Report of the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland

width="807" STYLE="position: relative; left: auto; top: auto;">

THE GERMAN AMERICANS: IMMIGRATION

AND INTEGRATION

By DIETER CUNZ¹

In 1507, a German cartographer

Martin Waldseemüller having just

completed a map of the then known

world and looking at the great un-

explored land behind the West Indian

islands wrote into this vast, white

space the word "America," to honor

the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

Martin Waldseemüller named the

continent which was to evoke the

greatest migration of nations known

in history.

In the centuries after this baptism

of a continent millions of Germans

decided to leave their country. When

they looked over their maps, their

eyes would stop at the country, which

more and more showed signs of carto-

graphical animation, whose map pre-

sented with each successive edition

more names, lines and dots, and from

which they had received encouraging

if not luring reports of friends who

had gone there before. Millions

packed their belongings, sailed down

the Rhine or the Elbe and started

out for the adventurous and trying

voyage to a new home.

I. SETTLERS AND IMMIGRANTS

When did the first Germans come

to America? The Germans had no

seafaring tradition; they did not take

part in the first explorations of the

continent; in fact, they cannot even

claim the legendary German sailor in

Columbus' crew. Some of the acts of

naturalization show that there were

individual Germans in the colonies in

the first half of the seventeenth cen-

tury. One of the first outstanding

Germans was John Lederer from

Hamburg who wrote his record into

early American history by exploring

the Alleghany regions of Virginia and

the Carolinas, and who later gained

a great reputation as a physician in

New England. This happened around

1670. Towards the end of the 17th

century, Jakob Leisler from Frank-

furt was the leader of a revolt against

a suppressive regime in the City of

New York.

However, the history of the Ger-

mans in America is not the story of

individuals, but the history of a mass

movement. This history began on

October 6, 1683 when the ship Con-

cord landed in Philadelphia, disem-

barking thirteen German families,

weavers from Krefeld who had come

to the New World with the professed

desire "to lead a quiet, godly and

honest life." The day of the arrival

of the Concord (often called the May-

flower of German immigrants) is con-

sidered by the German Americans as

marking the beginning of their his-

tory. This first group settled six miles

outside Philadelphia (today within

the city limits) and called their settle-

ment Germantown. The leader of the

group was Franz Daniel Pastorius, a

man of unusually broad education

and marked literary ability. For

many years he served as burgomaster

and town clerk of Germantown and

was the driving spirit in its public

affairs and educational matters. His

reports on the general conditions in

The greater part of this article was published previously as a contribution to a cooperative volume

One America, The History, Contributions, and Present Problems of Our Racial and National Minorities,

(New York, Prentice Hall, Inc., Third Edition, 1952), edited by Francis J. Brown and Joseph S. Roucek. We

wish to express our appreciation to publisher and editors for their permission to reprint this article here.—

The author wants to acknowledge his indebtedness to the writings of the four scholars who have made most

outstanding contributions to German American historiography and whose writings were most helpful in the

preparation of this article: the late Albert B. Faust of Cornell University, John A. Hawgood of the

University of Birmingham, Carl Wittke of Western Reserve University and A. E. Zucker of the University

of Maryland.

[29]

Pennsylvania which he sent home to

his father in Frankfurt represent a

valuable source for the history of the

early colonies.

The real mass migration started

around 1710, and it came primarily

from the Southwestern part of Ger-

many, particularly the so-called Pala-

tinate. Economic, political and re-

ligious reasons caused this exodus.

Between 1710 and 1720 about 3000

Germans settled in the present state

of New York. In sentimental attach-

ment to their old sovereign the Duke

of Pfalz-Neuburg (who had, however,

mistreated and exploited them when-

ever possible) they named their first

settlement Newburgh. The majority

of the Germans in New York settled

along the Schoharie and Mohawk

Rivers. Place names like New Paltz,

Rhinebeck, Oppenheim, Frankfort,

Herkimer still testify to the proveni-

ence of these early German settlers.

These Germans living along the

frontier were noted for the peaceful

relations they maintained with the

Indians. One of them, Conrad Weiser,

practically grew up with an Indian

tribe.² He spoke several Indian dia-

lects and knew their mentality so well

that the authorities employed him

repeatedly as a very skillful negotiator

in Indian affairs.

Unfortunately there was from the

beginning some tension between the

Germans and the New York authori-

ties. The friction grew to such an

extent that finally quite a number of

the settlers in the Mohawk valley

moved south to Pennsylvania which

during the entire eighteenth century

was the center of German immigra-

tion. Pennsylvania attracted the

greatest number of German new-

comers. They concentrated particu-

larly in the Southeastern part of the

state, in such counties as Lehigh,

Montgomery, Berks, Chester, Lan-

caster, York—the region which to the

present day is called the "Pennsyl-

vania Dutch" country.³ Folklorists

are divided into two feuding schools

of thought whether these people

should be called the Pennsylvania

Dutch or the Pennsylvania Germans.

Yet there is general agreement that

they were the best farmers of early

America and that their progressive

farming methods over two centuries

have made the soil more and more

fertile. The Pennsylvania Germans

retained stubbornly their old folk-

ways and customs. They even pre-

served in the midst of an English-

speaking country their peculiar Penn-

sylvania Dutch language, the dialect

of the Palatinate with naturally a

considerable admixture of English

words. In spite of this apparent re-

sistance to integration, the Pennsyl-

vania Germans belong into the pic-

ture of American history as much as

the New England Yankees, the Span-

ish in Florida or the French in

Louisiana.

During the eighteenth century the

American colonies between the Hud-

son and the Potomac (today often

called the Middle Atlantic states)

received the strongest influx of Ger-

man immigrants. Whereas New Eng-

land and the South were character-

ized through a distinct British texture,

the Hudson-Potomac section soon be-

gan to represent "that composite

nationality which the contemporary

United States exhibits, that juxta-

position of non-English groups." (F.

J. Turner) . The very presence of the

Germans helped to evolve the demo-

cratic system which has been the

basis of the country throughout its

history. The German immigrants

were the largest group of non-English

speaking settlers. None of them be-

longed to the official Anglican church;

thousands of them were sectarians.

The first in these states could live

with the newcomers only if this " New

World" was based on the funda-

ments of political and religious toler-

Paul A. W. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, 1696, Friend of Colonists and Mohawks, (Philadelphia, Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1945). Arthur D. Graeff, Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania Peacemaker, (Allentown,

Pa., Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, 1945).

Ralph Wood (ed.), The Pennsylvania Germans, (Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, 1942).

Fredric Klees, The Pennsylvania Dutch, (New York, MacMillan, 1950). See also the serial publications of

the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society.

[30]

ance. This society could exist only if

the settled majority would volun-

tarily established the rights of the

minority. To be sure, the Germans

were not very active in politics, but

through their mere presence they

contributed to the development of the

principles of American democracy.

From the original German popula-

tion reservoir in Southeastern Penn-

sylvania German farmers soon spread

out over the neighboring states.

Through careful estimates, we know

that on the eve of the American Rev-

olution there were a little more than

100,000 Germans in Pennsylvania,

that is to say, about one third of the

Pennsylvania population. Thousands

moved on to New Jersey, Delaware,

Maryland and Virginia. In Maryland

they deserve special credit for open-

ing the hinterland, for developing

grain production in a colony which so

far had a dangerously lopsided to-

bacco economy.

The Germans, com-

ing from Pennsylvania and moving

through "Western Maryland, pushed

forward through the Shenandoah Val-

ley in Virginia and they extended this

long wedge of German farmers along

the Alleghany mountains down into

the Carolinas.

It is no coincidence

that the German word "hinterland"

was adopted by the American lan-

guage. In most of the Atlantic states

the Germans settled not in the sea-

shore counties, but in the backwoods,

in the hinterland.

At the same time while the land

along the mountain range received

this influx of Pennsylvania German

stock, there was also immigration

coming directly from Germany.

Thousands of German immigrants

landed in Annapolis and from there

went to Baltimore or the Western

Maryland counties. In the South,

Charleston, S. C. became the distrib-

uting center of the new arrivals from

Central Europe. In North Carolina

Swiss and German settlers founded

New Bern. In the interior the Mora-

vians (in spite of this name a pre-

dominantly German sect, led to

America by the Silesian Count Zin-

zendorf) founded the colony of

Winston-Salem.

Bethlehem, Penn-

sylvania became the other center of

the Mährische Brüder (Moravian

Brethren). Their special contribution

to American culture consists in their

beautiful church music. The southern-

most German settlement in colonial

times was Ebenzer, Georgia, founded

by Protestant refugees from Salzburg

who became noted for their attempts

in the rearing of silkworms and the

manufacture of silk.

After the American Revolution the

German settlers participated in the

opening of the Transalleghany coun-

try; they pushed forward into Ken-

tucky and Tennessee and they spread

north over Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

David Zeisberger and his Moravian

missionaries converted the Indians in

the Eastern part of Ohio and estab-

lished settlements in Schönbrunn and

Gnadenhütten. Cincinnati and St.

Louis became the rallying points for

German immigrants to all the Central

states.

The first great wave of German

immigrants starting around 1710

came to an end at the time of the

Revolutionary War. A second wave

began after the Napoleonic wars,

around 1825. The first wave had been

absorbed by the Atlantic states; the

second wave went into the Midwest-

ern states, following the valleys of the

Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi.

"Whereas in the East the Germans

had come into established political

set-ups, in the Midwest their arrival

coincided with the civic and political

organization of the territories. In the

Midwestern states north of the Ohio

and east of the Mississippi the Ger-

mans constituted one of the basic

Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans, A History, (Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, 1948).

John W. Wayland, The German Element in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, (Charlottesville, Va.,

The author, 1907). Hermann Schuricht, History of the German Element in Virginia, (Baltimore, Society

for the History of the Germans in Maryland, 1898-1900).

Adelaide L. Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, (Raleigh, N. C., Edward & Brough-

ton, 1922-1947). A. L. Fries, The Road to Salem, (Chapel Hill, N. C., University of North Carolina

Press, 1944).

[31]

population elements in its significance

comparable only to Pennsylvania and

Maryland in the seaboard states.

Wisconsin often has been called

"the" German state of the Union;

Milwaukee kept its distinct German

traits longer than any other American

city. Up to the present time there is

something like an irregularly shaped

"German quadrangle" on the map of

the United States, within the lines

New York—Minneapolis—St. Louis

—Baltimore. The Census of 1900

(taken at a time when the wave of

German immigration began to recede)

shows that of the fifteen cities with

the greatest percentage of German-

born, fourteen would be situated

within this "German quadrangle."

In the order of the size of the German

population they were: New York,

Chicago, Ph