Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

GARIBALDI CLAIM TO AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP: SOME UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS 8
Lettere of Green Clay, recently deposited in the Western Historical Manuscript8 Collection of the University of Missouri, provide new information. on Giuseppe Garibaldi's niuch discussed claim to American citizenship and protection, Clay was the secretary of the American legation in Florence in. 1867, and as chargé d'affaires in the absence of the minister, George P. Marsh,. he received Garibaldi's appeals for protection and assist ance in the autumn of that year. a)
The late H. Nelson Gay cxplored the whole question of Garibaldi's rela-tions witli the United States, inclnding his claim to citizenship, in an arride in the American historical review inOctoberi932. 8) He establishedthat wheu Garibaldi left the United States in 1851, following nine months' residence on Staten Island, he was provided with an American passport issued by the mayor of New York. It read, The bearer hereof, Joseph Garibaldi, who has àeclared his intention ofbecoming a citizen of the United States of America etc. etc. . The words in italics were inserted in handwriting on the usuai printed form. Garibaldi Teturned to this country only once after that and then only for four months, and Gay found no evidence that he took any additional steps to carry out his intention to become a citizen. In the succeeding years his aspirations to citizenship were apparently forgotten. untii 1867.
On September 24, 1867, Garibaldi was arrested on orders of the Italian government to prevent his leading a band of volunteers in an attack on Rome. Imprisoned at Alessandria he immediately sent a letter to the Ambassador of the United States of America , appealing as an American, citizen for the protection of the United States government. Green Clay, chargé d'affaires at that time, had been on friendly terms with Garibaldi for some time and had once even inquired into the possibilities of joining the general's volunteer corps. *) He declined to intervene officially on Ga­ribaldi's behalf, bnt he did cali on the prime minister and informed him of Garibaldi's complaints and of his personal interest in the prisoner's welfare. Gay knew of the general's appeal and of Clay's haudling of the matter through two reports that Clay sent to Secretary of State Seward. The Clay letters include, in addition to copies of these reports, four pertinent documenta that Gay had apparently not seen: the originai of Garibaldi's letter to Clay and three of Clay's letters to his superior, Minister Marsh.
1) -Reucarch asaiatance in tbe prcparatiion of this nrticle was mode possibile by a granfe from the University of Missouri Research Council.
?) The collection of some fifteen lettera, oli dateci in 1866 and 1867, was leni by Mrs. Cessina M. Clay of Mexico, Missouri.
) Garibaldi' American contact and his dotine la American ciiisenshìp, in American historical review, XXXVHI (1932) 1-19.
*) Garibaldi to Clay, Jttne 6,1866; Clay to Garibaldi, March 2,1867; both in the Clay lettere.