10/02/2026
The American Revolution created a nation of emigrants. By 1860, people left the United States in the tens of thousands to become subjects or citizens of other North American powers including Spain, Great Britain, and Mexico. Those who quit the United States from the 1780s onward shared a belief that citizenship entailed the freedom to reject allegiances inherited at birth for those of one’s choosing anywhere in the world. This belief rested on a claim to emigrant rights, which Americans defined in law, politics, and in the actions of people who crossed North America’s borders. This presentation will trace the legal and political origins of emigrant rights, the varied contests over who could or could not possess these rights, and the paths of those who exercised their emigrant rights throughout North America. The advent of emigrant rights has lasting implications for how we understand citizenship and mobility up to the present. The claim that people are free to move throughout the world and to decide for themselves the nation they belong to remains urgent so long as limitations on personal mobility persist inside the United States, at its borders, and beyond.
