Question

Why did thousand of people migrated from Europe to America

Answer 1

European continent has been a central part of the complex migration system, which included swaths of North Africa, Middle East and Asia Minor well before the Modern Era. Yet, only the population growth of late Middle Ages allowed for more population movements, inside and outside of the continent.[27] The discovery of the Americas in 1492 stimulated a steady stream of voluntary migration from Europe. About 200,000 Spaniards settled in their American colonies prior to 1600, a small settlement compared to the 3 to 4 million Amerindians who lived in Spanish territory in the Americas.

Roughly one and a half million Europeans settled in the New World between 1500 and 1800 (see table). However, it was very small compared to emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth century, nevertheless the size movement in early modern populations is substantial.

During the 1500s Spain and Portugal sent a steady flow of government and church officials, members of the lesser nobility, people from the working classes and their families averaging roughly three-thousand people per year from a population of around eight million. A total of around 437,000 left Spain in the 150-year period from 1500 to 1650 to Central, South America and the Caribbean Islands, while only 100,000 Portuguese settled mainly in Brazil, the emigration remained very small in the first two centuries between 1500 and 1700.[23]

Answer 2

Answer:

The three main causes were a rapid increase in population, class rule and economic modernization. Personal reasons are mentioned and discrimination against religious and ethnic minority groups are touched upon.