Written in 1852, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, wrote A History of The Irish Settlers in North America, where he illustrated the history of the Irish immigration. Within the Introduction, McGee writes:
“The fifteenth century in Spain (the point from which the discovery of America emanated) was marked by the cessation of the Crusades, by treaties, made between the Moors and Christians of Spain and France, the Porte and Venice, of amity and commerce. Asiatic arts and luxury, Asiatic idols, and Asiatic valor, had made deep and sensible impressions upon Christendom. The schools of Cordova, the chivalry of Grenada, the galleys of Fez, the grandeur of the Soldan, exercised a moral despotism throughout Europe. What Russian power and Russian pretensions are to Europe to-day, the Ottoman empire was to the Christian Europe of Columbus’ youth.
The exact sciences were, as yet, in a rude and chaotic state. Astrology, alchemy, and both magics had professors and postulants. Medicine was little better than herbal traditions, or a litany of incantations. Amulets blest by conjurers were worn, and the stars believed in by the highest intellects. It was then,—when stargazers advised kings to peace or war, when brazen heads were fabricated by Albertus Magnus and Friar Bacon, when Aldrovandus had to dissect his own child, fearing to touch another human body,—with Fatalism enthroned in Asia, and Credulity in Europe, — it was then, that Columbus turned his piercing vision towards the West.
Domestic slavery existed very generally through Europe. The lords of the soil exacted the services, lives, and the very honor, of their serfs. The serf was chained to his district and predestined to his profession. There was no freedom of will, or mind, among the populace. A few trading towns had, indeed, wrung chartered privileges from their sovereigns, but these privileges were confined to the class of master workmen, who held in servitude the great body of the citizens and apprentices.
Chivalry had lost its charm, and was obsolete. The age of Commerce, which was felt to be approaching, was looked for exclusively in the East; so that, even in the knowledge of its own wants, Europe was in error.
Two great facts of this century precede Columbus, and only two. The science of government was being studied carefully in Italy, France, and Spain, and the science of reasoning in the great colleges, since called universities. The fall of Constantinople, in 1453, sent the learned of the East for refuge into Italy, and new classic schools began to assume a regular existence at Rome and Florence, Bologna and Ferrara.
While these mental possessions were beginning to accumulate in Europe, in the wisdom of Providence, a New World was about to become a sharer in their diffusion.
Let us be just to the European thinkers of those days. With much that seems absurd in the “schoolmen,” and much that was ephemeral, there is combined the vital principle of all human history,—Does man, under God, suffice for himself? Can he justify his own intellect? — can he self-govern his own life—this was their great problem through all their studies. Doubtless, they did not know whither their own theories ultimately led; doubtless, they, too, attempted to set limits to faith and to science; but, with all that can be said against them, there they stand, — the ferrymen plying between ancient and modern civilization, bringing over to us the most precious products of distant times, and teaching us how to start in our new career.
The long and painful preparatory efforts of Columbus to interest the old world in his project, would seem almost to be permitted, in order to prove the inefficiency of the age he was to electrify on his return from the first voyage…”
As McGee continues, he compares the experiences of the Irish to that of the Italian, seeing the great history of immigration as a wide-reaching and normalizing factor of society. I believe that McGee articulates this journey of the Irish is quite a way as to understand the worldly expression of the immigrants we all know and recognize. The journey draws on similarities within various cultures and characterizes this in a very broad sense. If you would like to read more of McGee’s work, you are able to do so by going to: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004733807&view=1up&seq=7.
