<P> The 1790 population already reflected the approximate 50,000 "Loyalists" who emigrated to Canada at the end of the American Revolution and the fewer than 10,000 more who emigrated to other British territories . </P> <P> Already by 1790 the ancestry question was starting to become irrelevant to many, as intermarriage from different ethnic groups was becoming common, causing people to form a common American identity . The total white population in 1790 was about 80% of British ancestry, and would go on to roughly double by natural increase every 25 years . From about 1675 onward, the native - born population of what would become the United States would never again drop below 85% of the total . </P> <P> In the early years of the U.S., immigration was only about 6,000 people a year on average, including French refugees from the slave revolt in Haiti . The French Revolution, starting in 1789, and the Napoleonic Wars from 1792 to 1814 severely limited immigration from Europe . The War of 1812 (1812--1814) with Britain again prevented any significant immigration . By 1808 Congress had banned the importation of slaves, slowing that human traffic to a trickle . </P> <P> After 1820 immigration gradually increased . For the first time federal records, including ship passenger lists, were kept for immigration . Total immigration for the year 1820 was 8,385, gradually building to 23,322 by 1830, with 143,000 total immigrating during the intervening decade . From 1831 to 1840 immigration increased greatly, to 599,000 total, as 207,000 Irish, even before the famine of 1845 - 49, started to emigrate in large numbers as Britain eased travel restrictions . 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French formed the next largest immigrant groups in that decade . </P>

At the time of american independence in 1789 the population of the u.s. was dominated by