History of the Catholic Church in the United States British-America-born Catholic priest. In 1788, after the Revolution, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce foreign authorities "in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil." In one state, North Carolina, the Protestant test oath would not be changed until 1868. The Catholic population of the United States, which had been 35,000 in 1790, increased to 195,000 in 1820 and then ballooned to about 1.6 million in 1850, by which time, Catholics had become the country’s largest denomination. Between 1860 and 1890 the population of Roman Catholics in the United States tripled primarily through immigration and
History of the United States Hine and Faragher, "frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states". They explain, "It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America." The first settlers in the west were the Spanish in New Mexico; they became U.S. citizens in 1848. The Hispanics in California ("Californios") were overwhelmed by over 100,000 gold rush miners. California grew explosively. San Francisco by 1880 had become the economic