Week 4 Skills Activity: Evolution of the national citizenry

  • Nationality Act of 1790

    Law defining eligibility for citizenship by naturalization, created procedures for immigrants to become citizens, Congress limited this right to free white people
  • Indian Removal Act

    During the time of Andrew Jackson, this law authorized the removal by force of the Native Americans and their land to be confiscated
  • Dred Scott v. Sandford

    Supreme Court ruled that slaves and free African Americans were citizens of the U.S. and therefor did not have rights
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    President Lincoln gives executive order that all slaves in the Confederate states were free
  • Naturalization Act of 1870

    Congress expands list of those eligible for naturalization which includes all white people and people of African descent
  • Elk v. Wiggins

    Supreme Court rules that the fourteenth does not apply to Native Americans who were given citizenship automatically
  • Expatriation Act of 1907

    Women assumed citizenship of their husbands, with this act if a U.S. born women married a non citizen immigrant they lost their citizenship
  • Jones-Shafroth Act

    Act that gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans after the island was acquired by the U.S.
  • Ozawa v. United States

    Affirmation that Asians were not eligible for naturalization because they are not racially white
  • Indian Citizenship Act of 1924

    Law that automatically made all Native Americans citizens by birth