Teaching With Documents, Volume 1

Contents:

A Ship’s Manifest, 1847

Between 1820 and 1874, the captains or masters of all vessels arriving in United States ports from foreign countries were required to submit a list of passengers, known as the manifest, to the Collector of Customs in the district in which the ship arrived. These reports included information regarding the age, sex, occupation, nationality, and destination of the aliens. The District Collector of Customs sent quarterly reports with copies of the manifests to the Secretary of State, who submitted this information to Congress. By 1874, only statistical reports to the Treasury Department were required of the customs collectors. In 1891, the Office of Superintendent of Immigration was created under the Treasury Department to further centralize control over immigration.

The ship’s manifest presented here is the first page of the passenger list of the brig Acadian for May 14, 1847, the year in which 234,968 alien passengers arrived at ports in the United States. Irish immigration peaked between 1841 and 1850, with 49% of the aliens entering the United States coming from Ireland.

This manifest is part of the records of the Bureau of Customs (Record Group 36). The complete manifest is available on microfilm at the National Archives, or through your nearest regional Archives. The microfilm number is M277, roll 22.

Suggestions for Teaching

Duplicate copies of the manifest for your class to use in small groups or individually. Review the arrangement of the manifest with the class, and make note of the column headings. These headings will be essential to the students’ understanding of the document.

Questions and Activities for Students:

1. What kinds of information about the passengers can be found in the manifest? Consider the following:

a. What is the nationality of most passengers?

b. What are the occupations of the passengers?

c. What are the final destinations of the passengers?

d. Note that some of the passengers have the same surnames. What might this tell you about them?

e. Why would the government want or need to collect information about these passengers?

2. Describe in writing four passengers, or groups of passengers, on the Acadian. For example: Ann Brogin was a 20-year-old servant from Ireland traveling to the United States. (This exercise is designed to help students begin to identify and organize the information found in the document. It is necessary for students to be able to do this before they begin to deal with matters of interpretation.)

3. Make a list of possible reasons why you think many of the passengers might be traveling to North America. (Consider the date of the manifest and relevant European events.)

4. What conclusions, if any, about immigration might be drawn from this manifest? (Make sure your conclusions are based on information found within the document.)

5. How might this document, and others like it, be used in a family history project? (Consider the ethnic population of Boston today.)


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Chicago: "A Ship’s Manifest, 1847," Teaching With Documents, Volume 1 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989), 17–18. Original Sources, accessed March 28, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=PLLF1JW7IDYWWWU.

MLA: . "A Ship’s Manifest, 1847." Teaching With Documents, Volume 1, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by United States. National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Vol. 1, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1989, pp. 17–18. Original Sources. 28 Mar. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=PLLF1JW7IDYWWWU.

Harvard: , 'A Ship’s Manifest, 1847' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 1. cited in 1989, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board, Washington, D.C., pp.17–18. Original Sources, retrieved 28 March 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=PLLF1JW7IDYWWWU.