This dataset contains the compulsory registrations of noncitizens (“aliens”) mandated by the Naturalization Act of 1798, part of the package of laws passed that comprised the Alien and Sedition Acts. The documents included are a group of registrations from the federal court district based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, identified in the National Archives as “Landing Reports of Aliens.” In addition, the dataset includes naturalization data, drawn from two books of collected naturalization data: P. William Filby’s Philadelphia Naturalization Records, and Jefferson Moaks’s The Minor Courts of Philadelphia. This dataset is part of a larger database I have created for my research, studying migration and citizenship in the early American republic.

This dataset is a part of the Magazine of American Datasets (MEAD). To view more of the collection, visit https://repository.upenn.edu/exhibits/orgunit/mead.