Conducted in 1790, the first census

Conducted in 1790, the first census of the new nation counted for about 4 million people, most of whom were white.
Of the white citizens, more then 8 out of 10 traced their ancestry back to England.
20% of the population was African-Americans, an all-time high. There were close to 700,000 slaves and about 60,000 were “free Negroes.”
Only a few Native American Indians who paid taxes were included in the census but the total population of that group was about 1 million.
The white population had greater numbers, the money and the political power in the new nation and therefore this majority made up of the dominant role in the new nation.
At the time of the American Revolution, the white population was largely English in origin, Protestant and middle class.
Such Americans were referred to as WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Their characteristics became the standard for judging other groups.
Those having a different religion (such as Irish Catholics) or those speaking a different language (like Dutch, Germans, and Swedes) were in the minority, and would be disadvantaged unless they became assimilated.
In the late 1700s, this assimilation occurred without great difficulty.
According to historians Allan Nevins & Henry Steele Commager, “English, Irish, German……Dutch, Swedish- mingled and intermarried with little thought of any difference.”
The dominant American culture that grew out of the nation’s early history, then, was English-speaking, Western European, Protestant, and middle class in character.
It was the dominant culture that established what became the traditional values, described by Tocqueville in the early 1830s.
Immigrants with these characteristics were welcome, in part because Americans believed that these newcomers would probably give strong support to the basic values of the dominant culture such as freedom, equality of opportunity, and the desire to work hard for a higher material standard of living.