Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775

272 Pages·1996·13.727 MB·English

by  Aaron Spencer Fogleman

Hopeful Journeys
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
RICHARD S. DUNN,
Director, McNeil Center for Early American Studies,
Series Editor
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Hopeful Journeys
German Immigration, Settlement,
and Political Culture in Colonial America,
1717-1775
AARON SPENCER FOGLEMAN
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Hopeful Journeys has been selected by the Pennsylvania German Society as
its 1996 annual publication, Volume XXX.
Table Li is reprinted from The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 22 (1992), 698, with the
permission of the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History and the MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass. © 1992 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History.
Copyright © 1996 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fogleman, Aaron Spencer.
Hopeful journeys : German immigration, settlement, and political culture in colonial
America, 1717-1775 / Aaron Spencer Fogleman.
p. cm. — (Early American studies)
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)—University of Michigan, 1991.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8122-3309-3 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8122-1548-6 (paper : alk. paper)
i. German Americans—History —18th century. 2. Immigrants—United States—
History — i8th century. 3. United States—Emigration and immigration—History — i8th
century. 4. Germany—Emigration and immigration—History—i8th century. I. Title.
II. Series.
EI84.G3F724 1996
305.83'i073'o9033—dc20 95-43562
CIP
Contents
List of Tables and Graphs vii
List of Maps ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: An Immigrant Society 1
Part One The World They Left Behind 13
Chapter 1. A Changing World and the Lure from Abroad 15
Recovery and Reconstruction 18 18
Demographic Pressure, Scarcity, and Emigration 23
Destinations 28
Chapter 2. Peasant Communities and Peasant Migrations 36 36
The Case of the Northern Kraichgau 39
Aristocratic Resurgence and Peasant Resistance 42
Village Boundaries and Overcrowding 51 51
Family and Village Migrations 60
Part Two Neuland 67 67
Chapter 3. Community, Settlement, and Mobility
in Greater Pennsylvania 69
Community 71 71
Ethnic Settlements 80 80
The Role of the Church 86
Stable Ethnics 93
vi vi Contents
Chapter 4. The Radical Pietist Alternative 100
Radical Pietist Migrations 101
The Case of the Moravians 107
Migration and the Moravian Community 113 113
Chapter 5. Germans in the Streets: The Development
of German Political Culture in Pennsylvania 127
Germans and Pennsylvania Politics 131
Thomas Perm and the Germans 135
German Political Interests 139
Penn's New Policy and the German Response 142
Chapter 6. The Structuring of a Multi-Ethnic Society 149
Appendices 155
1 Methods and Sources Used for Demographic Calculations
in the Thirteen Colonies 155
2 Volume and Timing of Legal Emigrations from Southwest
Germany, 1687-1804 163
3 Statistics for the Fifty-three Parishes Making Up the
Northern Kraichgau Cohort of Emigrants to Pennsylvania,
1717-1775 165
4 European Origins of German-Speaking, Radical Pietist
Immigrants in Colonial America 168
5 German-Speaking Immigrants Eligible for Naturalization 173
Notes 175
Bibliography 217
Index of Immigrants and Villagers 237
General Index 239
List of Tables and Graphs
TABLES
I.i Estimated Decennial Immigration by Ethnic Gipup into
the Thirteen Colonies, 1700-1775 2
1.1 Inheritance Customs by Level of Emigration from
Southern Baden Parishes during the Eighteenth Century 27
1.2 Emigration to America as a Percentage of Total
Emigration from Four Select Regions of Southwest
Germany in the Eighteenth Century 32
2.1 Emigration to North America by Year from Six Sample
Parishes in the Northern Kraichgau, 1709-1775 62
2.2 Tendencies of Emigrants from the Six Sample Parishes in
the Northern Kraichgau to Travel to Pennsylvania with
Residents of the Same Parish, 1717-1775 64
2.3 Emigration from Schwaigern to Pennsylvania by
Number in Family, 1713-1775 65
3.1 The Index of Dissimilarity: Ethnic Segregation in
Pennsylvania by County in 1790 82
3.2 Ethnic Segregation in New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland by County in 1790 for
Selected Ethnic Groups 83
3.3 German Reformed and Lutheran Churches in Greater
Pennsylvania, 1776 89
3.4 Mobility of German Immigrants in Pennsylvania by
Religious Group (1717-1775), Compared to Pre-i650
New England Immigrants 95
4.1 German-Speaking Radical Pietist Immigration into the
Thirteen Colonies 103
4.2 Immigration of German-Speaking Radical Pietists into
the Thirteen Colonies by Year, 1717-1775 104
4.3 Moravian Immigration into Wachovia, 1753-1771 121
5.1 Naturalizations by Ethnic Group in the Thirteen
Colonies during the Eighteenth Century 133
viii Tables and Graphs
5.2 Naturalizations in Colonial Pennsylvania by Act of
Assembly or Act of Parliament 137
5.3 Penn Family Income in Pounds Sterling from Land Sales,
Interest, and Quitrents for Their Lands in New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, 1701-1778 147
A.I Immigration Index in the United States in Selected
Forty-Year Intervals 156
A.2 Recent Immigrants as a Proportion of the Total
Population in Colonial America, 1700-1775 157
A. 3 Percentage of the Population of the Thirteen Colonies
in 1775 Who Were Immigrants or Descendants of
Eighteenth-Century Immigrants 158
GRAPHS
i.i Legal Emigration of Families (not Persons) from Baden
and the Breisgau, the Lower Neckar, the Bishopric of
Speyer, and the Territories of the Imperial City of Ulm,
1687-1804 26
5.1 Naturalizations and German Immigration in
Pennsylvania, 1740-1775 134
6.1 Percentage of Pennsylvania Assemblymen of German
or Swiss Ethnic Background, 1755-1779 151
List of Maps
I.i Principal Locations of German Settlement in the
Thirteen Colonies, circa 1760 7
i.i Principal Areas of Emigration from German-Speaking
Europe in the Eighteenth Century 17
2.1 Northern Kraichgau Parishes Investigated in This Study 40
2.2 The Parish of Schwaigern in the Northern Kraichgau:
Old Boundaries 57
3. i Township of Residence of German Immigrants Who
Were Naturalized in Pennsylvania by the Terms of the
1740 Act of Parliament, 1761-1765 84
3.2 Pennsylvania Townships with Lutheran and German
Reformed Churches Established before 1748 91
4.1 German Radical Pietist Immigrant Congregations in
Colonial Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland 106
4.2 Moravian Communities in Greater Pennsylvania 118
4.3 The Primary Moravian Migration Route from
Pennsylvania to North Carolina 123