"Asylum for Mankind": America, 1607-1800

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Cornell University Press, 1998 - 353 páginas

Ever since the Age of Discovery, Europeans have viewed the New World as a haven for the victims of religious persecution and a dumping ground for social liabilities. Marilyn C. Baseler shows how the New World's role as a refuge for the victims of political, as well as religious and economic, oppression gradually devolved on the thirteen colonies that became the United States.She traces immigration patterns and policies to show how the new American Republic became an "asylum for mankind." Baseler explains how British and colonial officials and landowners lured settlers from rival nations with promises of religious toleration, economic opportunity, and the "rights of Englishmen," and identifies the liberties, disabilities, and benefits experienced by different immigrant groups. She also explains how the exploitation of slaves, who immigrated from Africa in chains, subsidized the living standards of Europeans who came by choice.American revolutionaries enthusiastically assumed the responsibility for serving as an asylum for the victims of political oppression, according to Baseler, but soon saw the need for a probationary period before granting citizenship to immigrants unexperienced in exercising and safeguarding republican liberty. Revolutionary Americans also tried to discourage the immigration of those who might jeopardize the nation's republican future. Her work defines the historical context for current attempts by municipal, state, and federal governments to abridge the rights of aliens.

 

Contenido

The Demographic Roots of Empire
14
The Creation of the Colonial Asylum
42
The Best Poor Mans Country
70
Immigration and the American Revolution
120
The Republican Challenge
152
Republican Immigrant Policies in the 1780s
190
Immigrants and Politics in the 1790s
243
The Legacy of the Eighteenth Century
310
Select Bibliography
333
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Marilyn C. Baseler is currently Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

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