To Make America: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period brings together leading scholars to examine one of the most consequential yet understudied forces in Atlantic history: the mass movement of Europeans across the ocean between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Edited by Ida Altman and James Horn, this collection explores how migrants from Spain, England, France, and Germany reshaped both their homelands and the diverse colonial societies of the New World. Essays trace the sheer magnitude of emigration—over a million settlers before 1800—while probing the experiences of the people themselves: hidalgos and artisans, indentured servants and redemptioners, filles du roi and convicts. The volume reveals how kinship networks, labor contracts, and state policies structured migration flows, and how poverty, profit, and the pursuit of religious or political refuge motivated departures.

Framing emigration as a transatlantic phenomenon rather than a series of isolated national stories, the book highlights both the diversity and commonality of the European diaspora. Contributors show how regional origins in Europe tied migrants to specific destinations, how the balance between free and unfree labor shaped colonial societies, and how enduring family and commercial connections prevented most colonies from becoming culturally isolated enclaves. Richly comparative, the volume situates indentured servitude alongside the rise of African slavery, explores the interplay of voluntary and coerced migration, and redefines the “making of America” as a process forged through overlapping, mutually influential transatlantic communities. Essential reading for historians of migration, empire, and early modern society, To Make America offers a landmark synthesis of how Europe’s restless multitudes created the foundations of the Americas while simultaneously transforming the Old World they left behind.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.