Diaspora Facts 𓊝

For those who survived the voyage, stepping ashore in the New World marked the beginning of an entirely different life.

Interestingly, Scottish and many Ulster Protestant settlers were still considered ‘British subjects’ when they arrived in Pennsylvania, with an immediate legal advantage.

Unlike many European immigrants, they did not first have to naturalize and wait to gain the rights of British subjects in the colonies. They could immediately enter contracts, conduct business, purchase or lease land, and establish themselves in the colony with no delay…

Until naturalized, the person remained legally an “alien”—the period term for someone who owed allegiance to another sovereign.

We tend to think of naturalization as a modern governmental system. Yet colonial Pennsylvania already had legal machinery for turning foreign-born Europeans into British subjects.