The state was often involved in assisting the emigration of its citizens. In some cases, it helped the poor to re-establish themselves in a new life in North America; in others, it simply deported those elements of society considered undesirable.

Migration was encouraged by the state in a variety of ways. Sometimes European governments would use their overseas colonies as a supplement to their legal system, or they might encourage emigration as a method of establishing firm political control of the colonies. For example, in 1733 Georgia was established as a display of English colonial control in South Carolina. It began as a philanthropic venture to provide new opportunities for debtors who had been imprisoned, but also served to create an available population for military service in defence of the English territory.

Another manner in which governments encouraged migration to territories that they wished to populate was to provide grants and assistance to families. The first such state-assisted migration from Great Britain occurred in 1815. The government supplied transportation, supplies, farming implements, and land in Upper Canada. As the colonies began to attract more and more settlers, such generous incentives were not considered necessary. By 1818 state aid was less extensive, generally consisting of land grants and transportation only.

The government of France sought to create a stable, agricultural population to assert a long-term claim to the region of the Saint Lawrence. The French king had envisioned a series of peaceful and settled agricultural communities in New France. Some immigrants arrived in New France as mercenary soldiers. During the last years of French control of the Saint Lawrence region, when British and French forces were fighting for control of the area, many soldiers from the southern states of Germany and Austria were enrolled in French regiments. When the British gained control of New France, these soldiers often settled in what became Upper and Lower Canada. There were communities of German soldiers who had fought for the British in Quebec City, Montreal, and the Eastern Townships by the later decades of the eighteenth century. Italian mercenaries also settled in Quebec, where friends and relatives from the Old Country joined many.

From 1755 to 1778 Acadians were continually forced to relocate by the British. The Acadians were the descendants of the French colonists who had settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the early seventeenth century. By 1755 their population had reached 13,000. Their Catholic beliefs and French heritage persuaded the British to regard them as a potential threat in light of increasing tensions with the French colonists. This was augmented by the fact that the Acadians, although part of the British colonies, refused to swear that they would fight against Britain’s enemies. In 1755 the British commander ordered his troops to deport the Acadians from the British territories by force. Some Acadians managed to flee to territory held by the French. However, this was usually a short-lived respite; as British forces captured more and more French territory, the Acadians were forced to move again and again. This policy continued for many years. In 1778 Acadians were still being deported from the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, although it was now because the French government supported the American Revolution. After hostilities between the British and the French had quietened, many Acadians returned to the Maritimes. Many had also been scattered throughout the Americas by their continuing migrations; Acadians were found in St. Dominique (now known as Haiti), and in Louisiana. Wherever Acadians settled they had much influence upon the cultural growth and development of the area. The distinctive cultures of the Maritime provinces and the Cajuns of the American South both owe much to the heritage of the Acadians.

The History of the Acadians

Despite the high British and French population in the European community of the East Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, there was also a significant number of German Protestants. They were brought from the Palatinate by the British government to serve as a counterweight to the Roman Catholic Acadian population. The first such organised group arrived in Halifax in 1750, and within 3 years approximately 2,400 settlers had arrived. These colonists eventually established Calvinist and Lutheran churches, and became shipbuilders and fishermen in their local communities. After the American Revolution, some German mercenaries who had been fighting for the British forces settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and other Germans arrived from Europe and Pennsylvania.

During the American Revolution, from 1776 to 1783, 15 to 20 per cent of approximately 500,000 American Loyalists were permanently uprooted or displaced. Most of these migrated to British territories to the north. The British authorities attempted to encourage and compensate the Loyalists, offering land grants in present-day Canada, the Bahamas, and the West Indies, as well as pensions and supplies for farming. Many African slaves were forced to migrate alongside their Loyalist masters. In addition, the British government encouraged slaves to desert in favour of the Loyalists, promising freedom as well as the land grants, supplies, and pensions. In reality, the African Loyalists were offered far less compensation and support than their European counterparts. Approximately two thousand freed slaves left Nova Scotia, where they had been settled by the British authorities, to found Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa in 1792.

Loyalists tended to migrate from certain areas of America to specific destinations in Canada. For example, those who departed from Boston often found themselves relocated in Halifax. 1783 saw 30,000 Loyalists depart New York for the British colonies of the north. The Loyalist migrations doubled the population of Canada, and New Brunswick and Upper and Lower Canada were created to ease administration and political imbalance. After peace was negotiated in 1783, many Loyalists participated in return migration to the United States.

The Maritimes also contained a relatively significant population of Black Africans. Slaves had been present in Nova Scotia since the beginning of European settlement, and black freedmen were amongst the labourers who supported the French against the British during the battle for New France. From 1713 onwards the British brought slaves to their territories. Before the loyalist migration, there were approximately 500 Africans in the Maritimes. After the revolution, 1,000 to 1,500 Africans lived on Canada's East Coast as slaves, and an additional 3,000 were free inhabitants of the region. During the War of 1812 the British government made promises to enslaved American Blacks similar to those made during the American Revolution: that any slave who deserted for the British would be guaranteed their freedom and usually some land and supplies. Because of this, 2,000 or more Africans settled in Nova Scotia between 1813 and 1816. This was the last large-scale migration of Africans into the Maritimes.

The most numerous minority settlers along the Saint Lawrence and in the Great Lakes region were German, Swiss, and Dutch. Many were military settlers; remnants from the American Revolution, the wars between the British and the French, or the War of 1812.

Beginning in 1821, when Mexico achieved independence, the government encouraged immigration into Texas (then belonging to Mexico). One way in which they did this was by granting large land grants to empresarios, who, in exchange, agreed to bring in a certain number of families to colonise the region. In this manner, many immigrants were brought into Texas. In 1830 the Mexican government closed Texas to Anglo-American settlers, because the Americans who had settled in the area favoured making Texas part of the United States. This effort to maintain Texas as part of Mexico was ultimately unsuccessful; the Texas revolution created the Texas Republic in 1836. In 1836 the population of Texas included 30,000 Anglo-Americans, 5,000 African Americans, and 14,200 Native Americans. Texas remained an independent state until 1845 when the United States annexed it. By then the population had risen to 125,000, as the government of the Texas Republic had continued to encourage immigration to the region, concentrating on recruiting German settlers. After Texas had become part of the United States, the increase in stability meant that immigration to the region increased.

During the one hundred fifty years in which the French government managed and controlled their overseas colony of New France, immigration from France to the overseas territory was slow. Partly as a result of restrictive official policies, migration from France to what is now Canada averaged only sixty-six people per year. The government of France required that all émigrés to New France be French Roman Catholics. They envisioned the French colonies as a series of peaceful agrarian communities, an extension of the 'better' elements of French society. Unlike other European powers, the French did not want their overseas colonies to serve as a sort of holding tank or enormous prison for undesirables. The Spanish also tried to preserve the purity of their colonies. Until the slave trade assumed enormous proportions, they insisted that all slaves exported to the New World be baptised as Christians.

There were two major ports for early arrivals in North America. In Canada, there was the port and quarantine station at Grosse Isle, which was established in 1831, and in the United States there was a similar station at Ellis Island. During the earliest years of migration to the New World, there were no restrictions placed upon entering the British Provinces or the United States. Ill or dying migrants were sometimes turned away from these stations, and were forced to return to Europe. This was, in effect, the earliest form of immigration control to North America, although it was informal. Despite the fact that only approximately two per cent of immigrants received this treatment, scenes of families being torn apart were so wrenching that Ellis Island was nicknamed the "Isle of Tears". Similarly, Grosse Isle was known as the "deadly island" because of the high numbers of ill and dying émigrés who found themselves confined here.