33. Early Germans in America.--In the Colonial days, next to the
English, the Germans were foremost in settling and developing our
country. Long before the Puritans thought of emigrating to America,
Germans had landed in various parts of the New World. As early as 1538,
J. Cromberger established a printing-office in the City of Mexico, from
which he issued numerous books. From 1528 to 1546 German explorers came
to Venezuela also with a printing-press and with fifty miners to explore
the mountains. A number of German craftsmen accompanied the first
English settlers who came with Captain John Smith to Virginia. Soon
after Henry Hudson had discovered the river which bears his name,
Christiansen, a German, became the explorer of that stream. He also
built the first homes on Manhattan Island, 1613, and laid the
foundations of New Amsterdam and Fort Nassau, the present cities of New
York and Albany. Peter Minuit (Minnewit), the first Director-General of
New Netherland, was also a German, born in Wesel, on the lower Rhine.
He arrived in New Amsterdam on May 4, 1626, and one of his first acts
was the purchase of Manhattan Island, 22,000 acres, from the Indians
for trinkets valued at $24. He remained at his post till 1631, when he,
soon after, became the founder and first director of New Sweden, at the
mouth of the Delaware River. He lost his life in the West Indies during
a hurricane. His successor in New Sweden was another German, Printz von
Buchau, during whose regime, from 1643 to 1654, the colony became very
successful and thereby aroused the jealousy of the Dutch, who, while
Buchau was on a trip to Europe, attacked the colony and annexed it to
New Netherland. When New Netherland, in 1664, fell a prey to the
English, the colony had among its citizens numerous Germans, most of
them Lutherans. A native of Hamburg, Nicholaus de Meyer, became
burgomaster of New York in 1676. Another German, Augustin Herrman, made
the first reliable maps of Maryland and Virginia. J. Lederer, a young
German scholar, who came to Jamestown in 1668, was the first to explore
Virginia and part of South Carolina. Lederer's itinerary, written in
Latin, was translated by Governor Talbot of Maryland into English and
published 1672 in London; etc. However, it was at Germantown, at
present a suburb of Philadelphia, that Germans broke ground for the
first permanent German settlement in North America. A group of
Mennonites, 33 persons, landed October 6, 1683. They were received by
William Penn and Franz Daniel Pastorius, a young lawyer from Frankfort
on the Main. In Germantown Gerhard Henkel preached before 1726, and St.
Michael's Church was begun 1730 and dedicated by the Swede J. Dylander
in 1737. Pastorius had landed in America with several families on
August 20 of the same year in advance of the Mennonite emigrants, in
order to prepare for their arrival. The official seal of Germantown
bore the inscription: "Vinum, Linum et Textrinum," the culture of
grapes, flax-growing, and the textile industries being the principal
occupations of the colony. In 1690 W. Rittenhaus established in
Germantown the first paper-mill in America. Here also Christopher Sauer,
a native of Westphalia, published the first newspaper in German type,
and in 1743 the first German Bible, antedating, by forty years, the
printing of any other Bible in America. The Germans in the cloister
Ephrata, Pa., established by the Tunker, or Dunkards, also owned a
printing-press, a paper-mill, and a bookbindery. They published, in
1749, the _Maertyrer-Spiegel_, a folio of 1514 pages, the greatest
literary undertaking of the American Colonies. To the Germans enumerated
must be added the German Reformed; the Moravians, who founded Bethlehem
and Nazareth in Pennsylvania; the Salzburgers in Georgia; the Palatines
in New York; etc. And what may be said of Germantown, is true also with
regard to Philadelphia. June 6, 1734, Baron von Reck wrote concerning
the conglomerate community of this city: "It is an abode of all
religions and sects, Lutherans, Reformed, Episcopalians, Presbyterians,
Catholics, Quakers, Dunkards, Mennonites, Sabbatarians, Seventh-day
Baptists, Separatists, Boehmists, Schwenkfeldians, Tuchfelder,
Wohlwuenscher, Jews, heathen, etc." (Jacobs, 191.) Concerning the
thrifty character and all-round good citizenship of the German
immigrants in Pennsylvania generally, McMaster remarks: "Wherever a
German farmer lived, there were industry, order, and thrift. The size of
the barns, the height the fences, the well-kept wheat fields and
orchards, marked off the domain of such farmer from the lands of his
shiftless Irish neighbor." "They were," says Scharf in his _History of
Maryland_, 2, 423, "an industrious, frugal, temperate people, tilling
their farms, accustomed to conflict with savage and other enemies on
the border, and distinguished for their bold and independent spirit."
(Jacobs, 235.) Also in the cause of liberty and humanity the German
immigrants in America stood in the front ranks.
34. First Anti-Slavery Declaration in America.--The importation of
negro slaves to America was practised by the English and Dutch since the
sixteenth century, without disapproval on the part of the Puritans and
Quakers, who boasted of being the fathers of liberty and the defenders
of human rights. The inhabitants of Germantown, led by Pastorius, were
the first to draw up, on February 18, 1688, a protest against this trade
in human flesh and blood. The remarkable document, addressed to the
meeting of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, reads as follows: "This is to ye
Monthly Meeting held at Richard Warrel's. These are the reasons why we
are against the traffick of men Body, as followeth: Is there any that
would be done or handled at this manner? to be sold or made a slave for
all the time of his life? How fearful and fainthearted are many on sea
when they see a strange vessel, being afraid it should be a Turk, and
they should be taken and sold for slaves into Turckey. Now what is this
better done as Turcks doe? Yea rather is it worse for them, which say
they are Christians; for we hear that ye most part of such Negers are
brought hither against their will and consent; and that many of them are
stollen. Now, tho' they are black, we cannot conceive there is more
liberty to have them slaves, as it is to have other white ones. There is
a saying, that we shall doe to all men, like as we will be done our
selves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they
are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase
them, are they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience, which is
right and reasonable; here ought to be likewise liberty of ye body,
except of evildoers which is another case. But to bring men hither, or
to robb and sell them against their will, we stand against. In Europe
there are many oppressed for conscience sake; and here there are those
oppressed which are of a black colour. And we, who know that men must
not commit adultery, some doe commit adultery in others, separating
wifes from their husbands and giving them to others; and some sell the
children of those poor creatures to other men. Oh! doe consider well
this things, you who doe it; if you would be done at this manner? and if
it is done according to Christianity? You surpass Holland and Germany in
this thing. This makes an ill report in all those countries of Europe,
where they hear off, that ye Quackers doe here handel men like they
handel there ye cattel. And for that reason some have no mind or
inclination to come hither, and who shall maintaine this your cause or
plaid for it? Truly we can not do so, except you shall inform us better
hereoff, that Christians have liberty to practise this things. Pray!
What thing on the world can be done worse towards us, then if men should
robb or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries,
separating housbands from their wifes and children. Being now this is
not done at that manner, we will be done at, therefore we contradict and
are against this traffick of menbody. And we who profess that it is not
lawful to steal, must likewise avoid to purchase such are stollen but
rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possible; and such men
ought to be delivered out of ye hands of ye Robbers and sett free as
well as in Europe. Then is Pennsylvania to have a good report, instead
it hath now a bad one for this sacke in other countries. Especially
whereas ye Europeans are desirous to know in what manner ye Quackers doe
rule in their Province; and most of them doe look upon us with an
envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is done evill?
If once these slaves (which they say are so wicked and stubborn men)
should joint themselves, fight for their freedom and handel their
masters and mastrisses as they did handel them before, will these
masters and mastrisses tacke the sword at hand and warr against these
poor slaves, like we are able to believe, some will not refuse to doe?
Or have these Negers not as much right to fight for their freedom, as
you have to keep them slaves? Now consider well this thing, if it is
good or bad? and in case you find it to be good to handel these blacks
at that manner, we desire and require you hereby lovingly, that you may
inform us here in, which at this time never was done, that Christians
have such a liberty to do so, to the end we shall be satisfied in this
point, and satisfie lickewise our good friends and acquaintances in our
natif country, to whose it is a terrour or fairfull thing that men
should be handeld so in Pennsylvania. This is from our Meeting at
Germantown held ye 18. of the 2. month 1688, to be delivered to the
monthly meeting at Richard Warrel's. gerret hendericks derick op de
graeff Francis Daniell Pastorius Abraham op Den graeff." (Cronau,
_German Achievements_, 20.) This protest was submitted at several
meetings of the Quakers. But it was not before 1711 that the Quakers
introduced "an act to prevent the importation of Negroes and Indians
into the province," and still later that they declared against
slave-trading. Also the Salzburgers in Georgia were opposed to slavery,
though Bolzius himself was compelled to buy slaves on account of the
lack of white laborers. The Germans also were first and most emphatic
in condemning the cruelties connected with the "white slavery" of the
so-called Redemptioners.