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Naturalization Act Of 1790 Analysis

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Colonial Period (1600-1800) Immigration was nothing new in America. In fact, all citizens of the United States with the exception of Native Americans can profess to some form of immigration. Migrating to North America brought economic opportunities. By 1790, the young nation of the United States was a mixture of people from a diversity of backgrounds. That same year, the first national census was launched to estimate the number of people and where they derived from. (After George Washington became the president of the United States an attempt was made to control the number of immigrants which brought about the Naturalization Act. The Naturalization Act of 1790, alternately known as the Nationality Act, granted anyone being a free white person citizenship if they had been in the United States for two years. However, this act excluded free blacks, slaves, women, and indentured servants. All children younger than the age of 21 gained citizenship through their father unless the father had never reside in the United States. The Naturalization Act had many stipulations. In 1795, the residence requirement was protracted from a minimum of two years to five years. (Imai, 2015) …show more content…

The eradication of the act also changed the residence requirement back to five years. In the 18th century immigration was encouraged by Americans. The Act of 1819 was the first national legislative that controlled the way immigrants descended to the United States. This act did not ban immigrants from coming to the states but strived to progress the conditions the immigrants faced on the ships throughout their journeys. The law regulated how many passengers where to be aboard, stipulated the food that could be eaten and introduced the collection of data for the immigrants which had to be given to the Collector of Customs, the secretary of state, and

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