<P> The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States starting with the first European settlements from around 1600 . Beginning around this time, British and other Europeans settled primarily on the east coast . Later Africans were imported as slaves . The United States experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe . Immigrants sometimes paid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants after their arrival in the New World . Later, immigration rules became more restrictive; the ending of numerical restrictions occurred in 1965 . Recently, cheap air travel has increased immigration from Asia and Latin America . </P> <P> Attitudes towards new immigrants have cycled between favorable and hostile since the 1790s . </P>

Why did many african immigrants come to the united states in the 1600s and 1700s