“The King’s Chains: Immigration and the Battle for American Identity"

{Author’s Note: This is a continuation of the King’s Chains Series}

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As a public school teacher, I’ve spoken previously about the fact that any number of my students are either 1st or 2nd generation Americans. In the current political climate, there is a movement to push people such as my students and their families out of the political conversation and literally out of the country. While this movement to rid the country of immigrants is newly emboldened, the goal is not new. The goal to make immigrants subservient or to expel them from our shores dates as far back as the Declaration of Independence itself.

While the Declaration of Independence is often celebrated for its soaring ideals, it is also a searing indictment of British policies. Among the lesser-discussed grievances are those involving legal injustice and restrictive immigration, which reveal the colonists' deeper desire for self-determination in shaping both their laws and communities. As children and young adults we learn about the aspirational concepts of equality, and liberty, and the assertion, at least implied, of self reliance within the document. As you will see there is much more in the text than just the concepts regarding life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Through a closer reading of lesser-known grievances, particularly those related to immigration and justice, we can uncover how the founders were also fighting for control over their communities, their legal systems, and their definitions of who belonged in the American experiment, and how some of those same concerns resonate today.

This section will focus on a particular part of the Declaration related to immigration in colonial America. The authors of the Declaration were great thinkers, and in this political proclamation they reference the titans of the enlightenment, Locke, Rousseau and Montesquieu. While these are the more well known parts, the grievance section of the Declaration was likely equally as impactful to the people in colonial America, at the time it was first written.

Immigration and Naturalization Concerns in Colonial America
Grievance #7: Immigration Restrictions and the King’s Policies

“He has endeavoured 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.”

If you watch the news today, immigration is a leading story almost every day. Whether it is a discussion of immigration enforcement, some politician going to the border with Mexico for a photo-op, or a discussion of grocery prices, America today is focused on immigration. This concern, about who is coming and going into the country is as old as the very settlements that eventually combined to become the U.S.A. as we know it today.

Each of these groups, the original English colonists, the Germans, the French, and the Scots-Irish came here for numerous reasons, but to a man they came here to gain the benefit of self-determination. Whether it was the Pilgrims writing out the Mayflower Compact before setting foot on dry land, the settlers in Virginia creating the House of Burgesses, or settlers from Krefeld founding Germantown in 1683¹, they all wanted self-governance and autonomy in other aspects of their lives. While the immigrants were willing to come to the Colonies, why were the English Colonies willing and even eager to allow them in? The simplest answer was necessity.

The Necessity of Immigration in Colonial America

Immigration was necessary for the English colonies. It brought workers, and new ideas, innovation and energy, all necessary commodities in a new community. These new peoples were also welcomed by the colonies because they allowed for and spurred geographic expansion. The arrival of new settlers, especially on the frontier, helped to extend colonial territory and create a larger buffer zone between European settlements and Indigenous peoples.

New English settlers were acceptable, but those from other nations were not always seen as an asset to the colony from the King’s perspective. French Huguenots, and Germans, and Scots-Irish were often valued by colonial leaders in Pennsylvania or New York but viewed as outsiders by Parliament, who might not be loyal to the Crown.

European immigrants, most specifically the Scots-Irish often wanted to settle on the frontier to allow themselves room to grow, and the opportunity to practice their own customs, with less likelihood of conflict with the British way of life. This group already had a contentious history with the English Crown. In the Old World, the Scots-Irish had been discriminated against by the British through onerous taxation and other unfair land practices.² These concerns led the Scots-Irish to settle in the western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas. This settlement pattern would likely exacerbate growing tensions with Native American populations.

The Plantation Act of 1740 and Its Impact

"And whereas it is highly necessary for the interest of His Majesty's kingdoms and dominions, that the foreign protestants, who are settled in the several parts of His Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, should be encouraged in their settlements...be it enacted...that all foreign protestants who shall, from and after the passing of this Act, be settled in His Majesty’s colonies and plantations...shall be entitled to the same privileges, rights, and benefits as natural-born subjects."

Whereas the Scots Irish settled in the interior, the Huguenots settled mostly in Charleston, South Carolina, and other colonial ports. The French were mainly craftsmen, and merchants who brought much needed skills and knowledge to these communities. As opposed to the two other groups, the Germans settled mostly in Pennsylvania, and the northwestern territory of Illinois. William Penn had recruited in Germany, looking for new colonist communities. The Germans came to America, in an attempt to avoid religious persecution and the Thirty Years War.³ In an attempt to regulate the Germans, the Huguenots and other non-English groups, Parliament passed the Plantation Act of 1740. This served the Crown’s purpose in two ways. It helped to regain control of and centrally regulate immigration into the colonies, and it attempted to reinforce loyalty to the Crown.⁴

Exhibitions of Resistance and Compliance to the Plantation Act

While the Plantation Act offered a pathway for legal immigration, it also required that the applicant agree to take the sacrament of the Anglican Church and swear loyalty to the King. As each of these groups was escaping religious tyranny in Europe that demand of political and religious fealty was too much for many of the people to abide. This held especially true of the Scots Irish, who had come to this land in part to escape the very British they were now being asked to swear allegiance.

The Scots Irish were the least likely to comply. It was an affront to their Presbyterian faith in that they were made to take the Anglican sacrament, as well as a political imposition due to the requirement that they swear allegiance to the Crown. Few took this path toward naturalization, some even forcefully resisted this effort toward integration. One public event that showed communal hostility to the Plantation Act was the Paxton Boys Rebellion. The Scots Irish of Pennsylvania saw this Act as a continuation of the colonial powers siding with Native Americans and limiting their ability to grow their farms.This uprising while attributed as a result of the Plantation Act was more a reaction to a series of colonial decisions limiting the frontiersmen the opportunity to expand their agricultural holdings. This event contributed to the Scots Irish gaining the reputation of being chaotic, and unruly.⁵

In Comparison, the Huguenots in South Carolina who had settled into the business community saw this as an opportunity to solidify theory standing in the community. While there were a significant number of colonists that were wary of the newcomers with a different language, and different customs, this act gave the Huguenot community some legal status and safeguards that they could rely upon.⁶

The Germans in Pennsylvania, mostly Mennonites and Quakers, wanted to live in peace and farm so many of them, whole villages even accepted these conditions and became naturalized. While the entire village of Germantown, accepted the requirements of the Act, as a requirement to acquire land and establish a legal presence. Even in these communities there were efforts to hold onto their culture and language. As late as 1751, Benjamin Franklin expressed concerns of a “German Takeover”, and full integration by this community into colonial culture was incomplete.⁷

While Parliament likely saw this as a very reasonable piece of legislation to allow new immigrants to properly join colonial society, that likely wasn’t how the colonists or even the colonial legislators saw the Plantation Act. Similar to the tax acts of the 1760s and 1770s, the Plantation Act had an element that was clearly a problem for the parties it was intended to affect. The Sugar Act, which lowered the cost of sugar created an enforcement structure that was despised by many colonists. Likewise, the Plantation Act, that allowed for a pathway to naturalization, forced the Anglican religion on many immigrants, who had come to these very colonies to expressly avoid the imposition of a state sponsored religion. This aspect of the Act made many colonial lawmakers look away when Quakers or Mennonites in Pennsylvania did not fully embrace the sacrament, or swear allegiance to the Crown. Though rarely outright defied by colonial legislatures, the Plantation Act often met a wall of passive resistance, inconsistency, and local reinterpretation—evidence of how little patience the colonies had left for imperial micromanagement.

The Long-Term Impact of Immigration on Colonial Governance

Lastly, what would increased immigration mean for the prospect of governance of these areas in the long term? More colonists allow for the prospect of a stronger economy for the specific colony, which lessens their reliance on the government in England. The King probably did not like the idea of the power dynamic in that relationship shifting more toward the Colonies.

However, the British Crown was reluctant to allow an unfettered inflow of population for some of these same reasons. For many years, the King was trying to balance the colonists’ desire for more land, against the need of the given colony for security at a communal level. The Native Americans became agitated as their land was being taken with each westward expansion of the colonies, and that created a greater likelihood of violence between the English and the native populations. This led to the signing by of the Proclamation of 1763, an agreement between the Crown and native tribes, setting the colonial westward boundary at the Appalachian Mountains. This limitation on land and thus income opportunity, was another cause for tension between the colonists and the British government.

The immigration concerns are but a part of the overarching set of problems the American Colonies had with Great Britain. In the simplest telling the Colonies and Parliament began to have political disagreements in the 1750s, and 1760s leading to the outbreak of the War for Independence. This is but another example where reality shows us the problems that are front and center later on began percolating earlier than common belief allows. This was more than just who gets to be a citizen in the Colonies, but more specifically who gets to DECIDE who gets to be a citizen.

This is why grievance #7 appears in the Declaration. When Jefferson wrote that the King had “endeavored to prevent the population of these States,” he wasn’t speaking only about immigration numbers. For many years, the monarchy had allowed the colonies to make decisions such as this. However, now the Crown was trying to claw back that authority. Once you give an entity or a person something, there very often are problems when you try to take those same things back. The grievance takes on new weight when read not just as a demographic complaint, but as a cry for self-rule.

Every single school year, my students ask me why they should be bothered to learn history. Prior to this year, I would always impart that there were lessons to be learned, or actions we would not want to repeat. If that was not a sufficient reason, I would likely come up with some other pearl of wisdom. This year however, history and the review of these issues seems much more important than ever. This very day, there is legislation at the federal, state and municipal levels impacting who gets to be a citizen. In those or similar chambers, there are questions of what rights citizens have. Most importantly, the question of who gets to determine which people can be citizens, will be decided as well.

These were policy arguments at the very beginning of America, and we revisit them today. What does it mean to belong to this land? And what are we willing to do to ensure that those who seek to join us are treated with dignity and respect? History does not just teach us about the past—it calls us to action in the present.

1. https://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/germanstudentreading.pdf

2. David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 40–55.

3. A. G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 54–78.

4. Burnett, John. Naturalization in the American Colonies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.

5. Leyburn, James G. The Scotch-Irish: A Social History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962.

6. Greene, J. P. (2014). The American Revolution: A historiographical introduction (2nd ed.). University of North Carolina Press.

7. Franklin, Benjamin. “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind.” 1751. In The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Leonard W. Labaree et al., vol. 4. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.