A “Distressed Class of People”: French Refugees and Mobility Control in Philadelphia, 1790s–1810

Abstract

In the 1790s, hundreds of refugees arrived in Philadelphia from revolutionary Saint-Domingue. Though it is well known that the Alien Acts were promulgated at least in part in reaction to the large French presence on US soil and the threat of war with France, other barriers to entry and to remain on US soil are not often connected to the arrival and presence of French refugees. Using records of the Philadelphia courts, prison, and almshouse, this article situates the French refugee experience within the early United States’ broader kaleidoscope of restrictions on mobility, assistance, and rights to remain. For the French Black population, their race and class rendered them especially vulnerable to forms of mobility control focused on criminals and the mobile poor. Though the French were not ultimately deported for their political activities, a small number of French Black refugees convicted of theft were set on the move once again.