America's Ancestry, Explained Through Maps

ancestry is complex in the United States more so than in most other countries today 97 percent of Americans are predominantly descended from people who lived outside the country's modern borders Testament as much if not more so to the mass genocide and disease inflicted on the continent's native population by colonial America as to the later waves of immigrants that would expand the country's population rapidly while the means in which the ancestors of most Americans arrived in the U.S can be roughly classified into four groups the native people originally from there whose lands were conquered people who arrived as colonists those forcibly brought over in slavery and those who immigrated to the country each of these groups are incredibly diverse in their Origins traditions and cultures histories and experiences in the country on top of that most Americans today are descendants of usually at least two but often three or all four of these groups the largest ethnic group in the country only comprises 13 percent of the population in their around a dozen different ethnic groups representing at least five million people it's estimated that as many as 430 different languages are spoken within the country's borders additionally for those whose families have been in the country for at least a few Generations it's incredibly rare to trace your ancestry to a single country or ethnic group most Americans you'll meet are descended from people who spoke a number of different languages practice different faiths and traditions and call different countries home despite these vast differences the many ethnic groups in the U.S often are concentrated somewhat regionally which has contributed in part to the country's different Regional cultures in this video I'm going to explore the ancestry of the United States using Maps some which I created and others that I did not I'll also take a look at a few of the country's different ethnic groups and go into their histories within the country and the regions where they're most prevalent I've talked about the ancestry of the US briefly in one of my map videos but this video is going to go much more in depth hello and welcome to that is interesting I'm your host Carter today the ancestry of the United States explored through Maps the maps in this style like the ones I use in the thumbnail are the ones that I created this map which I'm basically basing the video off of shows the two largest ancestry groups in each state it's based on self-identification as reported to the census and I found the data on a site called Roots Beyond race made by American public media this is in my opinion the best site I know of that Aggregates information on the ancestry of the US based on ethnicity and I definitely recommend checking it out I make frequent use of it when I'm doing research for my series on each of the states the US explained there are some aspects of it that could be improved for example I wish I had information on the U.S territories but overall it's really detailed as well as user friendly basically it has two main functions first you can select from the 200 or so different ethnic groups they have listed and it Maps out the states in which Americans with that ancestry are the most prevalent you can toggle between sheer numbers and percentages of the population and it also ranks the states by these stats as well for example we can see that Texas has more Kenyan Americans than any other state but they make up the largest percentage of a state's population in Del aware on top of that and this is mostly what I use the site for when I'm writing the US explained you can select a specific State as well as DC or the US overall and see the breakdown and ancestry of that specific place you can see some pretty interesting population and historical Trends if you compare these state to state breakdowns to one another which I did with this map while there are plenty of maps out there that show the largest ancestry groups in the US by state I wanted to make one that simultaneously depicts the two largest in each state to better display the nuances of population and ancestry by region after all we'll I'll be focusing a lot on Regional and state-by-state differences in ancestry in this video it's important to remember that everywhere you go in the U.S you can find people descended from all over the globe many of the country's largest ancestor groups such as for example polish Americans don't show up on this map because there aren't any states in which they're one of the two largest ancestor groups instead they're spread across a number of different states in smaller but still significant numbers each state has two colors the thicker lines depict the largest ethnic group in that state the thinner lines the second largest so you can see how large often contiguous swaths of the country are grouped together by the largest group while further sub-regions often have the same second largest group German Americans make up the largest ethnic group in the country about 13 of Americans have German ancestry states where German is the most common ancestry group are marked in shades of red and there are 20 in total all in the northern half of the country stretching from Pennsylvania and a nearly unbroken swath all the way to the Pacific Northwest adding states where German Americans are the second largest group gives an additional 11 from Florida to Alaska to California Germans have been moving to the U.S since the country's foundation in other parts of Europe like Britain France and Spain those fleeing poverty persecution or social unrest often have the option of trying their luck across the Atlantic and their countries settler colonies in the Americas Germany at the time though had no colonies but Germans had plenty of reasons to leave though taking up a significantly smaller land area Germany had a larger population in the U.S all the way up until 1870. often with two or three times as many people at the same time it was split into dozens of countries mostly very small often city-states inhabited by people who spoke often highly differing dialects of German with different Regional cultures who were part of a number of different religious denominations with a number of conflicts in Europe and no American colonies Germans began establishing communities in the British colonies instead after the 30 Years War fought in part on religious grounds between the various Catholic and Protestant states of Germany many Germans were seeking freedom from religious persecution one of Britain's North American colonies appealed in particular to Religious Freedom William Penn the founder of Pennsylvania was a member of the Quaker Faith a religious minority in England and was acutely aware of religious persecution he'd been locked in the Tower of London for his religious views Penn founded Pennsylvania as a place where Quakers and members of any faith could practice freely so it strongly appealed to the Germans who were fleeing Europe because of religious persecution Germans began flocking to the Colony after a series of crop failures in the faults or palatinate a region in what is today Western Germany German settlement increased even more primarily to Pennsylvania by the time the Revolutionary War began a third of Pennsylvania was German and German communities were forming in other states as well such as the moravians in North Carolina Pennsylvania Germans which began to develop a distinct dialect of the language began spreading South in the Maryland as well as the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia all in all about a tenth of the new country's population though formed from British colonies was German at the time of Independence for a while they maintained much of their culture and Society entire towns and religious congregations would uproot and move to the U.S together and even today some members of religious communities like the Amish and Mennonites often speak German the dialects having since diverged significantly from the Germans spoken in Europe but it was in the mid-1800s that immigration from Germany would begin to Skyrocket in 1848 Democratic revolutions were spreading across the numerous small German countries but the revolutions were quashed in the German Elites Crackdown on those who'd supported them many of whom fled to the U.S over the next few decades Germans would continue to leave for America which was rapidly industrializing and expanding its control Westward and they encouraged their families to join them in the following decades millions of German immigrants poured into the country and an enormous migration wave while many immigrant groups typically settled around the ports of Entry they'd arrived in German immigrants fleeing political and religious persecution more often than economic conditions typically had some money saved up to buy land when they arrived many had been Farmers back in Germany and as they were arriving in an era when American settlement was spreading Westward they took advantage of cheap often free Farmland becoming available in what is now the midwestern U.S and later Prairie and Mountain States like The Dakotas in Montana arriving in northeastern port cities and immediately heading west because of this most of the rural parts of the midwestern and Northwestern U.S have high populations of Americans with German ancestry as do cities like Cincinnati St Louis Milwaukee and the Twin Cities of Minnesota the German language remained fairly common in the US for a while in German language newspapers could be found across the country the German language however eventually faded in popularity in the country despite the fact that more Americans today can trace their ancestry to Germany than to England German is today spoken by less than one percent of Americans while English Remains the dominant language as Germans along with other immigrant groups arrived in the U.S they settled in a country where English was always the most common language due to the country's Colonial history many German immigrants also married into English-speaking families that were already in the country or were recent immigrants as well after the larger immigration waves later generations of German Americans didn't pick up the language and grew up speaking English instead many also anglicized their surnames upon arrival both these Trends increased significantly after World War one and continued after World War II with the U.S at war with Germany anti-german sentiment was rampant during World War One and many German Americans were targets of persecution German language schools and newspapers shut down street and town names were changed and German Americans often stopped speaking the language altogether and even changed their last names erasing elements of their Heritage for fear of persecution a sad and often forgotten moment in American history twelve percent of Americans Trace their ancestry at least in part to Mexico Mexican Americans make up the largest ancestry group in much of the southwestern U.S in states such as California Nevada Arizona New Mexico and Texas all of which were once part of Mexico and not far from the country's border have been major destinations for immigrants from the country Mexican Americans make up the second most common ancestry group in another Western State Colorado as well as Illinois with the greater Chicago area having a pretty large Mexican community Most states have a fairly sizable Mexican-American population but Americans with Mexican ancestry are most prevalent in the western especially Southwestern U.S other Western and great plain states that don't show up in this map but of sizable Mexican-American populations include Washington Oregon Utah Idaho Wyoming Kansas Oklahoma Nebraska is not a homogeneous country as with the US it's a North American country that's been shaped heavily by colonialism immigration in the country's indigenous people though considered a single ethnic group in the census self-identification that Roots Beyond race uses Mexicans like Americans Trace their ancestry to a number of different places the country is a sizable black population many indigenous cultures have survived colonialism 8.3 million Mexicans for example speak in indigenous language 23 times as many as in the United States and the significant number of people are almost entirely of Spanish descent just as in the U.S different regions were often influenced by different cultures the majority of the population though as well as most Mexican Americans consider themselves mestizo people who Trace their ancestry back to both Spanish colonists and the indigenous people of the region such as the powerful Mayan and Aztec Empires Spanish colonialism had a major impact on what would become the United States Florida and Louisiana for example were both at one point Spanish colonies but as the U.S continued to push West it started to come close to New Spain the country's massive North American possession which stretched from Northern California to Costa Rica in 1829 Mexico which encompassed most of the North in central Mainland part of the Spanish colony became independent and soon the two North American countries came Head to Head American settlers had been moving into the Mexican region of Tejas which they called Texas eventually fighting a revolution and declaring it an independent republic Mexico didn't recognize Texan Independence and when the U.S and Texas made a deal on annexation a few years later they saw it as an invasion of a disputed territory war broke out the U.S won and the terms of the treaty gave them former parts of Mexico from Texas to California much of the modern Western U.S upon the end of the war over 100 000 Mexican citizens living in the Concord Northern provinces became American citizens the first major Mexican population living in the United States Los Angeles San Francisco San Jose Sacramento San Diego Tucson Albuquerque Las Vegas El Paso San Antonio so many Western and Southwestern cities in the U.S have Spanish names because they were founded or named by Spain or Mexico the same is true with the states of California New Mexico Nevada and Colorado the culture of the Southwest has long been influenced by its Spanish and later Mexican history most Mexican Americans however are descendants of people who immigrated to the U.S since the 1930s during World War II many American farmers left the fight overseas and the U.S implemented what was known as The Bracero Program bringing in Mexican immigrants to temporarily work open agricultural jobs in nearby States like California and Texas when American farmers returned from the war though very few returned to farm work the Bracero Program had been popular in jobs in the U.S needed to be filled at the same time Mexico's faced High problems with poverty both then and now though it has a huge economy for much of its history business and landowners have made most of the money while rural areas have struggled with high poverty though the countries made major improvements in lowering its poverty rate it's still very high in economic factors as well as related factors like violence and crime have driven many people to immigrate throughout the last century as immigrants typically left for economic reasons many had little money and few options besides low-wage work when they arrived many followed the footsteps of The Bracero program and took difficult often exploitative jobs in farm labor unfortunately like many immigrant groups throughout American history many immigrants from Mexico have dealt with discrimination activists like Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez helped improve the rights of immigrant Farm Workers in founding a union called the United Farm Workers as many immigrants worked in agriculture they often moved to rural parts of the Southwest where many of their descendants live today however practically every major city in California in the southwest have major Mexican-American populations such as Los Angeles San Antonio El Paso Houston Dallas and Phoenix Mexico continues to be the largest source of immigration to the U.S today and while most Mexican Americans are not immigrants about 30 are and because of this just as German was spoken in large numbers in the U.S in the decades following the waves of German immigration to the country Spanish is by far the most common language in the country besides English about 13 of Americans speak it at home and many others are learning it as a second language the US is a large black population across the country but due to the legacy of slavery it's centered in the Southeast the region commonly known as the South black Americans make up the largest ancestry group in the southern U.S stretching from Arkansas to Florida to Virginia as well as in Maryland Delaware and the District of Columbia which are today often considered Northeastern states but were historically considered Southern and had significant populations living in slavery before the Civil War they were also destinations for black migrants from the south who Moved North seeking jobs during the Great Migration black Americans additionally make up the second largest ancestry group in Texas a state at the meeting point of the South and Southwest which also had a significant population of people living under the horrible institution of slavery as well as Michigan a Midwestern State which was a major destination during the Great Migration many black people in the U.S are descended from more recent immigrants from places like Africa and the Caribbean and often identify with their particular country of ancestry but the majority of black Americans are descendants of American slavery whose ancestors came from a wide variety of countries and ethnic groups speaking a number of different languages the awful and violent institution of slavery stripped enslaved people of their dignity and Humanity many were killed and abused but we know that most enslaved people were taken from the west coast of the continent from Senegal to Angola people were taken from all over Africa and as the institution often took away people's names languages and family records it's in many cases difficult for individuals to trace their ancestry back prior to slavery because of this descendants of American slavery are often considered to make up a single ethnic group with ancestors from across the continent but shaped by a common history within the country although different groups have been influenced by other cultures such as the Louisiana Creos who I'll talk about later or the Gullah in South Carolina and Georgia who maintained a number of traditions in linguistic elements from Africa and speak a language similar to those spoken in Sierra Leone only about 400 000 of the 12.5 million people brought in Chains from Africa to the Americas were taken to the United States but white plantation owners primarily in rural parts of the Agricultural South would enslave millions of their descendants in the two centuries in which slavery existed in the U.S in the 13 colonies on the eve of abolition during the Civil War around 4 million black Americans were enslaved mostly in the South as most northern states had abolished the awful practice in the previous decades America's treatment of its black population has been among the worst parts of its history many dealt with horrible racism and were barred from voting and racial segregation and discrimination were legally enshrined across much of the country especially in the South sharecropping remained as an exploitative system of farm labor in much of the rural South where most black Americans lived it along with racial housing covenants the racist housing practice of redlining in widespread hiring discrimination kept many descendants of enslaved people who often had little familial wealth due to slavery trapped in poverty major progresses made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s where illegal segregation was toppled by a movement of mass protests boycotts voting drives and marches many activists put their lives at Great risk and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X were assassinated a mass migration during and after the world wars saw black Americans leave the south in huge numbers fleeing discrimination segregation and the low wages of sharecropping seeking jobs in the north as industrial workers left to fight in Europe while the war itself necessitated more production known as The Great Migration it was one of the largest internal migrations in U.S history around 6 million black Southerners left the region and when the Great Migration ended nearly half of the country's black residents were living outside the South only eight percent had been before though many made their way to the fast-growing West Coast most black Southerners moved directly north taking trains to Northern rail hubs in the Midwest and Northeast Midwestern and Northeastern cities like Detroit Cleveland Philadelphia Washington DC Baltimore St Louis Chicago and New York city became major destinations for migrants though the United States was formerly a British colony more Americans traced their ancestry to another country conquered and colonized by the British then to the center of British power in England itself ten percent of Americans have Irish ancestry but in only four states are Irish Americans the most common ancestry group Massachusetts Rhode Island New Hampshire and Vermont those immediately surrounding Boston the main port of entry for Irish immigrants to the country across the rest of the country though Irish Americans are much more widespread they make up the second largest ancestry group in 23 different states throughout the Northeast Midwest south and west from Maine to Georgia to Nebraska to Oregon practically every state in the country has some significant population with Irish ancestry the tactics of colonization and Empire that Britain would use to conquer and devastate lands across the globe were first used on a country less than 100 miles from Britain itself Ireland was invaded by England in 1169 and until 1922 most of the island was more or less controlled by Britain or its client states they imported the English language and over the centuries it overtook Gaelic the native tongue of Ireland as the Island's most common language in the mid-1800s when most Irish immigration to the U.S occurred around 30 percent of Ireland spoke Gaelic well 70 spoke English today around 40 percent of Ireland's population can speak Gaelic but only around 2 percent speak it at home after a successful revolution in the middle of the 17th century British ruler Oliver Cromwell ordered an invasion to retake the island killing half of Ireland's population in the process in the early 1600s around the same time Britain was founding its first American colonies it began establishing a settler colony in Ireland as well in what was known as the plantation of Ulster Britain sent around 80 000 Scottish and English settlers from the border regions of Scotland and England to the northernmost Irish Province Ulster bringing in a population that was mostly Protestant and loyal to Britain While most Irish were catholic and opposed British rule planting the seeds of future conflicts in the region though under British rule and with a predominantly English-speaking population relatively few Irish people immigrated to the 13 colonies in comparison to English settlers those that did were often very poor and worked as indentured servants to pay off the cost of the journey and though a few colonies which were unsurprisingly the most attractive for Irish Catholic immigrants were founded on principles of religious freedom many were quite religiously intolerant by 1790 with the US now independent only around five percent of the new country's population was of Irish descent twice that number were what became known as Scots Irish descendants of the Scottish and English settlers in Ulster around a century after their ancestors had arrived in Ulster many Protestants from the region decided to leave looking for better economic opportunities and less religious conflict in the Protestant dominated colonies around 250 000 left for the 13 colonies and having grown up on a colonial Frontier themselves often chose not to stay in the port city of Philadelphia where most arrived instead pushing Inland into the Appalachians and then the south building isolated communities in the Appalachian South and shaping much of what we think of as Appalachian culture today most immigration records refer to the Scots Irish as simply Irish because they immigrated from Ireland and their ancestors came from both Scotland and England they could have surnames from all three countries and self-identification puts their descendants at about one percent of the population but considering they made up 10 upon Independence it's likely a bit higher many people in the Upland South were the Scots Irish primarily settled report their ancestry as American and it's thought that many of them are descendants of Scots Irish immigrants most Irish immigrants to the U.S though arrived between 1840 and 1930 spurred by the Great Famine a potato blight made worse by bad British policies such as continually exporting crops off the island which could have helped feed the population led to over a million deaths in the country and 2 million refugees to flee the island which only had 8 million people to begin with poverty had already been a massive problem on the mostly rural Island beforehand but the famine and ensuing population Exodus made the situation much worse and throughout the next Century people continued to leave Ireland's population would only start to grow again in the 1960s and is still nowhere near what it was before the famine around 4.4 million Irish people would immigrate to the U.S in the late 1800s and early 1900s contributing significantly to the mass immigration wave the country was experiencing as was a huge Irish diaspora the U.S UK and Australia each are home to more people with Irish ancestry than Ireland's population today Irish immigrants mostly came to port cities like Boston New York Philadelphia and Chicago as they were primarily refugees with little money who couldn't afford land for a farm many dealt with discrimination often for their religion and though many spoke English many did not and literacy was very low Boston in particular was the epicenter of Irish immigration in the northeastern part of the country has the highest concentration of Irish ancestry though many stayed in the ports of Entry large numbers of Irish immigrants took jobs in rural parts of the country doing hard labor such as mining Canal building and laying railroad tracks of the country expanded West and from there as their economic situations improved over time descendants of Irish immigrants moved across much of Rural America Americans of English descent are the fifth largest ethnic group in the country but only the most common in three states Maine Utah and Idaho in three more States they're the second largest group New Hampshire Vermont and Wyoming Most states unsurprisingly have significant numbers of people with English ancestry though they're reported about seven percent of the US population the numbers thought to be under counted quite a bit there's probably a few reasons for this first off descendants of English colonists have never really been seen as an other in American society they never had the Immigrant experience of learning a new language or being in an unfamiliar culture it's thought that many people who report their ancestry as just American are likely in part of English descent Additionally the further back you go the less connected you might feel to the country your ancestors came from as many Americans have both Colonial as well as later immigrant ancestry it's thought that many people skip over or are unaware of their English ancestry and solely identify with that of later immigrant groups simply because they feel more connected to or just more aware of their ancestors who arrive to the U.S say 100 as opposed to 400 years ago though English ancestry is slightly pretty under counted in the U.S it's probably not by an extreme amount as the immigration waves of the 1800s dwarf the country's population upon Independence though many Americans have English sounding last names this isn't a great metric by which to tell English ancestry because so many immigrants anglicize their last names upon arrival because so many English who arrived in the U.S did so as colonists English settlers and their descendants make up much of the early American political and social Elite and continue to today they dominated the culture and Society of the young country making up around half of the US population upon Independence English has always been by far the most commonly spoken language in the country as new immigrants were always arriving into a mostly English-speaking though not English descended population as the country spread its borders West conquering Native American land Americans from Britain's former 13 colonies moved with it many English Americans though are descendants of the same immigration wave that brought large numbers of people to the country from Germany Ireland and other European countries from the 1850s to 1930s around two and a half million immigrants came to the U.S from England steamships May travel fairly affordable and jobs were opening up with the expansion of the country Westward the large proportions of people with English ancestry in the Northern New England states of Maine New Hampshire and Vermont are primarily descendants of English colonists as though states were part of the 13 colonies but being mountainous and lacking major cities didn't experience as much immigration as the rest of the East Coast the high English American population in the Mountain West states of Utah Idaho and Wyoming though are from later immigration to the country through the LDS Church despite starting in the U.S the LDS church whose members are commonly referred to as Mormons had more success finding new converts to the faith in England than in America as American Mormons migrated West to Utah and neighboring states English Mormons followed suit with most of the country's LDS population leaving England altogether for Utah today the U.S has a significantly larger Mormon population than the UK and many are descended from English immigrants the sixth largest ancestry group in the country are italian-americans at about five percent of the US population similarly to Irish immigrants the descendants of immigrants from Italy are the most common ethnic group in the states surrounding their main Port of Entry in this case New York City they make up the largest ancestry group in New York and neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut but unlike Irish Americans are not as widespread across the country as the second most common ancestry group only making up the second largest proportion of the population in nearby Massachusetts and Rhode Island Pennsylvania Ohio and New Hampshire also have large Italian-American populations many parts of the country City the South and Midwest have far fewer Italian American residents but in the Northeast the country's population core there are many people with Italian ancestry Italy became a unified country in 1871 but unifying what had been throughout history a number of different countries and city-states brought with it chaos and violence while the north of the country was fairly well off industrialized and urbanized southern Italy was mostly agricultural Rural and poor even today the economic divide between the North and South of the country is quite significant for example Milan and Naples have fairly similar populations in their Metro areas but Milan a northern city has a GDP per capita 3.5 times higher than that of Naples a southern city with high poverty and social unrest many Italians mostly poor Farmers from the southern part of the peninsula as well as Sicily took steamships across the Atlantic throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s 13 million people left the country tree four million of whom went to the United States Argentina and Brazil were also both major destinations in Argentina in particular two-thirds of the country has Italian ancestry nearly half of the Italian immigrants to the U.S however returned after just a few years having made some money they went back home to their families in Italy had they stayed at similar rates to other immigrant groups who often bought land a farm and came with their families the U.S would have a significantly larger population of Italian descent most worked in industrial jobs in the cities living together in majority Italian neighborhoods many cities have large Little Italy's today and Italian immigrants were often the target of discrimination in their new country New York was the main Port of Entry and from there many Italian immigrants went to nearby Northeastern cities like Providence Baltimore Philadelphia Pittsburgh Newark and Boston outside the Northeast only a few pockets of the country attracted large numbers of Italian immigrants namely Chicago Florida New Orleans and California additionally there are eight states where the largest second largest or both ancestry groups are not among the six most common Nationwide black Americans make up the largest ancestor group in Louisiana but the second most common ethnic group are Americans whose ancestors came from France as a result of Louisiana's history as an important French Colony with a large population and a major port city early Louisiana was shaped by a wide array of different cultures and peoples with French and Spanish colonists enslaved people from Africa Haitian and German immigrants American settlers and Native people all interacting in the bustling and Cosmopolitan Port City of New Orleans descendants of Louisiana's Colonial population make up a multi-racial ethnic group known as Louisiana creels most of whom traced their ancestry to a number of different places and peoples from around the world primarily a combination of France Spain West Africa and the indigenous peoples the region the other main French descended ethnic group in the state are the Cajuns who live in a region in Southwestern movie Anna called Acadiana separated by swamps and bayous from the state's other main population centers the origin of their name comes from their ancestors the acadians descendants of French settlers to the colony of Acadia which is today's split between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Prince Edward Island the gas Bay Peninsula of Quebec and parts of Eastern Maine French colonists had lived in Acadia for a century and a half developing a culture dialect and national identity that differed from the French colonists in what is now Quebec and Louisiana beginning in 1755 Britain after taking control of the colony deported many of the acadians from Acadia many successfully hid and today there's a large Acadian population in Maine in The Maritime Provinces many of those who were expelled from The Colony fled to french-speaking Louisiana where their descendants became known as Cajuns both Cajuns and Creoles developed unique Foods traditions and dialects of French influenced by both their French ancestry as well as those of other groups in the region and shaped by their local surroundings around seven percent of the state speaks some dialect of French and it has by far the highest Catholic population of the heavily Protestant South about as far from the west coast of the Mainland us as the east coast is it's no surprise that Hawaii located in Oceania in the middle of the Pacific has been shaped by different cultures and immigration waves in the rest of the country in fact not one of the four most common ancestor groups in the state are among the 10 largest groups in the country overall Filipino Americans make up the largest group at about 24 of the population followed by Japanese Americans at 20 percent native Hawaiians and Chinese Americans just as in the rest of the U.S most people in Hawaii Trace their ancestry to a combination of different nations and cultures an independent Kingdom for a century home to the Hawaiian people a Polynesian ethnic group that today makes up around 20 percent of the state's population it was overthrown by wealthy American plantation owners with the backing of the U.S who eventually annexed it they established sugar pineapple and coffee plantations across the island agriculture dominated Hawaii's industry showing in a century-long plantation era where Farm Workers were subject to exploitative labor practices poor working conditions mistreatment and low wages at the hands of wealthy farming magnets most workers were brought in from Asia primarily the Philippines Japan and China whose descendants make up the large populations of Filipino Japanese and Chinese Americans in the state today most immigrants from the Philippines were members of an ethnic group known as the ilocano people from the northern part of Luzon the largest island in the Philippines and most Chinese immigrants were speakers of the Cantonese language from Guangdong a heavily populated region surrounding the Pearl River delta the states also home to Major populations of people whose ancestors immigrated there from other parts of Asia and Oceana such as Korea Samoa Tonga Okinawa and Micronesia in two other states Oklahoma and Alaska the largest ancestry group are indigenous people who make up 14 of the population in Oklahoma and 20 in Alaska across the country the indigenous people of North America were killed by colonists and settlers diseases like smallpox and or throughout history pushed off their land or confined to small reservations as the U.S expanded West often through violent Wars and unfair treaties many lost elements of their cultures and languages through forced assimilation and missions and later boarding schools despite being the original inhabitants of the country Native Americans didn't receive U.S citizenship until 1924 and the treatment of the country's native people is one of the most shameful aspects of U.S history of course indigenous Americans represent combined populations of a number of distinct ethnic groups with different histories languages and traditions with most of Alaska over a thousand miles from the rest of the US and the indigenous people of the state are often collectively referred to as Alaska natives as they have major historical and cultural differences from the native people of the contiguous U.S who are often collectively referred to as Native Americans which is on its own an incredibly wide grouping of hundreds of different tribes cultures and ethnic groups the native people of Alaska who were left somewhat alone compared to the native people of the lower 48 only because it was so far removed from the rest of the country and wasn't seen as particularly useful to the U.S until oil was discovered in 1968 fall into two major linguistic and cultural groups the first are the Inuit peoples and their related ethnic groups such as the yupik and aliu who live primarily in parts of the state around Alaska's coasts and are part of a wider grouping of peoples who live in the Arctic from Alaska through Northern Canada especially Nunavut all the way to Greenland the other major linguistic group are speakers of the nadini language family which include the athabascan IAC and klinket peoples who are more closely related to the Native Americans of the contiguous U.S and First Nations people of Canada they live primarily in the interior and Panhandle the state additionally members of the Simpson and Haida peoples whose languages are each part of separate language families and who mostly live in Canada live in the very south of Alaska's Panhandle Alaska was first colonized by Russia who took to land for fur trading they brought with them diseases the native people of Alaska hadn't been exposed to which along with violence at the hands of Russian colonists killed many of them in particular Russian fur Traders killed and enslaved many people of the Aleutian Islands or the Russians hunted sea otters many Russians also married into Alaska native families and missionaries spread the Russian Orthodox Faith though very few alaskans have Russian ancestry the Russian Orthodox Church remains popular among a number of Alaska native peoples today the U-Pick in the southwest of the state in the inupyak in the North Slope are the largest indigenous peoples in the state and Anchorage is the most indigenous major city in the U.S with a higher percentage of indigenous residents 12.4 percent than any other U.S city with more than 100 000 people unlike in Alaska most of Oklahoma's large indigenous population are descendants of people whose Homeland is in a different part of the country the largest individual group is the Cherokee followed by the Choctaw Chickasaw Muskogee and Seminole the largest tribe that originated in the state the Comanche are only the seventh largest tribe by population in the state overall this is because the eastern half of the state sits on the site of the Indian Territory the destination of a mass Forest relocation of native people from the South East Westward as colonists from Europe settled in the eastern U.S the native people who lived there were often killed died of disease or forced westward in the South however five tribes avoided seeing their land taken by conforming to the societal practices of the European settlers taking on their customs of dress adopting written languages Central governments and even the horrible practice of slavery while their borders were encroached upon significantly they still maintain control of large sections of the South well into the 1800s they were the Cherokee who lived in the southern tip of the Appalachians between Alabama Georgia Tennessee and North Carolina the Muskogee or creek further south in Alabama and Georgia the Chickasaw and Choctaw in Mississippi and Alabama in the Seminole in Florida as population pressures increased however President Andrew Jackson wanted to open up their land not just for white settlers but for the establishment of more slave plantations despite the Supreme Court ruling it unconstitutional Jackson and his successor Martin Van Buren implemented the Indian Removal Act forcing the five tribes out of their homelands in the south west to the Indian Territory on a brutal forced march called the Trail of Tears that was often well over a thousand miles in length thousands of native people and the black people that enslaved died on the Trail of Tears in 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that the eastern half of Oklahoma the former Indian Territory remains Native American land including most of the City of Tulsa reinstating some of the largest Native American reservations in the country along with the five tribes in the South native people from all over North America were pushed into Eastern Oklahoma today there are 39 official tribes in the state some of whose ancestors came from as far away as Canada and New Jersey while the most indigenous major city in the country is Anchorage numbers 2 3 and 4 are all in Oklahoma Tulsa the Oklahoma City suburb of Norman and Oklahoma City itself at nine eight and six percent of their populations respectively while nearly a third of New Mexico's population is Mexican-American following them at 13 are those who Trace their ancestry back to Spain very few Americans just about one percent claim Spanish ancestry this is likely a huge under count as most Mexican Americans probably have some degree of Spanish ancestry due to Spain's colonization of Mexico but primarily consider themselves Mexican and not Spanish as such this large percentage of New Mexico's population that consider themselves Spanish-American are descendants not of later immigrants but of Spanish colonists who settled in New Mexico in the 1500s when the U.S defeated Mexico and the Mexican-American war in 1848 they took control of a vast Northern swath of the country that had primarily belonged to three different provinces the northeastern part of which became Texas following a brief period of revolution Independence disputed territorial claims and U.S annexation which sparked the war the vast Western province of Alta California from which several States including California were carved up in Nuevo Mexico the predecessor to the state of New Mexico well each of the provinces had large indigenous populations they were not granted American citizenship upon the U.S taking control Mexican citizens however both those with Colonial Spanish ancestry and those with mestizo are both Spanish and Indigenous ancestry did become American citizens at the same time in California and Texas this wasn't very many people only a few thousand but in New Mexico anywhere from forty thousand to sixty thousand people were descendants of Spanish colonists who'd settled there three centuries prior there was part of New Spain and later Mexico much of the northern part of the country was sparsely settled considered Frontier provinces far from the population centers further south like Mexico City rumors of gold and silver as well as the ability of the Rio Grande to provide water for drinking and agriculture led many settlers North along the river the colonial capital of Santa Fe became a major population Center and is one of the oldest cities in the country with such a large Spanish and mestizo population during the colonial era their descendants number around 300 000 today many of whom their ancestors having lived in the region for centuries call themselves Nuevo Mexicanos tying their ethnic identity to the inhabitants of Colonial New Mexico the last group I'll talk about in this video make up only about 1.5 percent of the US population but are the second largest ancestry group in a cluster of three neighboring states Norwegian Americans they make up 14 of the population in Minnesota 13 in South Dakota and 25 in North Dakota additionally each of these states have some of the largest Swedish populations in the country and in some cases Danish and Finnish as well Minnesota is seven percent Swedish American and this part of the country is generally considered the heart of Scandinavian America Norwegians being leaving for the United States as part of the mass waves of immigration from Europe in the late 1800s though very little of Norway's land is suitable for agriculture many Norwegians were farmers and as agricultural technology improved they were able to produce significantly more food and the country's population began to Skyrocket however it didn't change the fact that most of Norway is covered in mountains and is freezing cold most of the year not ideal agricultural conditions by the 1850s Norway's now much larger population which had doubled from 700 000 to 1.4 million in the last 80 years alone had overfished was running out of farmland and began to deal with famine at the same time as Norwegian farmers were struggling the U.S was expanding Westward taking land away from Native Americans and opening it up to White settlers even going so far as to give away large chunks of land for free for those who promised to farm it for at least five years this sounded promising to rural Norwegians in the invention of the steamship made travel across the Atlantic much easier most were farmers and on top of that wanted to maintain their customs and traditions wherever they settled taking ships Inland from the East Coast they typically disembarked in Chicago and continued Northwest thinking would be difficult to maintain a sense of community in the city Minnesota was at the time one of the newest states in the country in The Dakotas of territory very few settlers had come to either at that point and they had plenty of flat land for agriculture other settlers had already flocked to closer states in the midwest like Illinois Iowa and Wisconsin so it would be more difficult to establish a tight-knit Norwegian Community because of that Minnesota and later The Dakotas became Prime destinations for Norwegian immigrants at the time entire towns would uproot and move to the Upper Midwest and in later decades wealthier immigrants from cities like Oslo and Bergen would move to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul drawn by the existing Norwegian community in the state though the states maintained a large Norwegian speaking population well into the early 1900s today hardly anyone speaks Norwegian air though Norwegian immigrants have significantly impacted the culture food religion and unique accents of the states there is so much more I could have covered in this video Asian immigration to the West Coast for example the large Jewish and Caribbean communities in and around New York Arab Americans in Michigan Cuban Americans in South Florida or the hmong and Somali populations in Minnesota just to name a few the U.S has been shaped by so many different cultures with fascinating and important histories and each state has its own unique history there's only so much I can cover in this one video but if this video interested you and you want to learn more about the history geography and culture of the United States I highly recommend that you go watch my two-part Regional breakdown of the us as well as the U.S explained my 56 part long-form series on not just every state in the country but Washington DC as well as the five territories it's an in-depth and interesting series and if you've made it this far in this video it'll be right up your alley okay this video has been long enough so go check out the Discord the merch and thank you so so much to all my patrons on patreon thank you for watching this video and I hope you learned something new subscribe more content like this I cover the countries cities people and places of the world and Beyond these videos will leave you saying that is interesting foreign foreign

Channel: That Is Interesting

Views: 51,525

Keywords: geography, usa, us, the us explained, america, american geography, regions of the us, maps, interesting maps, tii, american ancestry, ancestry of the us, usa ethnic groups, immigration to the us, immigration to the us in the 1800s, great migration, ethnic enclaves, american culture

Id: iD4f6z66Ots

Length: 46min 29sec (2789 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023