*Note: Before 1580, migration from Britain, France, and the Netherlands was negligible.

FIGURE 3.1 Migration to the New World from Europe and Africa, 1492–1700

Before 1640, Spain and Portugal sent four out of five European migrants to the New World, virtually all of them bound for New Spain or Brazil. But from 1640 to 1700, nearly as many migrants came from England as from other European nations combined, a measure of the growing significance of England’s colonies. From 1492 to 1700, more enslaved Africans than Europeans arrived in the New World. What might explain the shifts in the destinations of enslaved Africans? Were those shifts comparable to shifts among European immigrants?