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Congress Passes the First Immigration Law
In March 1790, the newly-formed Congress passed a law establishing the rules for becoming a citizen. Under the law, only "free white persons" who had been in the United States for at least two years were eligible for citizenship, thus excluding free [...]
Item Type: Laws/Court Cases
Historical Era: Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
An Indentured Servant Writes Home (1756)
In the eighteenth-century Chesapeake region, female indentured servants faced particular vulnerabilities. Indentured servitude was a system of labor in which a person had to work for four to seven years without pay in exchange for passage to the [...]
Item Type: Diary/Letter
Historical Era: Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)