Alien Invasions and Revolutionary Contagion: : The Aliens Acts, the 1790s, and the Changing Contours of Citizenship

FAIN: FT-269994-20

Hannah Weiss Muller
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA 02453-2728)

Research for a book on British, Canadian, Caribbean, and American immigration legislation during the 1790s in response to the French Revolution.

An NEH Summer Stipend will make possible two months of archival research in London focused on reconstructing legislation passed in the British Caribbean against aliens between 1793 and 1794. This research is part of my next book project, Alien Invasions and Revolutionary Contagion, which provides the first comparative study of British, Canadian, Caribbean, and American aliens acts passed during the 1790s in response to the movements of individuals fleeing revolutionary France. The book places aliens acts in their broader context and also elucidates how international rivalries and fear of French-inspired radicalism shaped security policies, early immigration law, and citizenship practices throughout the Anglo-Atlantic world. At its broadest level, it documents a critical shift in how “aliens” and "enemies" were defined during the Age of Revolution, where political principles, rather than religious affiliation, came to distinguish “insider" from "outsider."