England who colonized Ulster in the 17th century also have, in many ways, English origin. The ethnic identity of 2 million Cornish Americans who are Cornwalls is not recognized in the United States at the census and is classified as British , although most of these people are also of English origin.
It should also be borne in mind that about 678 thousand expatriates from the British Isles who emigrated in modern times currently live in the United States. Not all of them are ethnic English; among them, there are up to 40 thousand Asians , 20 thousand Africans and 10 thousand people of mixed origin.
History
The first English settlement in America is Jamestown in the colony of Virginia , founded in 1607 . With the permission of King James I , the three ships left England and arrived at Henry Cape in April. The second successful colony was Plymouth , founded in 1620 by a group of people, later known as “pilgrims” . Fleeing religious persecution, they fled first to Holland, and then to the New World . In September 1602, 102 passengers of the Mayflower ship sailed to America. This journey has become a central theme in American identity.
In the following years, English settlers founded a number of colonies, to which were also added conquests: New Netherlands (renamed New York Province in 1664 ) and New Sweden , previously captured by the Dutch, and now known as Delaware .
After 1776, about 3.5 million settlers from England arrived on the territory of the modern USA. The first significant wave began in the late 1820s due to unrest in the United Kingdom ; it peaked in 1842 and then slowly began to decline. Most of the settlers were small farmers from villages in the southern and western English counties, as well as urban workers who had escaped social and industrial changes in the 1820s - 1840s . Some English settlers arrived from Australia during the gold rush .
By the end of the 1860s, immigration from England increased to 60 thousand people. a year, by the year 1872 — up to 75 thousand a year, then it began to decrease. Subsequently, there were several new peaks. The construction of railroads, the industrialization and settlement of the great plains required new workers.
Throughout American history, individuals of English origin have been extremely widely represented at all levels of the state. Eight of the first 10 presidents of the United States were of English origin, and the same proportion of all 42 presidents, as well as the majority of members of Congress , senators , and supreme judges .
Language
English is predominant in the United States and is currently the de facto state language (although there is no official state language in this country). According to the 1990 census , 90.4% of the population spoke only English, while only 0.8% did not speak English (compared to 3.6% in 1890 ).
Some states, in particular California , introduced amendments to their constitutions defining English as the state language. In practice, this means that government documents must be written at least in English, but may be in other languages. In particular, the California Class C standard driver's license is available in 32 languages.
Geographical distribution
According to the 2010 census , the states with the largest number of persons determining their origin, as English, were:
- Utah (29%)
- Maine (21.5%)
- Vermont (18.4%)
- Idaho (18.1%)
- New Hampshire (18%)
- Wyoming (15.9%)
- Oregon (13.2%)
- Montana (12.7%)
- Delaware (12.1%)
- Colorado , Rhode Island and Washington State (12% each)
Cultural codes
The US flag is of English origin, and is based on the continental flag , which depicted, including the British flag .
Traditional American dishes such as apple pie and roast beef are of English origin.
Thanksgiving is also taking place in Britain, and sports such as baseball and American football .
Surnames
According to the US 2000 census , the list of the 10 most common surnames includes 8 English. For the first time in this list were the names of Spanish origin.
- Smith (English or Scottish)
- Johnson (English)
- Williams (English or Welsh)
- Brown (English, Irish, Scottish)
- Jones (English, Welsh)
- Miller (English, Scottish, Irish, may also be an Anglican form of the German last name Muller)
- Davis (English, Scottish)
- Garcia (Spanish)
- Rodriguez (Spanish)
- Wilson (English, Scottish)
See also
- Americans USA
- Famous Americans of English descent
- English diaspora
Notes
- Ule Pulera, Dominic Sharing the Dream: White Males in Multicultural America . A & C Black (20 October 2004). The appeal date is August 21, 2017.
- ↑ Reynolds Farley, 'The New Census Question About Us? ”, Demography , Vol. 28, No. 3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421.
- Ley Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns, Social Science Research , Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-46.
- ↑ Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Response for American Whites", Annals of the American Academy of Political Science , Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82-86.
- C. Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 36