A thorough study of the history of the origin and development of the largest and most organized Armenian community in the United States of America is timely and of primary importance as an important link in the whole chain of the studies of the history of the Armenian Diaspora and of the American ethnic groups.
Under various historical circumstances, the Armenians were compelled to leave their native land and to migrate to different countries of the world, including the USA, for individual, educational, economic, political, cultural, religious and other purposes.
Historically reliable documents reveal that even at the beginning of the 17th century a few Armenians were among the first European settlers in North America (in 1618, the first Armenian, John Martin, set foot in the newly-formed American colony of Virginia and became a tobacco-dealer). Any record concerning the exact number of the first Armenian settlers does not exist, but it is known that they were engaged in the different spheres of the economic and spiritual life of the New World.
The settlement of these few individuals in America at that given period was not connected with the subsequent massive emigration to the USA.
The main stream of Armenian emigrants to USA has started in the first half of the 19th century as a result of the illuminative activity developed by the American protestant missionaries in Ottoman Turkey. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the object of which was "to spread the Bible throughout the world," organized, with the help of the Armenian Mission in 1831 in Constantinople, evangelical sermons, precepts and inspiring talks about the New World, stimulating the national spiritual and conscious awakening and creating a western outlook among the Armenian youth, which groped in an atmosphere of suzerainty of patriarchal customs. The migration of the Armenian youth (especially from Constantinople) to American higher and first-rate educational institutions began in 1834.
In the second half of the 19th century, after the enthronement of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1876 and the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, the exodus of Armenian (Western Armenian) craftsmen and tradesmen from their native cradles acquired a new impetus due to persecutions and economic collapse in Ottoman Turkey. This migration was encouraged also by the revival of the economic, social and political life in the USA following the American Civil War (1861-1865), and already at the beginning of the 1870s, the number of Armenians in the USA had reached 70.
From the 1880s, when the American missionary activities (foundation of churches, schools, colleges and other cultural centers) developed and spread nearly in all the large centers of Ottoman Turkey, the emigration of the Armenians, mainly bachelors (95%), almost from all the provinces and particularly from Harpoot (40%) increased. Among them were peasants burdened under heavy taxes, expropriated workmen, people looking for employment, as well as a number of middle-class tradesmen. Rich Armenian merchants, who had already extended their commercial activities in the European markets, still abstained from migrating to the USA. Near the end of 1880s, the United States, where already 1.500 Armenians lived, had also become a political asylum and a field of free activities for the members of the Armenian revolutionary parties (Hnchakian, Dashnaktsakan).
Most of the Armenian immigrants, who had left their native land for educational, economic and partly for political reasons, regarded the United States as a temporary place for living, studies, employment and fortune. Their majority had no intention to settle there forever and wished to return back to their native cradles after acquiring some material fortune, which would improve the life conditions of their families. Finding favorable social-economic conditions and freedom in the New World, a certain number of Armenians settled gradually there and thereby reduced the number of people returning to the Homeland. Nevertheless, these settlers did not break contacts with their Motherland and they supported their family members materially and morally, promoting further emigration of Armenians.
As a result of continuous violence and massacres against the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in the 1890s, the former individual departure of Armenians to the US turned into a mass emigration having political, cultural and religious reasons. It included also Armenians from almost all regions of the Empire (Harpoot, Sivas, Erzerum, Trabizon, Bitlis, Cilicia, etc.), who escaped the danger of physical extermination. Thus, if, in 1894, there were about 3.000 Armenians in the US, in 1900 their number had attained 15.000-20.000, even 25.000 according to certain data. These numbers are approximate, since the US Immigration Commission Office began to register the new immigrants according to their national origin starting only from 1899.
Beginning from 1904, the USA became a permanent place of residence also for Armenians (Eastern Armenians) leaving the Russian Empire for economic (the pioneers were the Moosheghians from the village of Gharaghala, region of Kars) and later for political reasons. They received encouraging information about the New World from the Dookhobors and the Molokans exiled to the Caucasus (mainly to the Shirak plain) by Czarist Russia in the 19th century following religious persecutions. The number of emigrants from Russia was not great compared to that from Ottoman Turkey due to milder national oppression and to more satisfactory economic conditions prevailing in Czarist Russia. The extensive emigration of Armenians from Russia to the US, started at the beginning of the century (from Alexandrapol, Igdir, Koghb, Tiflis, Karabagh, Yerevan, etc.), decreased during the First World War, then it slightly increased again in 1917 as a result of the political chaotic situation in the Russian Empire. On the whole, more than 3.500 Armenians left Eastern Armenia for the US during the years 1899-1924.
With the proclamation of "democratic freedom" in 1908 by the Young Turks who came to power in the Ottoman Empire, the emigration of the Armenians to the US was reduced, but it did not stop. A year later, in 1909, the Adana massacres gave a new impetus to the emigration of Armenians horrified by the idea of physical annihilation; it involved not only Cilicia, but also almost all the regions of the Ottoman Empire. On the whole, 51.950 Armenians migrated to the US during the years 1899-1914, predominantly bachelors and those who temporarily left their families in the Homeland.
During the First World War, the emigration to the US continued despite the war-time prohibition policy imposed by the Ottoman government, and 3.620 Armenians left for the US during the years 1915-1919, for the most part those who were miraculously rescued from the Genocide or had lost their families, as well as orphans.
The rise of the Kemalist movement in Turkey, accompanied by the periodical massacres and deportations of Armenians and also the fall of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) gave a new start to the emigration of Armenians, reaching the record number of 10.212 in 1921. These were Armenian survivors collected from the Turkish harems, from non-Christian families, from camps and orphanages by the help of Armenian and American relief organizations.
The new international political relations created after the First World War brought about also a change in the US Immigration policy, and the National Origins Quota was introduced in 1924, limiting to a great extent the immigration of Armenians. At that time more than 120.000 Armenians were living in the US.
Thus, the emigration of Armenians to the US, which, at the beginning, was of a temporary character and was impelled by educational and economic reasons, was subsequently transformed into a mass exodus following the periodical massacres, slaughter and Genocide organized in Ottoman Turkey against the Armenians (1894-1896, 1909, 1915, 1920-1922); this mass emigration involved tens of thousands of Armenians of both sexes, of various ages and social groups deprived of the prospects of a safe economic, political, cultural and religious life.
As time went by, the Armenian immigrants in the US spread throughout the whole country and settled in nearly all the states, especially in those regions where larger Armenian communities existed (New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Illinois, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wisconsin and other regions). There was, among the Armenians, a tendency to migrate within the US, especially from the eastern states to the western ones, which took place according to a certain pattern: at first, beginning from 1834, young bachelors and males who had left their families in their Homeland and hoped to return back there, settled in the educational (mainly New York city) and industrial (mainly Worcester city) areas. Subsequently, in particular from the 1880s, as a result of the increase in the number of immigrants in the US and the decrease in job opportunities in the eastern states and the arrival of wives and children, the Armenians gradually moved to the north-eastern, northern, central, central-western and western (particularly to the agricultural state of California) regions of the US.
Taking advantage of the numerous and varied opportunities and freedom, the Armenian settlers in the US were engaged in different professions and occupations and devotedly contributed, with their mental and physical abilities, to the progress of the host country. Owing to their laborious character, moderate and modest mode of life, the Armenian-Americans achieved considerable success, gained a fair amount of property and essentially improved their economic situation and life conditions, gradually adapting themselves to the new life conditions and customs.
As the Armenians settled and increased in number in the New Land, their spiritual and cultural life developed and became gradually more organized; factors having an important role and significance for the preservation of the nation were created, such as the church (the first, the Armenian Evangelical and the Armenian Apostolic churches were established in Worcester in 1881 and 1891 respectively), the school (the first Armenian-American Vardookian school was established in New York in the late 1880s) and the periodical press (the first Armenian-American newspaper "Aregak" ("Sun") was published in Jersey City in 1888), forming definitively the Armenian community of the United States of America.
Compared with the other ethnic groups in the US, the level of literacy of the Armenian settlers was much higher, since they always had attached great importance to education; consequently the community became more and more viable thanks to the growing number of qualified scientists, professors and teachers.
The favorable social and moral atmosphere prevailing in the New World greatly fostered also the formation and development of the Armenian-American distinctive cultural life from the beginning of the 20th century and enhanced the self-manifestation of skillful and talented people in different fields of art (literature, performing arts, music, painting and photography).
With a view to reassembling and organizing the Armenian immigrants and exiles in the US, to preserving the Armenian spirit, consciousness, image, character, language and traditions in the American assimilating atmosphere, as well as to making the ties with the native cradle and people more effective and more durable, a great number of diverse unions, organizations, parties, societies and clubs were created in the US.
During the years of the First World War and the following years which were disastrous for the Armenian people, the Armenian community of the US, assembling its entire intercommunal intellectual, financial, public and political resources, has assisted the Motherland and its people by all the possible diplomatic, political, military and human means and has taken part in the enterprises aiming at the defense of the Armenian Action in Europe and in the USA.
The calamitous political situation created in Ottoman Turkey following the First World War and in Czarist Russia, as well as the loss of confidence in the Allied States destroyed in the soul of thousands of emigrants the sacred dream of returning to their Homeland and they definitively established in the New Land of their adoption.
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