Immigration In The 18th Century

As I searched for a subject matter that was not only germane to the theme of global values but also affective and thought-provoking, I chose to write about a ubiquitous and banal topic, immigration. With all the news articles, books and research pertaining to immigration, it was quite difficult to determine a unique way to approach the topic. However, while I noticed a massive amount of articles, books, and pieces being written about the current news, I seldom read any writings concerning the history of immigration and naturalization in the United States and how it was that immigration, more specifically the freedom to immigrate and the rights of those immigrants, became a global value. This paper is intended to provide a history of immigration
Most of U.S. immigration has transpired in four periods: the early 17th century to the 18th century, the mid to late 19th century, early 20th-century, and 1965 to the present. A myriad of immigrants travelled to America to pursue greater economic opportunity, while others, such as the Quakers and Pilgrims in the early 17th century, came seeking religious freedom. During the 1600s, hundreds of thousands of people from England migrated to America. Indentured servants were more than half of all European immigrants to arrive to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries (History.com Staff). The mid to late 19th century was largely an influx from Northern and Western Europe; the start of the 20th century was predominantly Southern and Eastern Europe; after 1965 immigrants were primarily from Latin America and Asia (Philip
Americans have always had varying attitudes toward immigration. This is reflected in the laws which have both limited and invigorated immigration. On June 21, 1788, the Constitution of the United States was ratified. Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution explicitly gave Congress the power “to establish an [sic.] uniform Rule of Naturalization” (US Const. art.1, sec. 8). The United States Congress later enacted The Naturalization Act of 1790, on March 26, 1790; it codified the naturalization law and instituted a requirement of two-year residency for immigrants who are "free white persons" of "good moral character"(Barkan and LeMay 11-12). Another key immigration law in U.S. history is The Naturalization Act of 1798; it amended the Naturalization Act of 1795 by increasing the residency requirement further to 14 years and necessitating a five-year notice of intent to apply for citizenship; it was regarded as a part of the Alien and Sedition Acts and later repealed by The Naturalization Law of 1802 (Barkan and LeMay 13-18). The Homestead Act, a significant immigration law, was signed in May 20, 1862; it bolstered Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land (Barkan and LeMay 29). In 1863, two railroad companies, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, hired a massive amount of Chinese laborers and Irish laborers to build the first transcontinental railroad (Timeline). Several years later, in 1882, Congress