Rapid settlement of the West begins with the passing of the Homestead Act in 1862. The Potato Famine that strikes Ireland (1845-52) leads to the immigration of about 1 million Irish alone in the next decade.Ĭoncurrently, large numbers of Germans flee political and economic unrest. Castle Garden, one of the first state-run immigration depots, opens at the Battery in lower Manhattan in 1855. Nearly 5 million people will arrive from northern and western Europe over the next 45 years. There is little regulation of immigration when the first great wave begins in 1814. Meanwhile, the first federal immigration law, the Naturalization Act, is passed in 1790 it allows all white males living in the U.S. Half a century later, Ellis Island is used as a munitions arsenal for the Union army during the Civil War. War Department pays the state for the right to use Ellis Island to build military fortifications and store ammunition, beginning during the War of 1812. In 1630, the Dutch acquired the island and gifted it to a certain Michael Paauw, who called it Oyster Island for the plentiful amounts of shellfish on its beaches.ĭuring the 1760s, it is known as Gibbet Island, for its gibbet, or gallows tree, used to hang men convicted of piracy.Īround the time of the Revolutionary War, the New York merchant Samuel Ellis purchases the island, and builds a tavern on it that caters to local fishermen.Įllis dies in 1794, and in 1808 New York State buys the island for $10,000. The Native Americans of the Mohegan tribe who lived on the nearby shores call the island Kioshk, or Gull Island. At this point, the smaller number of immigrants began to be processed on their arriving ships, with Ellis Island serving primarily as a temporary detainment center.įrom 1925 to the closing of Ellis Island in 1954, only 2.3 million immigrants passed through the New York City port–which still represented more than half of all those entering the United States.Įllis Island is little more than a spit of sand in the Hudson River, located just south of Manhattan. Passage of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924, which limited the number and nationality of immigrants allowed into the United States, effectively ended the era of mass immigration into New York City. Many immigrants remained in New York, while others traveled by barge to railroad stations in Hoboken or Jersey City, New Jersey, on their way to destinations across the country. Most successfully passed through in a matter of hours, but others could be detained for days or weeks. From 1900 to 1914-the peak years of Ellis Island’s operation-an average of 1,900 people passed through the immigration station every day.

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