Causes and Effects of Immigration from German Speaking Areas to British North America and the USA, 1

Do your roots or the roots of someone you know trace back to Germany? For many Americans, the answer to this question is yes. Therefore, the study of the history of German migration to America is very important. Germans were actually the largest group of willing, non-English immigrants to the thirteen colonies, so it is not surprising that there are so many German-Americans today. Two questions can be easily raised and answered from this fact: Why did so many Germans leave their homes to take a long, dangerous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to a land unknown to them? How did these immigrants fare in the unfamiliar surroundings of their new homes? Social, political, agricultural, and economic pressure and strife in German speaking areas, as well as opportunity for religious and economic freedom in the New World, led to a large but diverse flow of German speaking migrants to varied North American destinations between 1683 and 1820. Although the migration across the Atlantic was a huge risk, a large number of migrants created successful lives in the New World because they used skills acquired in their homeland and they formed strong bonds with other settlers in America.

When looking into German immigration to America, it is important to look at the places the Germans were leaving. One important point to realize is that there was no “Germany” during the 1700's, and the area that would become Germany was just a group of small to medium-sized states that were loosely part of the Holy Roman Empire. Many of the German speaking immigrants to North America in the 1700's were from the southwest of the German speaking region of Europe. This area includes what is now the German province of Baden-Württemburg and what was then and is now Switzerland. Also, the 1600's and early 1700's was a time of warfare in these two regions. Aaron Fogleman writes about how this warfare affected society in these regions:“The seventeenth-century wars, especially the Thirty Years' War, provided the impetus for the enormous changes that took place in the southwest during the eighteenth century by nearly destroying the demographic, political, social, and economic fabric of the area.” A 1709 agricultural disaster in the region also led to much suffering. Although the wars and disaster led to some emigration from the region, the time of rebuilding and recovery that followed these events was fraught with problems that led to the highest rates of migration westward among German speakers.

British North America in the 1700's had both similarities and differences to the southwest German speaking world of the same time period. Both areas were growing rapidly. In fact, the colonies' population increased tenfold between 1700 and 1776, from 250,000 to 2.5 million. The German speaking world at the time was relatively ethnically homogeneous, while British North America was populated by people from many parts of the British Isles, by people from many parts of Africa, and by Native Americans in addition to the German speakers. However, religious diversity among the Christian faith was strong in both areas, with Lutherans, Reformed Christians, Catholics, and radical pietists represented on both sides of the Atlantic. There were systems of bondage on both sides of the Atlantic as well, but declining feudal serfdom in the German speaking world was very different than declining indentured servitude and growing African slavery in British North America. Village structure was much more centralized, with houses much closer together, in German speaking areas than in the New World. But both areas at the time were largely rural. These similarities and differences in the societies on the opposite sides of the Atlantic provided both blessings and challenges to German speaking immigrants as they structured their lives in America.

Even though the southwestern German speaking world was recovering in the mid to late 1700's, the period had the most dense emigration because of internal struggles. Scarcity of land due to the practice of partible inheritance, a system in which a person's land was split among multiple heirs, was the main reason for emigration from the region. Many heirs from the large families that resulted from the population boom during the recovery realized that their inherited landholdings were so small that they could not support themselves and their families agriculturally with them. The population pressure that resulted from partible inheritance and resulted in migration is echoed in a statement by Fogleman: “Whenever population pressure increased beyond what traditional practices could support...people began to emigrate.” Impartible inheritance, a system in which a person's land was given to one heir, also led to emigration. Sons and daughters that were not heirs in this system used emigration as a way to improve their conditions, as they often lacked wealth and the ability to marry in their homeland. As well as feeling closed in by their inheritances, many people from the southwest German speaking world who eventually immigrated to British North America felt closed in by the aristocracy, who were recovering their power themselves that they had lost during the wars of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The aristocracy had many methods of consolidating their power that enraged the average residents of villages. They forced villagers to work on building new structures that showed their power, they imposed high dues on the villagers, and they were of different Christian denominations as the villagers. The villagers resisted the aristocrats by seeking the favor of state authorities, and sometimes won in their pleas, but the newfound power of aristocrats still was a fact of life in the southwest German speaking world that led many people to leave the area. German speaking people used to having enough land to thrive on and being free from aristocratic influence during the early recovery period immigrated to America in later stages of the period when land became scarce and aristocrats became powerful.

Promises of land and labor were the pivotal reasons why many German migrants chose British North America as a new home. Eastern Europe, in fact, had long been a destination for German migrants, and Eastern European nations often offered Germans benefits in moving there that they would not get by moving to the British North American colonies. However, recruitment through pamphlets by or visits by British dignitaries such as Queen Anne and William Penn convinced many migrants to plan trips to America. Letters from previous German immigrants to America, who were often friends or family members of new migrants, commonly served the same purpose. A letter home by a German migrant named Christian Janzen is an example of one of these letters. Janzen writes about land opportunity in where he had settled in North Carolina: “The land in general is almost everywhere black dirt and rich soil, and everyone can get as much as he will.” Hearing about abundant land was especially appealing to recipients of tiny tracts of land gained through partible inheritance who lived in the southwest German speaking world. Many of these recipients took the gamble of leaving their German land behind and embarking on the dangerous trip to North America to find larger and more fertile plots. The campaign of letters by German immigrants that caught family and friends up on how they fared in migration and tried to attract them to join them in America was often very well organized, and sometimes Germans would even go back to their homeland in order to attract more emigrants. Advertisements, letters, and personal visits were effective in attracting emigrants often because of their hyperbole or emotion. Communication from abroad, either from previous migrants or British nationals, was a main factor in convincing probable German emigrants that America was the place to go.

Religion had differing effects on migration for different emigrants from the German speaking world. The commonly-told narrative of escaping from religious persecution was only the cause of emigration for small groups of radical pietist migrants (who were part of Christian groups with dissenting views from the very influential churches in Europe). Most migrants, although devout Christians, were only loosely associated with the usually at least mildly tolerated Lutheran, Reformed, or Catholic churches. The greater religious freedom for Protestants offered in places like Pennsylvania did help pull many of the non-pietists to America, but for most of them religion was not one of the main factors that caused them to emigrate.

The flow of migration from the German speaking world to British North America was not a continuous stream, as events on both sides of the Atlantic caused swells and pauses in migration. Members of small radical pietist groups were the main group of emigrants in the late 1600's and very early 1700's, although they continued to come to British North America after this period. They were overshadowed by a fast flow of migrants who settled in the colonies between 1709 and 1714 due to the agricultural disaster of 1709 and a British recruitment effort. Migration slowed for a few years and then rebounded throughout the 1720's, 1730's, and 1740's. This expansion culminated in the period between 1749 and 1754, in which 35,000 German-speakers landed in Philadelphia alone during the peak of emigration in the era covered in this essay. The 7 Years War, which raged on both sides of the Atlantic, virtually stopped immigration from German speaking lands altogether. Emigration restarted when the war ended for a period of around 10 years. After another halt to immigration because of the Revolutionary War in America, the newly formed USA continued to take in German speaking immigrants at a high rate. The only lull in migration occurred between 1809 and 1815, likely because of the War of 1812 and related events.

Migrants often travelled from the southwestern German speaking regions to ports in the Netherlands and then to ports in England, entered the New World at Philadelphia, and settled in Pennsylvania, but having this exact experience in migration was not universal. Arriving in Philadelphia was most likely the most universal of these experiences, as “About 108,000 Germans arrived in [British North America] between 1720 and 1775, approximately 80,000 of them landing in Philadelphia.” However, landing in Philadelphia did not automatically mean settling in the city's direct vicinity. It is true that the radical pietists most often came from the southwest and landed in Philadelphia, with many founding Pennsylvanian communities such as Nazareth and Bethlehem. However, some radical pietist groups that landed in Philadelphia eventually had final destinations in places far away from Philadelphia. For example, some Moravians first moved to the group's Pennsylvanian communities before moving to the group's North Carolinian Community of Wachovia. The Moravians moved along the Great Wagon Road, a trail that was used also by many non-pietist immigrants in the settlement of a band of German and English speaking communities that stretched from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. Even though the German speaking world's southwest was a common area of emigration, this fact does not mean that no other emigrants from other regions of Europe left. The only two surviving firsthand accounts of immigrants who became indentured servants, for example, come from John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Büttner, both from the northeastern German speaking world. Approximately 28,000 German speaking immigrants to British North America did not enter the New World in Philadelphia. The approximatively 3,000 immigrants who came during the British resettlement program from 1709-1714 settled largely in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, with at least Christian Janzen's ship landing in Virginia before the passengers settled in North Carolina. Other German speaking settlements were started in Nova Scotia, South Carolina, Maine and Georgia, but the third largely failed and the fourth was largely abandoned by 1790.33 Even though a majority of German speaking immigrants had similar paths to their homes in the New World, there was more diversity in these paths than one would think.

Demographically, important distinctions in family structure and literacy are seen between German speaking immigrants and other immigrants to British North America from 1683-1820. First off, German immigrants came much more often as families instead of as single individuals. For example,“Fewer than 10 percent of English migrants to Pennsylvania were married persons or dependent children, whereas between 51 and 72 percent of German migrants to Pennsylvania were either married persons or dependent children.” During the largely radical pietist migrations that occurred before 1709, a staggering ratio of almost three women and children per man among immigrants was a reality. These statistics are not as surprising as they may seem, as the closeness of extended families that led to more community-driven rather than individual-driven migrations also led to the connections through letters that made more migrants leave Europe that have been already discussed. In fact, German families were often so close that emigrants would return to their native land to collect inheritances. Some solo emigrants, including Johann Carl Büttner, even immigrated back to their homelands to be with family. In addition to being family and community oriented, German speaking immigrants were more literate than their English counterparts. This is known because of records of male immigrants older than 15 signing loyalty oaths to the British Crown upon arrival to the New World. From 1730-1775, more than 50% of adult German speaking males that came to British North America each year were literate. From 1757 on, over 75% of the group was literate, and during certain years the number reached above 90%. Literacy played an important part in the lives of many German immigrants, including John Frederick Whitehead, who in addition to writing beautiful poems in his autobiography, states in his account of his life:“I found many books that were very entertaining...but [no books] seemed to draw my attention more than History and Geography. this was the first Spring that put me in motion to Travel and seek my fortune in the wide World.” It was not an uncommon experience for literacy to play a part in causing German immigration, as literate people could easily receive information about the New World relayed to them by recruiters or family members. Family and literacy were both highly valued by German speaking immigrants to British North America, and both were useful in leading to success for them in the New World.

German speaking immigrants faced both a wide variety of challenges and a wide variety of opportunities in reaching and settling in British North America, and therefore outcomes for migrants varied greatly. Illness was very common on ships that travelled from Europe to British North America, and migrants faced strains of diseases that they had never seen before when they crossed the Atlantic. Therefore, it is unsurprising that death rates among German speaking immigrants in their first year in Philadelphia sometimes were over twice as high as death rates for the population of Philadelphia as a whole. These deaths, of course, were much more important than just being statistics. The full scale of death in some immigrant communities is shown by Christian Janzen's frank remarks: “Brought here hale and hearty, the shoemaker Moritz did not die till he was on his farm. He was well on the whole journey. No one else of us Siebentaler people has died, but of the others though, three Palatines. Of the people among whom we live, however, a good many have died.” Janzen speaking of death so plainly reveals the ugly truth of how common peoples' passings were and how migrants had to become numb regarding death so they could keep their sanity. However, death was not the only obstacle that migrants faced. Sadly, the 1700's and early 1800's were times of bound labor and

“Roughly half of all Germans migrating to America between the 1740's and the 1820's could not pay their travel expenses before sailing and ended up paying part or all of these costs by selling their labor as indentured servants (bound contract laborers) upon arriving in America.” Only those who found rich family, rich friends or rich strangers who would pay for debts acquired in the passage across the Atlantic and the rich themselves were able to escape from this process, which was called “redemption”. These “redemptioners” faced years of unpaid and often hard labor, and some died during their terms of bondage. However, others like John Frederick Whitehead were freed and became tradespeople and eventually farmers. Unfortunately, illness, death, and bondage met many German speaking immigrant to British North America.

Many German speaking immigrants did have prosperous lives in British North America, and skills they acquired in their homelands as well as their strong communities helped them succeed. As the era of immigration continued, more and more German speaking immigrants became skilled craftsmen or professionals instead of farmers. Also, drastically few German speaking immigrants worked as low-skilled laborers as compared to English immigrants. Immigrants from the later part of the era discussed in this essay often brought their trades with them to America, and emigrated from Germany due to the perceived economic opportunity in the New World. The creation of stable community structures was also helpful in leading to the success of German speaking immigrants. Some immigrants helped maintain these structures or create new structures by presenting petitions and serving on committees that helped in the creation of new roads between German speaking communities. Others used German-language newspapers to perform community functions, as advertisements certain people put into the newspapers: “announced that one of their horses or cows had disappeared...warned the readers that their wife has run away and no one should lend her money on their account...inquired after family members with whom they had lost contact. Still others made up for the lack of clergy in the New World as laypeople, as they would build new churches, and they would form new church congregations. Some people even performed more than one of these community functions, which were essential in forming communities out of people from parts of German speaking world with different cultures and dialects. Some immigrants, like John Frederick Whitehead, were even in community with English settlers. German speaking migrants used skilled trades that they largely brought with them from their homelands to British North America to be successful financially, and they used their natural skills in community-building to be successful socially.

German speaking immigrants, in the long term, formed lasting ethnic communities that led to German-led political action in British North America and eventually much German cultural heritage in the American Republic. With a few exceptions, German speakers tended to settle with other German speakers, regardless of where in the German speaking world they came from, and this settlement pattern makes sense: “The desire to be near other people...who, compared to the English, Irish, and others, appeared to have similar customs and ways of life, should not be overlooked as a factor shaping how and where Germans settled.” In fact, only nine municipalities in Pennsylvania had over 100 German speaking immigrants residing in them that were naturalized between 1761-1765, while around half of all municipalities had five or fewer migrants naturalized during the same period. Therefore, it makes sense that German speaking immigrants often married other German speakers, as they built their social lives around the people that they lived with. Also because of the settlement patterns of German speaking immigrants, in 1790 the German language and German churches still remained popular among Americans with German heritage. The fact that German-speakers lived together led them to have similar political viewpoints, and therefore led to their collective political action. As citizenship is required for voting, “In late September and early October 1765...More than 2,600 German speaking immigrants from near and far descended on [Philadelphia] to be naturalized.” The issues that caused this particular group of Germans (who had lived in Pennsylvania for an average of 13 years) to seek naturalization were land ownership and property rights, which Thomas Penn and his allies seemed to be promoting, and the British Parliament and its allies seemed to be limiting. Therefore, after being naturalized, the German-speakers voted in droves for Penn's allies in assembly elections because they wanted to protect their land and property. Lasting ethnic communities and mass ethnicity-based political action were two long-term effects of German speaking immigration to British North America.

Varying waves of German speaking migrants, who entered in places across British North America and the American Republic from 1683-1820, came to the New World because of perceived opportunity there and social, economic, agricultural, and political pressure and strife in their homeland. Many of these migrants were successful in the dangerous life in the New World, as they worked in creating communities with others and they used their skills acquired in their homeland. If you can claim German heritage, but have deep-rooted family history in the USA, take some time to think about and research the experiences of the brave German speaking migrants who came to the colonies and early USA.

Annotated Bibliography

Büttner, Johann C. Narrative of Johann Carl Büttner in the American Revolution. In Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America. Edited by Susan E Klepp, Farely Grubb, Anne P. De Ortiz. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006.

49 Pages. This source is one of two autobiographies of German immigrants who became indentured servants included in Souls for Sale.

Fogleman, Aaron. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

258 Pages. This source describes both the reasons that Germans left their homeland during this period (such as democratic change and the rising power of aristocrats), and the resulting communities they created in America. It includes sections about community structure, radical pietists, and German immigrants and politics. Aaron Fogleman is a Professor of studies about Early America and the Atlantic World at the University of Northern Illinois. He received a Ph.D. From the University of Michigan, and he has written various books and articles dealing with Early America.

Grubb, Farley. “German Immigration to Pennsylvania, 1709 to 1820.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20 (1990): 417-36. Accessed February 13, 2017. https://www.jstor.org/stable/204085? seq=10#page_scan_tab_contents.

20 Pages. This source describes social statistics regarding German immigrants arriving in Pennsylvania, including their ages, average literacy rate, occupations, and family compositions. These statistics are expressed through many charts. The source ties these statistics in with reasons for immigration and the results of immigration. Farley Grubb is a Professor of Economics at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware.

Häberlein, Mark. “Communication and Group Interaction Among German Migrants to Colonial Pennsylvania: The Case of Baden-Durlach.” In In Search of Peace and Prosperity: New Settlements in Eighteenth-Century Europe and North America. Edited by Hartmut Lehmann, Hermann Wellenreuther, Renate Wilson, John B. Frantz, Carola Wessel. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2000.

16 Pages. This source is an essay about German emigration to America from an area called Baden-Durlach in the 1700's. The essay focuses on how emigrants recruited others to emigrate and how immigrants built community in their homes in the New World. All of the editors are University Professors in either Germany or the USA.

Janzen, Christen. “Letter from Christen Janzen to unnamed recipients, 30 April 1711.” Letter. Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards and Broughton Printing Co, 1920. Christoph von Graffenried's Account of the Founding of New Bern. Web, http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-colonial/1902

(accessed February 13, 2017).

3 Pages. This primary source is a letter sent back home from a German immigrant in North Carolina. It describes the voyage to America and the conditions in America, which were both dangerous due to disease and full of opportunities in farming. The source comes from a digital textbook about North Carolina's history, and was first published as part of an account about the founding of a community in the state.

Klepp, Susan E, Farely Grubb, Anne P. De Ortiz, ed. Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006.

95 Pages. This source contains backgrounds information that supplements two autobiographies of German immigrants. Both of the immigrants came as young men to America on the same ship. Both of the men came as indentured servants, but they had diverging backgrounds and experiences in America. The editors (who wrote the background information as well) of the source are two University Professors and one independent researcher.

McDaniel, Marie B. “Divergent Paths: Processes of Identity Formation Among German Speakers, 1730–1760”. In A Peculiar Mixture: German-Language Cultures and Identities in Eighteenth- Century North America. Edited by Jan Steivermann, Oliver Scheiding. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2013.

23 Pages. This source is an essay about the culture of German immigrants in the Middle Colonies from 1730-1760. It helps emphasize the theme of the collection of essays: how Germans contributed to the “peculiar mixture” of cultures in America that was a “web of contact zones” and not a single entity. Both of the editors of the source are Professors at German Universities.

Whitehead, John F. The Life of John Frederick Whitehead Containing His Travels and Chief Adventures. In Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America. Edited by Susan E Klepp, Farely Grubb, Anne P. De Ortiz. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006.

118 Pages. This is one of two autobiographies of German immigrants who became indentured servants included in Souls for Sale.

Wokeck, Marianne. “The Flow and the Composition of German Immigration to Philadelphia, 1727- 1775.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 105 (1981): 249-78. Accessed February 13, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20091588loggedin=true&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

30 Pages. This source discusses German immigration through Philadelphia, which was a main point of entry for Germans into the colonies. The source includes charts that show the numbers and status' as men or women/children of German passengers on ships that came to Philadelphia between 1683-1785. The source then explains how the statistics that come out of the charts can be used in the overall study of German immigration in the time period. Marianne Wokeck is a Professor of History at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She received her Ph.D. from Temple University, and she has written or edited multiple publications.