German Immigration to America

By Stephen Szabados

If you are researching your German family history, this book is a must-read. The book should help you answer the questions, why did our German ancestors immigrate; when did they leave; how did they get here; where did they settle? It includes descriptions of many aspects of German history that effected immigration to America, and the material should give you vital insights into your ancestors' immigration. Remember that each immigrant has a unique story, and it is our challenge to dig out as many details of their immigration saga as we can when doing our family history research.I am sure this book will help point the way to many exciting stories about your family history. The stories will help your ancestors come alive. Our immigrant ancestors are the foundation of our roots in the United States. Our lives would be much different if they did not endure the challenges of emigration from Germany. Do not underestimate their contributions. They played a critical role in factories and farms in the United States. Their lives were building blocks in the growth of their new country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Szabados
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201400033

Stephen Szabados

Steve Szabados grew up in Central Illinois and is a retired project manager living in the Chicago Suburbs. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and a Masters in Business Administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. Steve Szabados is an author and lecturer on genealogy. He has been researching his ancestors since 2000 and has traced ancestors back to the 1600s in New England, Virgina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and the 1730’s in Poland, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia. He has given numerous presentations to genealogical groups and libraries in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. His mission is to share his passion for Family History with as many people as he can. He is a former board member of Polish Genealogical Society of America, and he is a genealogy volunteer at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Steve also is the genealogy columnist for the Polish American Journal.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: Why They Immigrated

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Germans were among the early European settlers in America. They arrived at Jamestown in 1608 as part of the group of craftsmen who the Virginia Company recruited to produce goods for export back to Europe. Glassware and wooden clapboard siding were some of the first products these craftsmen sent back to England.

The Germans in the colonies remained a small group until the 1670s when significant groups of German immigrants began fleeing religious persecution and economic problems in Germany. This wave of immigrants began settling in Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia. They arrived in the British colonies seeking religious tolerance and a better life. German immigration continued into the 19th century, as over seven and a half million German immigrants arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1870. The 2010 U.S. Census estimated 49.8 million people were of German descent[1] , and German Americans comprise the largest ethnic group of America's population. 

When did your German ancestors immigrate, where did they leave their homeland, why did they leave, how did they get here? The answers to these questions differ depending upon when they left.

Also remember, the early German immigrants were followed by their friends and relatives who were encouraged by letters home and the promise of a better life somewhere other than Germany. The reasons for their emigration were diverse and varied over the generations. Most had multiple reasons for leaving.  Poverty was high on the list of reasons to leave for many. However, the effects of the Thirty Year's War, religious persecution, high taxation, required military service, and over-population were also on many lists of those who emigrated.

Immigration during the 1600s

The first significant groups of German immigrants fled Germany due to the effects of the religious wars, which ended in 1648. Most were from various religious sects who were persecuted by the rulers in their areas. They were Lutheran, German Reformed, Quakers, German Baptists, along with small denominations such as Moravians, Amish, and Mennonites.

An examination of reasons for German immigration to America starts with a discussion of the causes and effects of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther protested the tremendous wealth and political power that the bishops and popes of the Roman Catholic Church had in Europe in the years leading up to the 1500s. His protest unleashed the spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction throughout Europe and especially in Germany.[2] Luther's posting of his ninety-five propositions led to protests by the people against the authority of the Catholic Church[3] and also against Luther's teachings. More Protestant denominations formed because many of Luther's original supporters began to differ with him on essential points.[4]

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The new beliefs spread quickly throughout Germany and adjoining countries. Many Catholic rulers began to persecute followers of the new religions, which led to a series of wars that started with the Peasants' War of 1524-1525 and lasted through the Thirty-years' War (1618-1648). Catholics and Protestants were subject to expulsion, execution, and torture, depending on what religion was practiced by their ruler. The large Protestant churches were often just as intolerant of smaller sects as the Catholics were of all Protestant groups.[5]

The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 brought an agreement that Catholic and Lutheran rulers could require their subjects to be of the same religion. However, this peace was broken many times and led to frequent changes in the faith imposed on the people because successive rulers may have different beliefs than their predecessors. The people in the Palatinate and surrounding areas seemed to suffer the most because it had a more mixed Lutheran-Reformed-Catholic population than most other areas. It was not until the end of the Thirty-years' War in 1648 that Reformed rulers attained equal status with the Lutheran and Catholic rulers, and the wars ended.

The wars caused the death of about one-third of the German population. They devastated southwestern Germany, Bohemia, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, which led to large-scale migration after 1648 down the Rhine from as far as Switzerland to settle in the depopulated in the southwest Germanic areas on both sides of the Rhine. A small number of Dutch and northwest Germans also moved up the Rhine to re-populate this area.[6]

Germany was devastated by these religious wars for over a hundred years (1524-1648). Various religious sects fled to safe havens within Europe until the 1670s when the first significant group of German immigrants left their homes for the promise of a better life in the British colonies. They came to America for an assortment of reasons that historians identify into two groups of factors. The first group is due to the effects of the religious wars that pushed Germans to leave their homeland. The second group was affected by factors that pulled them to America.[7] In America, they saw a promise of land, economic opportunities, and religious freedom.

Immigration during the 1700s

German immigration to America continued into the 1700s as factors pushed the poor farmers out of Germany. Three forces fueled this wave of German emigration. One was heavy taxation of the working class, and another was the inheritance laws in some German regions, which limited the passing of their father's land to the eldest son. The third critical factor was the seemingly constant and disruptive German wars. There were land shortages, limited job opportunities, economic problems, religious oppression, and political problems.[8]  These factors gave many young Germans strong motives for leaving their homeland to seek a new country where they could own their land and be successful.

The British colonies in America needed labor. They required farmhands to clear the land and establish farms. They needed skilled workers such as millers, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and others to produce goods and services required by the colony to survive and export. The various colonies sometimes competed for the labor and devised multiple methods to get the workforce needed for the success of the colony.

One source of the German workforce was the redemptioners who were German farmers too poor to afford the passage to America. Agents called Neulanders recruited the immigrants to go to America. The shipping lines hired the agents, or the Neulander worked as independent contractors to supply emigrants to the ships bound for the British colonies. The emigrants signed contracts that required them to redeem the cost of the passage by working for someone in the colonies who purchased their contract. The term of the contract was five to seven years. The redemptioners began arriving about 1720 and continued until about 1775.

In the 1730s and 1740s, James Oglethorpe invited other groups of Germans to help settle the Georgia Colony, which he founded. The Germans settled in Savannah, St. Simon's Island, and Fort Frederica.

Another group of Germans settling in America was from the 18,000 Hessian soldiers that King George III of England hired during the American Revolution. Many captured Hessian soldiers switched sides to fight with the Americans, and some stayed in the United States after the war.[9]

Immigration during 1800-1950

The German emigrants were pulled to America by the availability of cheap land and the religious freedom promised in many American colonies. The immigrants who arrived before 1850 were mostly farmers whose intensive farming techniques would be successful in their new land. Many German immigrants also settled in the cities where most found success due to their strong work ethic.

In 1848, a wave of political refugees known as Forty-Eighters fled to America after they lost their attempted revolution. The revolution was against the power of the monarchs of the various European Countries. The rebels wanted to address unresolved social, political, and national conflicts. In the German states (which included the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the Forty-Eighters wanted more democratic governments and guarantees of human rights. When the revolution failed, and the government did not enact the desired reforms, many decided to give up and leave. Respected, wealthy, well-educated, and working-class Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others emigrated. Many of the Forty-eighters who fled became very successful in their new countries.

Two more reasons German immigrated to America in the 1800s came from the aftermath of the American Civil War and broken promises of the Russian Tzar. After the Civil War, Texas landowners lost their slaves and recruited Germans and other Europeans to replace the labor. The immigrants eventually purchased their farmland or moved to the cities. In Russia, Catherine the Great had recruited German farmers to modernize Russian farming techniques. However, the German immigrants became disenchanted with Russia when they received poor quality land, and authorities began drafting Germans into the Russian military. After they became disappointed, they left and resettled in North Dakota in the late 1800s.

A small number of German Jews came to America in the 1700s and 1800s. The most significant numbers arrived after 1820, and especially in the mid-1800s.[10] They settled throughout the Northern and Southern states and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Wherever they lived, they formed German-Jewish neighborhoods within the cities and towns. They became local and regional merchants selling many things, including clothing.

Between 1820 and World War I, approximately six million Germans immigrated to the United States. The immigrants fled economic and political problems in Germany and were seeking farmland, religious freedom, and a new start in America. They were the largest group of immigrants who arrived in America between 1840 and 1880.

The following are the more critical reasons for Germans to emigrate to America.

Push Factors:

To escape religious discrimination. In Germany, the new minority sects such as Mennonites, Quakers, Silesian-Saxon Schwenkfelders, and Moravian Brethren continued to feel the prejudices and tensions even though the religious wars had stopped.

To escape compulsory military service. Eligible young men left to avoid the military draft and fathers, who had served, left with their families to protect their sons.

To escape the heavy taxation levied to pay for the wars. As people emigrated, there were fewer people to pay taxes. Fewer people meant those who were left paid a higher tax.

To escape the economic problems caused by the 100 years of religious wars. The wars devastated the Palatinate, destroying the land, commerce, and killing the population. For some people, the conditions were desperate.

Pull Factors:

Religious freedom was critically important for the earliest German immigrants. They were members of the minority sects who were the subject of continued discrimination where ever they lived in Germany. These groups found the promise of religious freedom in the American colony of Pennsylvania too good to pass up.

Neulanders (agents) recruited prospective emigrants to fill the labor needs in America to clear the land and produce the goods.

Available farmland was another critical reason German immigrants came to America. There was a shortage of farmland in Germany, mainly due to German inheritance laws, which allowed for only one son to inherit the entire farm. The other family members did not inherit because the plots were too small to sustain more than one family. The amount of land available made the opportunity for land ownership in America very appealing.

Available Jobs in America was another essential factor for many German immigrants. Many came from farming communities but also had other skills such as cooper, blacksmith, butcher, carpenter, and other mechanical skills. These skills were also in demand in the new American cities and towns and gave the German workers opportunities that were not available in their homeland.

The magnetic pull of chain migration was another critical reason for immigration. The new immigrants came to join friends or family who had written home about their new life in America. Chain Migration was not the sole reason for someone to immigrate, but the letters confirmed that immigration was an answer to their suffering in Ireland.

Political freedom was a bonus to be learned by many of the early immigrants who left feudal areas and knew little about the freedom waiting for them in America. However, German refugees seeking political freedom came to America after they participated in the failed democratic revolutions of 1830 and 1848.

The reasons for German immigration are complicated and depend on the personal experiences of the arriving group and when they came. The above factors gave many Germans strong motivations for leaving their homeland. The arriving groups usually left their homes because of one or more of the above reasons. All were seeking a better life in America.[11]

The immigrants landed in America seeking religious freedom, land, and a better life. They wanted a fresh start and looked for economic opportunities that were better than what was available to them in Europe. Wherever they settled, they set up enclaves where they clung to their German language, culture, and religion. Within the enclaves, new immigrants found the support they needed to adjust and survive in their new surroundings.

Between 1670 and 1770, Germans began to immigrate to America in significant numbers, and most came to Pennsylvania. However, many also settled in Upstate New York and along the coasts of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. These groups moved westward after the Revolutionary War, and more groups of new German immigrants joined them.

Most of our German ancestors were part of the mass exodus of the farm laborers from the German countryside in the late 1700s and 1800s. They left because of desperate economic problems, lack of jobs, lack of land, avoid the military draft, and the desire to make their lives better. They left Germany with the dream of finding work and farmland in America. They were not caught up in America fever but decided they needed to leave if they were going to find a place that would improve their lives. Most of us have ancestors who were part of this surge of immigration.

There are some references to German immigration after WW II. However, the material in the following chapters will focus on migration between 1607 and World War I. The content will explore the decisions, hardships, and challenges experienced by the German immigrant as they left their villages and journeyed to America and then settled there.