1869JohnOkeefePodcast

Cornell University Press19min

Unknown Speaker

00:09

Welcome to 1869, the Cornell University Press podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. This episode we speak with John O'Keefe, author of Stranger Citizens: Migrant Influence and National Power in the Early American Republic. John is Associate Professor of History at Ohio University-Chillicothe. We spoke to John about his interest in the history of what is still an ongoing modern debate, who can be a citizen? And who decides?; how migrants responded to attempts to limit their rights in the early formative years of our republic; and what were some of John's favorite historical stories that he uncovered in his research. Hello, John, welcome to the podcast.

Unknown Speaker

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Glad to be here. Thanks. Yes, well, congratulations on your new book, Stranger Citizens: Migrant Influence and National Power in the Early American Republic. It's out now, listeners can get a free book, it's available open access, you can go to our website, you can go to Amazon, you can go to JSTOR, Project MUSE, there are many places you can go. But yeah, come to our website. It's available as an open access book available for download. This is thanks to generous funding from the Sustainable History Monograph Pilot and the Mellon Foundation. Thank you. But it's also available as a paperback. So we encourage you to get both, it's nice to have the digital copy. It's also nice to have a paperback a physical copy. So both of those are available. And so yes, tell us how this book came about. So this this came about in in, you know, started thinking about it in the mid 2000s. And so there are a lot of public debates about immigration at that time, and a lot of immigrant activism at the same time, there are also debates about same sex marriage and right there's kind of a tie in between both of those, I was really interested in how households became defined in law, and what was the relationship to the development of immigration law in this early period when a lot of the foundations of immigration policy and you know, the federal government got laid down? And what role did immigrants play in that? So that's really what got me started exploring this project and thinking about the issues that that drove the project. Okay. And for the listeners, could you explain the difference between immigrants and migrants? Yes. So right, the book uses the title migrants instead of immigrants. And so one thing I wanted to emphasize is, in the popular imagination, the story of immigration is people coming with the the deliberate intention to permanently comments on the United States. But historically, that hasn't always been the case. And a lot of people came for other reasons. They wanted to work a few years, and then go back home with some extra money in their pocket, and do well back in their place of origin or other people came is exiles. So yes, they're here in the resign United States, but they're waiting for political conditions to change in the place that they came from, and hope to one day return, once things got better back there. So these kinds of issues were also the case in in the decades after us independence. So that's why the book says migrant instead of immigrants. So not everyone who's who's participating in this political process necessarily, has an intention to permanently state but nonetheless, right that the issues matter to them, and they're attempting to influence them. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So yeah, you mentioned that you're focusing on the decades after the American independence. So late 1700s, early 1800s, tell us how foreign migrants who resided in the United States gave shape to citizenship. Yeah, so they gave shape to it in a bunch of different ways. And so I emphasize, right, there's the formal organizing, you know, formal, you know, formal groups forming to pressure or people working with with political party structures, to influence policy and law. But there's also a lot of informal organizing, and a lot of informal everyday engagement. So the the book really emphasizes the informal side of this, there's pushes to change the way policies are enforced. So the federal government requires people in 1798 to two so all all white aliens, right. And also sites like this, the term alien, right has a history that I'm talking about as well. And it's, you know, becomes increasingly pejorative over time. They are they are, they're required to register with the federal government according to the Naturalization Act of 1798. And we see

Speaker 1

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some resistance by refusing to register in other cases where people do register they they make clear to the officials their views on immigration and their views about belonging and their views about the nation and their views about the legal process. We also see a similar thing happen in the war between 12 when British subjects are once again required to register with federal government, or, you know, a group of people is required to register with the federal government. They start to say things like, Well, I was a, you know, I was an indentured servant. I came as an indentured servant. And my understanding was, once I finished my indenture, and I grew up in American household, I was American, or other people say, Well, yeah, I'm British, but I have an American wife. So I feel this law shouldn't apply to me in this way. Or it shouldn't, you know, this policy shouldn't affect me in the way that it's affecting other people. So we see this kind of pushback happening with with a huge variety of groups. So the two groups that I talked about, right, those are mostly white migrants, but for people of color coming from the Haitian Revolution, one thing that they really emphasize is that they are citizens of the French Republic. And in this this phase of the Haitian Revolution, right, Haiti has yet to declare independence. So they are saying, I have citizenship status at a time when many white Americans refuse to view people of color as citizens. And so this assertion of citizen status is another way that we see them affecting and influencing policy as well.

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Interesting. So that the basis of your research, is it? Are you going to an archive? Are you finding letters? And how are you? How do you find out? Oh, yeah, so

Speaker 1

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it's, it's a variety of sources. But I rely on two really important sources of archival data and records. And so this is the registrations that that were required in 1798, we have, we have a body of registrations from the federal courts, in Philadelphia, and then we have the registrations of British subjects from the war of 1812. And so both of these, right, there's a significant body, right, and you can see what individuals did, but you could also see some broader patterns in the actions of the group as a whole. So those are the major archival sources. I also talk about radical journalists. And these are these are Irish revolutionaries and other radicals from the British Isles, who end up fleeing from crackdown in Britain, and coming to the United States. And so their newspaper activities are also you know, very much a part of this, as well as anti immigrant articles and the anti immigrant press, that's, that's emerging. And so their views of immigrants, right, I also emphasize what are they countering?

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And obviously, I rely on legislation, right. And legislative documents, I do rely on missionary accounts, which are particularly important for people coming from outside of Europe. So the whaling industry starts to sail over the Pacific, the ships are often short on cruise. And so so people from Pacific Islands, as well as Asia, and upcoming in small numbers to United States. And so we know a lot about them, because missionaries, American white American missionaries, were very interested in them and their stories and hope to convert them to Christianity. So I rely on those though, obviously, right? There's, those really have to be read against the grain, right? Because the the main emphasis is their religious views and the religious understanding. So but in the process, there's kind of, you know, a biography that you learn, where did they were? Where do they travel to? Did they leave? Did they come back? What was the reception in the community? So those those I also rely on, as well as some personal correspondence and diary entries? You know, here? Are there many different sources? Interesting within all these sources and materials? Are there any stories that come to mind or that are most memorable when you're doing your research like, wow, the amazing story, one. So one particular story that that I'll talk about is, so there's David Levy Yulee and his father, Moses Levy was born in Morocco, and then moved to the Virgin Islands. The father wanted to establish a Jewish colony in Florida and what is Alachua in North Florida.

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way, right and says he has African ancestry, not meaning, in fact, the Moroccan ancestry but because the family had spent time in the Caribbean. Right, saying that he has and you know, that, that he has enslaved ancestry. So this is part of this challenge, right. And we see this, you know, recorded not in Levy's own voice, right, but in someone else's voice. Another example of this is John Daly Burke, who explains his own views of citizenship.

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But audiences loved it. It was performed in New York, John Daly Burke met John Adams. And then his second play about Joan of Arc was a disaster when it was put on in New York, the audience's hissed during the play, they laughed at dramatic scenes, right? He had this huge flop, he ends up founding this paper and gets in a fight with the founder. And they they start grabbing the lead type and throwing it at each other. So yeah, some really amazing stories about about these people appear in the book. Those are great stories. Thanks for sharing. So So I what I think is fascinating about your book is that you're you're not looking at immigration and and migrant law. The law itself is murky even today, you know, we're looking at more the informal things and and the act basically activism during that time. Yes. Yes. There was one that was eye opening that you said that there was a ban on all French citizens from entering the US in 1798. That is one of the many things that you mentioned as an attempt to ban. Okay, okay.

Unknown Speaker

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What were things that people did to overcome that informally? Yeah,

Speaker 1

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so this is this is really interesting. Um, so the, the Federalist Party attempts to do this, and there's a, once again, it's a racialized fear so that there's a panic that white French leaders are leading an invasion force that's landed in New Jersey, and is gonna March, you know, on Philadelphia, and so there's, there's this huge panic. It's all started because a ship of refugees, once again, from the Haitian Revolution, as has arrived in Philadelphia, and so the, the white passengers on the ship, very actively work with Franco American merchants, shipping merchants, and very swiftly lobby Congress. So you can see this really dramatic change, you know, just over the course of 24 hours, you know, there's this panicky, you know, response, and then the next day, the senators really kind of changed their tune. And it's clear that they're getting this different different information through through more direct lobbying. So that's, that's one example of, of that push by, by these migrant groups

Speaker 2

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interested, interested? What were some other events where migrants rights were were attempted to be removed? And what type of activism prevented that?

Speaker 1

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Going back to the radical printers? So the package of legislation that we call the alien Sedition Acts? That right, so there are laws regarding naturalization. And then there's the Sedition Act, which says that defamatory and false statements about leaders of the federal government can't be printed or you know, and this, this gets into the issues of free speech. And so many of these radical printers are very organized against this. And part of this is there's there's this question of what rights are going to adhere to citizens and what rights are going to have the rights of all legal persons, including immigrants, and so they really push back against this. So they're able to secure greater free speech rights for themselves. And in particular, the Secretary of State Timothy Pickering. If If someone naturalized and became a citizen, he would prosecute them under the Sedition Act. And right so there's sort of a fuller right to trial with this right? And right to legal counsel, but if we're not citizens, whether it's or not since since you tried to deport them, so that, that push against that was successful in securing greater free speech rights for immigrants and their campaigns. were, you know, in the end, their resistance to this, we're part of this process is what that chapter argues. Okay, so this is a really interesting story of Joseph Priestley. Right, so he's the discoverer of oxygen. Right, he calls it phlogiston. Right? There's, you know, some some controversy about this. He is involved in revolutionary politics in Britain and France, and a mob is stirred up, and they destroy his chemistry lab in England. And so he decides, right, it's time to find a place where you feel safer. He comes to the United States. He's still very involved in radical politics in the United States.

Unknown Speaker

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And so, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, comes to John Adams and says, I want to deport Joseph Priestley. And John Adams is pretty lenient about, you know, he's pretty well, like you want to put somebody go for it, right. But he draws a line in Joseph Priestley, he really admires Joseph Priestley's thought, right. And he's also right, a religious thinker as well. And Adams really is impressed by by precise religious thought, and he refuses to to have priestly deported.

Unknown Speaker

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And so Pickering really angers Adams later, when it comes with several blank warrants. He just says, sign it with your name, and I'll fill in the names later. And that really doesn't go over well. So this is sort of the eventually atoms will fire Pickering. As you know, intra party politics heats up in the election of 1800. And so this is sort of the start of tension between Pickering and Adams. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, it's so it's so fascinating to hear these, they're so personal, you know, yes, you think of immigrant influence. And II think of like this large groups of people. But now this is like very particular this particular person. Yeah. And politics is very personal at this time. And this is part of the concern, right? That

Unknown Speaker

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people not from this country shouldn't come in, right, this is the xenophobic view that they shouldn't come in and mess with our politics and damage the reputations of our leaders by saying defamatory things about them. You know, the bar is set pretty low for what qualifies as defamatory. So, yeah, it's it's it's very interesting to see the type personal bonds that really are part of this interaction. Right. And, and right, that's more of like an elite interaction, but even kind of, you know, for more laboring people, their interactions and their their personal choices also matter as well. Interesting. Wow. Well, there's there's these are fantastic stories, and we've just scratched the surface. There's plenty more. In your new book, Stranger Citizens, it's available for free and anyone listening to this can get dive right in download the book. It's also available as a very affordable paperback. I thank you so much, john, for joining us and telling us about the many different stories within this book. Well, it's been a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. That was John O'Keefe, author of Stranger Citizens: Migrant Influence and National Power in the Early American Republic.

Unknown Speaker

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Thank you for listening to 1869, the Cornell University Press podcast.

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