Population growth in colonial America: A study of Ipswich, Massachusetts

Abstract During the colonial period, the settlements that subsequently became the United States of America experienced a tremendous growth of population. Although part of this increase was due to emigration from England and other European countries, most of the growth must be laid to the natural increase of the immigrants and their descendants. We are only beginning to probe the mechanisms ofthis increase. By numerous local studies, using the methods of historical demography that have largely been developed with work in French and English sources, we should eventually be able to describe the demographic nature of New World communities, and to understand how their populations were responding to a new physical, social and economic environment.