Organization of American Historians
Magazine of History article:
Atlantic World, Volume 18, no 3, April 2004
German-Speaking Immigrants in the British Atlantic World, 1680-1730 by
Rosalind J. Beiler
Article used by permission for
AMERICA’S HISTORY IN THE MAKING VOL I
UNIT 3 COLONIAL DESIGNS
Copyright 2007
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Organization of American Historians
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Magazine of History article:
Atlantic World, Volume 18, no 3, April 2004
German-Speaking Immigrants in the British Atlantic World, 1680-1730 by
Rosalind J. Beiler
Between 1680 and 1780, more than one hundred thousand German-speaking
people migrated to British North America. They were the largest group of free,
non-British immigrants to settle in the colonies. Most of the newcomers arrived
through the port of Philadelphia between 1727 and 1775. By the eve of American
independence, however, they and their descendants could be found in nearly all
of the colonies from Nova Scotia to Georgia. While they all spoke some form of
German, the immigrants did not share a common political identity. Rather, they
came from the Rhine Lands, more than three hundred fifty distinct political
territories in what is today Germany, France, and Switzerland. Their American
neighbors usually lumped them together, calling them “Dutch”—an anglicization
of “Deutsch,” “Germans,” or “Palatines.” In Europe, however, the immigrants
identified primarily with their villages or regions. They spoke local dialects and
maintained village customs and traditions.
Nevertheless, immigrants from the Rhine Lands did have some common
characteristics. Most were Protestants, members of the Lutheran or Reformed
churches. The majority were from farming or artisan families from rural villages.
Predominantly from political territories where the heads of state were
strengthening and consolidating their resources and power, the immigrants
struggled against growing taxes and rising competition for land. Finally, many
came from regions dominated by warfare in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries.
The German-speaking settlers who moved to British North America were
participants in larger local and long distance migration patterns. Young men and
women moved from village to village as apprentices learning a trade; families
were frequently displaced by war or crop failures; and individuals made religious
pilgrimages or moved to new areas in search of religious toleration. Furthermore,
those who traveled west were only a small portion of long-distance migrants.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, six times as many Germans
moved to Hungary and Poland as those who chose the British colonies as their
destination. Smaller streams of emigrants went to Poland, Russia, and Spain.
Why did some Germans choose to move west across the Atlantic to British North
America while others moved east? What kind of information was available to
them? How did they hear about the colonies? To understand the choices
immigrants made, we need to understand why English colonial proprietors chose
to recruit German-speaking settlers and how they did so. Scholars have traced
the roles of English and American merchants in recruiting and transporting
immigrants from eighteenth-century Europe. They have found that by the 1730s,
newlanders”—immigrants returning to their home villages—contracted with
English merchant firms to recruit additional settlers who then traveled to the
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colonies on merchants’ ships. Through newlanders, information and letters
flowed regularly between the colonies and the Rhine Lands. This pattern reflects
later stages of German migration, however. Much less attention, however, has
been paid to the earlier period of immigration between 1670 and 1730, before
travel back and forth across the Atlantic was regularized. This essay examines
the religious communication channels through which early information about the
colonies was disseminated to potential German immigrants and the kinds of
available information on which they based their decisions, thus illustrating the
creation of Atlantic networks at the inception of colonial settlement.
During the earliest period of German migration to British America,
promotional literature was the primary means for disseminating information about
the colonies. The proprietors of each colony founded during the period, Carolina,
New York, East and West Jersey, and Pennsylvania, used pamphlets and other
forms of published literature to recruit settlers. They usually described a colony’s
landscape and natural resources and gave practical information about how to
plan for the journey. For example, William Penn, in Some Account of the
Province of Pennsylvania published in 1681, painted an image of the colony by
describing various commodities the colony was already producing: “Hides,
Tallow, Pipe-staves, Beef, Pork, Sheep, Wool, Corn, as Wheat, Barly, Ry, and
also Furs, as your Peltree, Mincks, Racoons, Martins, and such like” (1). He
encouraged “Industrious Husbandmen and Day-Labourers” as well as artisans
such as “Carpenters, Masons, Smiths, Weavers, Taylors, Tanners, Shoemakers,
Shipwrights, etc.” to move to Pennsylvania (2). For those who decided to take a
chance on the colony, Penn also gave instructions for what kinds of things to
take with them and when to voyage across the Atlantic. His pamphlet was quickly
translated into German and Dutch by his agent, Benjamin Furly. It was the first of
many promotional pamphlets made available to Germans.
But the proprietors were not the only ones to publish literature about the
new colonies. Religious leaders who were interested in particular settlement
schemes also wrote descriptions intended to recruit immigrants. The works of
three authors were especially influential in convincing German-speaking settlers
to move west: Francis Daniel Pastorius, Daniel Falkner, and Josua Kochertal.
Pastorius was an agent for the Frankfurt Company, a group of Pietist investors
who had purchased fifteen thousand acres of land from Penn. He founded
Germantown in 1683 and wrote numerous pamphlets and letters that were
published in Europe (3). Falkner was a Pietist who traveled to Pennsylvania in
1694. He returned to Europe shortly before 1700 “to make known the true state
and spiritual condition of the Germans who had emigrated to Pennsylvania” and
to solicit aid and recruits (4). In 1702 he published Curious Report of
Pennsylvania under the auspices of Pietist leaders at Halle, who were
considering sending settlers to the British colonies (5). Finally, Kochertal, a
Lutheran pastor from the Neckar River Valley, wrote Detailed and Circumstantial
Report about the famous land Carolina which lies in English America in 1709. He
also may have acted as an agent for a company of investors hoping to recruit
immigrants to Carolina (6).
Each of these authors provided important incentives for migration. Not
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surprisingly, they all promised inexpensive land. Pastorius claimed that in
Pennsylvania, anyone could obtain property. Immigrants could either purchase
land at reasonable costs or rent it for a penny per acre. Those who were destitute
could sign indentures to work for a specified number of years to pay their travel
expenses. They received fifty acres for an annual rent of one half penny per acre
upon completion of their contracts (7). America was also, according to
promotional literature, much more bountiful than Europe. Kochertal championed
South Carolina as one of the “most fertile regions which can be found” (8).
Furthermore, crops seemed to grow more easily than in Europe. In Pennsylvania,
Falkner observed, peaches and cherries were plentiful and “grew like weeds” (9).
To those in the Rhine Lands who suffered from land shortages and crop failures
resulting from war, the British colonies sounded like paradise.
Pamphlet writers also described in glowing terms the privileges colonial
governments extended to potential immigrants. Pastorius pointed out that
Pennsylvania’s colonists elected assemblymen each year who made “the
necessary laws and ordinances for that year according to the condition of the
time and the people, and thereby prevent encroaching vices” (10). The colony’s
political structure stood in stark contrast to those in the Rhine Lands where
villagers had no control over state governments. In addition, Pastorius observed,
the colonists played an important role in determining taxation. He claimed that
“neither the king himself nor his envoys, bailiffs, nor governors may lay any kind
of burden or tax upon the subjects, unless those subjects themselves have first
voluntarily resolved and consented to give a specified amount.” Furthermore, “no
tax may remain in force for longer than a single year” (11). Kochertal likewise
stressed Carolina’s low taxes. Unlike German towns, where villagers paid tithes
to local officials to support clergy, Carolina colonists collected tithes themselves
and distributed them to their ministers. In near disbelief, Kochertal added that
“the entire annual contribution due to the authorities comes only from the
groundrent.” The settlers were “otherwise completely freed from all obligations,
compulsory labor, serfdom, and all other burdens, whatever they may be named,
and the authorities are prepared to give security that it will always remain so in
the future” (12). His promise was appealing to villagers in the Rhine Lands who
still performed compulsory labor as one of the many different taxes they paid.
Another important incentive for recruiting settlers was religious toleration.
In Curious Report, Falkner surveyed religious conditions in all of the British
colonies. He claimed that in Pennsylvania, “all sects except the Jews and such
as absolutely deny Christianity, are not only countenanced, but they are granted
the free exercise of their religion and are undisturbed and protected by the public
authorities.” He compared this to Maryland, Virginia, and New England, where
supposedly all “sects” and Jews could worship in private but not in public (13).
Pastorius promised that in Pennsylvania, “no one sect may raise itself above the
others, each shall enjoy freedom of conscience, and no one shall be forced to be
present at any public services for the worship of God, and no one shall be
disturbed in his belief or religion” (14). Finally, in describing Carolina, Kochertal
noted that the Lutherans and Reformed as well as the Mennonites would enjoy
religious toleration and freedom of conscience (15).
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Religious toleration was a critical incentive in the earliest years of Germanspeaking migration when a range of Protestant groups, including Mennonites,
Quakers, and Pietists, were being harassed, imprisoned, and banished from
many German states. Because Pastorius and Falkner were both closely tied to
the Pietist conventicles—religious assemblies—at Frankfurt and Halle before the
movement was fully incorporated into Prussian Lutheranism, they appealed
directly to Pietists interested in religious toleration. Kochertal responded to the
tactics that had already proven profitable in Pennsylvania at precisely the time
when officials were negotiating another forced exile of Swiss Mennonites.
Furthermore, Carolina’s proprietors had successfully recruited French Huguenot
settlers, in part through their liberal religious policies. Each of these authors had
very specific reasons for stressing the broad religious
privileges available in the British colonies (16).
It should not be surprising, then, that religious toleration was a critical
issue in fashioning the communication channels through which promotional
literature and information flowed. The pamphlets’ authors participated in a series
of overlapping and interconnected religious networks. They all belonged to
“dissenting” groups that were not part of official state churches. Pastorius and
Falkner were Pietists; Kochertal was a Lutheran minister in a predominately
Reformed state where the political leader, the Elector, was Catholic; Furly,
Penn’s agent responsible for translating many of his pamphlets into German, was
an English Quaker living in Rotterdam. While each group had its own particular
religious beliefs, they shared certain characteristics. First, they were tied together
by interests in reforming society through individual piety. Throughout the second
half of the seventeenth century, numerous Protestant reform movements
emerged throughout England and Europe. In spite of differences in theology,
they all emphasized the individual’s relationship to God and direct, unmediated
access to Him. They also emphasized the importance of living a pious life.
Second, each group established regular correspondence networks for one of two
reasons. The Quakers and the Pietists were interested in uniting divisions within
the Protestant Christian church. For this reason, they worked to convince others
from “like-minded” groups to join them. The Quakers, who sent missionaries into
the Netherlands and the Rhine Lands, sought out Mennonites and a variety of
religious seekers with whom they shared common bonds. Their intent was to
“convince” them of the “truth” and thereby convert them to Quakerism. Similarly,
the Pietists sent emissaries and missionaries from Halle to work with other
groups they thought were receptive to their ideas about educational and spiritual
reform.
They also sought out “like-minded” persons because, as people who were
not part of larger, officially recognized Protestant groups, they suffered
discrimination and persecution. English, Scottish, and Irish Quakers were
imprisoned throughout the 1660s, 1670s, and 1680s. Mennonites—Swiss
Brethren and Anabaptists in the Rhine Valley— were banished, forced to serve
as galley slaves, and imprisoned in the second half of the seventeenth century.
Pietists were also imprisoned, sentenced to hard labor and exiled from several
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German states. While numbers did not necessarily insure safety, they were
comforting and promised greater influence with local political leaders, members
of the nobility, and heads of state—in short, anyone with political power.
Members of these religious networks participated in multiple conversations that
cut across political and religious boundaries. Dutch Mennonites sent financial
assistance and household goods to Palatine Anabaptists who, in turn, helped
Swiss Brethren sent into exile. They also appealed to the Elector of the
Palatinate and other heads of state to allow the refugees to settle in their lands.
And they secured the appropriate passports for exiles traveling down the Rhine
through numerous political territories. Similarly, English Quakers raised money
for and lobbied on behalf of imprisoned Quakers in the German states along the
Rhine.
With the founding of new British colonies, however, those who were
participating in efforts to establish religious tolerance perceived the potential of
colonization for achieving their goals. They used religious networks to promote
colonization and recruit settlers. The Quaker proprietors of East and West Jersey
sought immigrants from among the harassed Scottish Quaker meetings through
the Society of Friends missionary networks. The Carolina proprietors, among
whom were several Quakers, appealed to French Huguenot refugees who had
fled to England. Furly, Penn’s agent, sent German-language promotional
literature through the Quaker, Mennonite, and Pietist communication channels in
which he knew Pennsylvania’s liberal religious and land policies would exercise
strong appeal. And religious toleration even played an important role in the 17091710 migration of Germans to New York, where economic displacement
appeared to be the strongest motivation for choosing to leave home.
During the early period of German-speaking migration, then, religious
communication networks were critical in recruiting settlers for new British
American colonies. Proprietors and religious leaders who belonged to dissenting
groups wrote pamphlets and circulated letters promoting the new colonies. They
distributed literature through
communication channels originally set up to enable missionary activity or secure
religious toleration. Early German-speaking immigrants, therefore, relied more
heavily on information they received from religious leaders than immigrants later
in the eighteenth century when choosing to go east or west.
Endnotes
1. William Penn, Some account of the province of Pennsylvania in America;
Lately
Granted under the Great Seal of England to William Penn, etc. Together with
Privileges and powers necessary to the well-governing thereof. Made publick for
the Information of such as are or may be disposed to Transport themselves or
Servants into those Parts (London: Printed, and Sold by Benjamin Clark
Bookseller in George-Yard, Lombard-street, 1681) reprinted in Narratives
of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707, Albert
C. Myers, ed. (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1912), 207.
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2. Ibid., 209.
3. The most influential of these was Umständige Geographische Beschreibung
Der
zu allerletzt erfundenen Provintz Pensylvaniae, In denen End-Gräntzen Americae
In der West-Welt gelegen Durch Franciscum Danielem Pastorium, J. U. Lic.
Und Friedens-Richtern daselbsten. Worbey angehecket sind einige notable
Begebenheiten, und Bericht-Schreiben an dessen Herrn Vatern melchiorem
Adamum Pastorium, Und andere gute Freunde, published in 1700 and
reprinted in translation in Myers, Narratives, 360-558. Pastorius’s
Umständige Beschreibung was usually bound together with a German
translation of Gabriel Thomas’s An Historical and Geographical Account of
Pennsylvania and of West-New-Jersey (London, 1698), and Daniel Falckner’s
Curieuse Nachricht, both reprinted in Myers, Narratives, 356-9.
4. Julius Friedrich Sachse, trans., Falkner’s Curieuse Nachricht von Pensylvania:
The Book that Stimulated the Great German Emigration to Pennsylvania in
the Early Years of the XVII Century, (Lancaster, PA: The PennsylvaniaGerman Society, 1905), 37.
5. Ibid., 23-8.
6. Walter Allen Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration
(Philadelphia:
Dorrance & Company 1937), 14-9; Henry Z. Jones, The Palatine
Families of New York: A Study of German Immigrants Who Arrived in
Colonial New York in 1710, Vol. 1 (University City, CA: H.Z. Jones, 1985),
471-2; Josua von Kochertal, Außführlich und Umständlicher Bericht von der
Berühmten Landschafft Carolina (Frankfurt am Mayn: Zu finden Bey G.H.
Oehrline, 1709).
7. Myers, Narratives, 374.
8. Kochertal, 12; see also Sachse, Falkner’s Curieuse Nachricht, 102-3.
9. Sachse, Falkner’s Curieuse Nachricht, 104-5; see also Kochertal, 12-3.
10. Myers, Narratives, 436.
11. Ibid., 437.
12. Kochertal, 11.
13. Sachse, Falkner’s Curieuse Nachricht, 201.
14. Myers, 377.
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15. Kochertal, 9-10.
16. Samuel Pennypacker, “The Settlement of Germantown, Pennsylvania and
the Causes which led to it,” Historical and Biographical Sketches (Philadelphia:
R. A. Tripple, 1883), 17; Sachse, Falkner’s Curieuse Nachricht, 31-43;
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Rosalind Beiler is an associate professor of history at the University of
Central Florida in Orlando. Her essays on German migration to the British
American colonies have appeared in numerous publications and she has
essays in two forthcoming publications on the Atlantic World. Beiler has
been a fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History
at Harvard University and a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Free University
of Berlin.
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