Immigration During the 16th Centruy

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Immigration During the 16th Century

The sixteenth century was an unpleasant time to live.  A lot of people were upset about the times.  There were a few items that meant so much to the people of Europe, that they were willing to give up their citizenship and become immigrants.  They became immigrants because of the issues of religion, trade, and technology.

        Religion was probably the biggest issue of the time.  During the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church was forcing the people to be catholic.  Since they were forcing people to worship in a certain way, the sixteenth century became known as the “age of religious wars” because of the bloody opposition between Protestants and Catholics.  Unfortunately, the people wanted to worship God in their own way, the Protestant group, later splitting into Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, and many other religions.  People were persecuted during the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church was brutal to those who wanted to worship outside the Catholic religion; the people were tortured or executed.  One way they tortured people was by suspending them in cages outside the church walls.  They tortured people because the head of the church and the royalty thought themselves authorized and responsible by God to keep people in line within their land.  Since they believed they had the responsibility of keeping their people on task, they took in matters such as marriage, education, and communication into their own hands.  The King or Queen would send a priest out regularly to tell the people in their land what they wanted them to know.  Since the monarchs and the church were forcing them to do certain things, people moved to other places around the world, such as North America, Africa, and the Bahamas.  

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        Another reason why Europeans decided to immigrate all over the globe was trade.  A specific group of people, the Germans, moved around the world because of bad crops and local wars.  Also, there was plenty of land to trade in the Americas, where land had yet to be claimed.  Russians moved to southeast America.  This was newly conquered land.  To manage their newly acquired land, Europeans needed people to work their land as well.  Since they were too lazy to do it themselves, the forced Africans to migrate to America with them.  Another reason why people migrated to America was ...

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