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Article: Great Migration
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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GREAT MIGRATION
GREAT MIGRATION.
In March 1630, the
Arbella
set sail from Southampton, England, for America, thus beginning an unprecedented exodus of English men, women, and children to North America that lasted for ten years. Of the eighty thousand who left England between 1630 and 1640, approximately twenty thousand sailed to New England. The other emigrants sailed to the Chesapeake Bay region, the West Indies, and other areas.
Most but not all of the Great Migration immigrants to New England were Puritans from the eastern and southern counties of England who wanted to escape a situation they considered intolerable. King Charles I (reigned 1625
–
1649) dissolved Parliament and ...