Profile America: Colonial America’s First Naturalized Citizen

SETTLING THE CZECH

 

Immigration as an item of government involvement appeared on Colonial America’s shores 350 years ago. Born in Bohemia, essentially today’s Czech Republic, Auguste Herman came to the New World initially to work for the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now New York. A surveyor and cartographer of considerable talent, Herman’s work took him to the Chesapeake Bay, on the shores of which he wished to settle. Because he wasn’t born a British subject, he had to apply for citizenship in the Maryland colony. In early 1666, the colonial assembly made him the first what might be called naturalized citizen in America. In today’s population of over 322 million, nearly 19 million are foreign-born citizens. Around 1.4 million Americans are of Czech ancestry.

 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

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