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Okla-homey
10/6/2009, 06:02 AM
October 6, 1683: Germans arrive in America

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German Flyer promoting American emigration

Encouraged by William Penn's offer of 5,000 acres of land in the colony of Pennsylvania and the freedom to practice their religion, a group of German Mennonites arrive in America on this day in 1683 aboard the Concord. They were among the first Germans to settle in the American colonies.

The Mennonites, members of a Protestant sect founded by Menno Simons in the 16th century, were widely persecuted in Europe.

Seeking religious freedom, Mennonite Francis Daniel Pastorious led a group from Krefeld, Germany, to Pennsylvania in 1683 and founded Germantown, the pioneer German settlement in America and now part of the city of Philadelphia.

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Pastorius monument in Philadelphia

Pastorius was trained in law in Germany in the middle of the seventeenth century, then came to Pennsylvania and served as a judge, teacher, and farmer. He wrote a lot--about religion, law, horticulture, medicine, and about the settlement of Pennsylvania, too. Most of what he wrote has never been published, although a textbook for his students was published in the 1690s and a volume of letters home to Germany was published at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

He wrote what I think is the first legal treatise in British North America--the Young Country Clerk's Collection. It's essentially a form book, with everything from forms for sale of goods, to wills, land transactions, trusts, and partnerships, and forms for criminal prosecution, too. At least if a legal treatise was written in British North America before the Young Country Clerk's Collection I haven't yet heard of it.

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Pastorius home in Philadelphia

Numerous other German groups followed, and by the American Revolution there were 100,000 Germans in William Penn's former colony, more than a third of Pennsylvania's total population at the time.

It should also be noted, the term "Pennsylvania Dutch" is actually an anglicized corruption of "Pennsylvania Deutsch." Deutsch is the German word for "German," thus, folks called Pennsylvania Dutch weren't originally from Holland, they were German.

swardboy
10/6/2009, 08:10 AM
The amount of religious toleration was astounding in the colonies, given the times. Now, witches, not so much....but we are blessed that no one religious movement was established as the "official" church. America was/is truly an anomaly in that regard.

Lott's Bandana
10/6/2009, 08:35 AM
My antecedent arrived in 1760 and founded dozens of Lutheran Churches throughout PA and NJ...about 7 of which are still active.

Germans are by far the largest group of immigrants in our country, from one country, according to the US Census Bureau. (African-Americans are 2nd, however the Bureau combines that ethnicity into one group because of an obvious widespread lack of country-of-origin history)

I've always thought that without the two 20th century World Wars (a small matter, heh), there would be a more predominant German influence in our culture, i.e....more Bier!

Danke Homey.