[Sidenote: Population.]

This westward movement was not occasioned by the pressure of population.
All the colonies, except, perhaps, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware,
had abundance of vacant and tillable land. The population in 1750 was
about 1,370,000. It ranged from less than 5,000 in Georgia to 240,000 in
Virginia. Several strains of non-English white races were included in
these numbers. There were Dutch in New York, a few Swedes in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, Germans in New York and Pennsylvania, Scotch Irish and
Scotch Highlanders in the mountains of Pennsylvania and South Carolina, a
few Huguenots, especially in the South, and a few Irish and Jews. All the
rest of the whites were English or the descendants of English. A slow
stream of immigration poured into the colonies, chiefly from England.
Convicts were no longer deported to be sold as private servants; but
redemptioners--persons whose services were mortgaged for their passage--
were still abundant. Many years later, Washington writes to an agent
inquiring about "buying a ship-load of Germans," that is, of
redemptioners. There was another important race-element,--the negroes,
perhaps 220,000 in number; in South Carolina they far out-numbered the
whites. A brisk trade was carried on in their importation, and probably
ten thousand a year were brought into the country. This stream poured
almost entirely into the Southern colonies. North of Maryland the number
of blacks was not significant in proportion to the total population. A few
Indians were scattered among the white settlements, but they were an alien
community, and had no share in the development of the country.

[Sidenote: Settlements.]
[Sidenote: American character.]