District of Columbia Emigration and Immigration

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United States Emigration and Immigration lists several important sources for finding information about immigrants to this country.

Background[edit | edit source]

  • The first land grants to English settlers, in what is now the District of Columbia (then Charles County, Maryland), were made in 1663.
  • Scottish immigrants founded Georgetown in 1751.
  • Only a few people lived in the area when the federal government offices were moved there from Philadelphia in 1800.
  • The city grew slowly until the 1860s, when the population more than doubled during and after the Civil War.
  • The District of Columbia did not attract much overseas immigration during the nineteenth century, but a large transient population came from all parts of the nation to work as government officials and congressional staffers. Permanent residents also came from all of the states, but especially from the middle Atlantic region and from the upper tier of southern states.
  • African Americans constituted African American. Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia in 1862.