Non-Hispanic whiteIn his 1989 book Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer explores the details of the folkways of four groups of settlers from the British Isles that moved to the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries from distinct regions of Britain and Ireland. His thesis is that the culture of each group persisted (albeit in modified form), providing the basis for the modern United States.[68]
According to Fischer, the foundation of America's four regional cultures was formed from four mass migrations from four regions of the British Isles by four distinct ethno-cultural groups. New England's formative period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia, settled there, thus forming the basis for the New England regional culture.[69] The next mass migration was of southern English Cavaliers and their working class English servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This spawned the creation of the American Southern culture.[70]
Then, between 1675 and 1725, thousands of Irish, Cornish, English and According to Fischer, the foundation of America's four regional cultures was formed from four mass migrations from four regions of the British Isles by four distinct ethno-cultural groups. New England's formative period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia, settled there, thus forming the basis for the New England regional culture.[69] The next mass migration was of southern English Cavaliers and their working class English servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This spawned the creation of the American Southern culture.[70]
Then, between 1675 and 1725, thousands of Irish, Cornish, English and Welsh Quakers plus many Germans sympathetic to Quaker ideas, led by William Penn, settled the Delaware Valley. This resulted in the formation of the General American culture, although, according to Fischer, this is really a "regional culture", even if it does today encompass most of the U.S. from the mid-Atlantic states to the Pacific Coast.[71] Finally, a huge number of settlers from the borderlands between England and Scotland, and from northern Ireland, migrated to Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. This resulted in the formation of the Upland South regional culture, which has since expanded to the west to West Texas and parts of the American Southwest.[72]
In his book, Fischer brings up several points. He states that the U.S. is not a country with one "general" culture and several "regional" culture, as is commonly thought. Rather, there are only four regional cultures as described above, and understanding this helps one to more clearly understand American history as well as contemporary American life. Fischer asserts that it is not only important to understand where different groups came from, but when. All population groups have, at different times, their own unique set of beliefs, fears, hopes and prejudices. When different groups moved to America and brought certain beliefs and values with them, these ideas became, according to Fischer, more or less frozen in time, even if they eventually changed in their original place of origin.[73]
Some White Americans have varying amounts of American Indian and Sub-Saharan African ancestry. In a recent study, Gonçalves et al. 2007 reported Sub-Saharan and Amerindian mtDNA lineages at a frequency of 3.1% (respectively 0.9% and 2.2%) in American Caucasians (in the US, "Caucasian" includes people from North Africa and Western Asia as well as Europeans).[74] Recent research on Y-chromosomes and mtDNA detected no African admixture in European-Americans. The sample included 628 European-American Y-chromosomes and mtDNA from 922 European-Americans[75]
DNA analysis on White Americans by geneticist Mark D. Shriver showed an average of 0.7% Sub-Saharan African admixture and 3.2% Native American admixture.[76] The same author, in another study,
DNA analysis on White Americans by geneticist Mark D. Shriver showed an average of 0.7% Sub-Saharan African admixture and 3.2% Native American admixture.[76] The same author, in another study, claimed that about 30% of all White Americans, approximately 66 million people, have a median of 2.3% of Black African admixture.[77] Shriver discovered his ancestry is 10 percent African, and Shriver's partner in DNA Print Genomics, J.T. Frudacas, contradicted him two years later stating "Five percent of European Americans exhibit some detectable level of African ancestry."[78]
White Americans (European Americans) on average are: 98.6 percent European, 0.19 percent African and 0.18 percent Native American. Inferred British/Irish ancestry is found in European Americans from all states at mean proportions of
above 20%, and represents a majority of ancestry, above 50% mean proportion, in states such
as Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Scandinavian
ancestry in European Americans is highly localized; most states show only trace mean
proportions of Scandinavian ancestry, while it comprises a significant proportion, upwards of
10%, of ancestry in European Americans from Minnesota and the Dakotas.[79]
Although most Hispanic Americans self-identify in the white racial category of the US Census or other official government data collecting, an overwhelming majority of them would in their personal lives consider themselves as ethnically mestizo (of mixed European and Native American/American Indian background) or mulatto (of mixed European and sub-Saharan African background).[80][failed verification]
Thus, only a minority of those Hispanic Americans who self-identified in their personal lives as mestiz
Thus, only a minority of those Hispanic Americans who self-identified in their personal lives as mestizo or mulatto actually selected "multiracial" as their race on the U.S. census, with 9 out of every 10 of them preferring to pick white, one of the five single race categories available on the U.S. census.[80][failed verification]
In contrast to non-Hispanic European Americans, whose average European ancestry ranges about 98.6%,[79][81] genetic research has found that the average European admixture among self-identified Hispanic White Americans is 73% European, while the average European admixture for Hispanic Americans overall (regardless of their self-identified race) is 65.1% European admixture.
243,832,540 (2018)[1]
