The Iberians began the process of imposing a European view of the world on Atlantic regions (specifically of labor) before Columbus, when they began to enslave the Guanches, natives of the Canary Islands. Yet, as argued in Chapter 1, the full development of that view, along with the ability to impose it, occurred in northwest Europe after 1650. The concepts of slavery and freedom, the linking of these concepts with non-Europeans and Europeans, respectively, and the apogee of European power in the prenineteenthcentury world awaited the rise to dominance of the Dutch in Asia and English in the Atlantic. Both the nature of the European world-view as well as the power of its proponents to project it across oceans stemmed ultimately from Europe's view of the relationship of the individual to society. Chapter 1 has argued for important differences between Europe and the rest of the world on this issue, and, within Europe, between England and the Netherlands together and other countries. Chapter 2 examines some of the social structures associated with this Anglo-Dutch view of the world and how these structures affected economic performance in general and transatlantic migration, both free and coerced, in particular.

Thirty years ago Carl Bridenbaugh attributed “the first swarming of the English” to poor social conditions within England. A large social history literature has supported this position or at least testified to a rising incidence of poverty until the mid-seventeenth century.