The Declaration: He has discouraged immigration

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of America's independence, I am reviewing all 27 reasons why we declared independence. We've now landed on the sixth reason: the discouragement of immigration.

"He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."

For an explanation of the conflict, I turned to The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870, by James Kettner, a former Berkeley professor. A free version is available at the Internet Archive. Kettner, starting on page 83, spells out the methods for citizenship at the time:

Virginia, as far back as 1658, allowed all aliens who resided in the colony for four years and who had a resolution to permanently live in the colony to become a denizen, a form of permanent residency. In the Carolinas in 1669, immigrants could become naturalized simply by declaring their faithfulness to the ruling ministers. In 1691, South Carolina attempted to change the law: all French and Swiss inhabitants could become naturalized if they registered their name. After the operators of the colonial charter opposed the bill, they gave subjectship to anyone who swore allegiance to the king. New York took anyone who would claim to be Christians and took an oath of allegiance by 1683. In Pennsylvania, in 1682, all residents of the colony could become subjects by swearing allegiance to the king and paying twenty shillings.

In Massachusetts, immigrants were given subjectship without formal procedures. In New England generally, Kettner wrote, "As long as the foreign-born settler behaved peaceably and was of 'honest conversation,' long residence and local acceptance were perhaps enough to overcome any initial discrimination."

In general, colonial legislatures granted citizenship. By 1680, Virginia passed an act empowering the governor the power to declare any immigrant to be naturalized.

England didn't pay attention to colonial immigration until 1660, Kettner wrote. An inter-continental incident occurred when a Frenchman, naturalized by the governor of New York in 1697, attempted to trade in Maryland. Trade at the time was restricted to Englishmen.

The issue found its way to London, where the United Kingdom government found that no American governor had any authority to give denizenship to anyone. The Frenchman's legal status was "not only grounded on no authority, but of most pernicious consequence and directly contrary to the intent of (English law)," according to the government.

As a result, colonial powers could only give immigrants the ability to become naturalized in the bounds of that colony—not to become naturalized citizens across the entirety of the British Empire.

In 1700, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act empowering the governor to naturalize all Swedes, Dutch and other foreigners. London nixed that bill within five years. In 1713, New York's colonial assembly asked a bill to allow for the naturalization of German immigrants and the governor refused, citing London's influence. Two years later, the assembly and governor agreed on a bill that automatically naturalized many aliens.

In 1764, the Attorney General of England Wales said that aliens naturalized by colonial assemblies couldn't own land. In 1770, Kettner wrote, the English government began investigating New York's naturalization process. In 1772, a Pennsylvanian Hamburg-American's trade rights were questioned by the crown.

In 1773, England officially banned colonial naturalization, revoking the naturalization acts passed by Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Kettner wrote.

This revocation caused the sixth reason for independence. Read about the preceding reasons below:

The Declaration - Inland Empire Law WeeklyInland Empire Law WeeklyAidan McGloin