German Pennsylvania

The term German Pennsylvania (German: Hochdeutsche Pennsylvanien)^[1][2] refers to two distinct regions:

• first, to High German Pennsylvania, settled by 1600s Palatines and other Germans, with Germantown as its capital.^[3][4] Historically it rivaled New England.^[3]
• second, to the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a Pennsylvania Dutch region which centers around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.^[5]

Each term has been in use for many years.

High Dutch society of Pennsylvania[edit]

Waves of Palatines (Pennsylvania Dutch: Pälzer) from the Rhenish Palatinate of the Holy Roman Empire initially settled in Maryland, the Carolinas, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. The first Palatines in Pennsylvania arrived in the 1600s but the majority came throughout the 1700s.^[6][7]

There were several Palatine state citizen groups: New York Palatines, Virginia Palatines, Maryland Palatines, Indiana Palatines; the most numerous and influential were the Pennsylvania Palatines.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]}

Pennsylvania Palatines already possessed an ethnic identity and a well-defined social-system that was separate from the Yankee American identity. Yankees described the Pennsylvania Dutch as very industrious, very businessminded, and a very rich community.^[16]

Here is a conversation of two businessmen describing Germantown, the capital of Pennsylvania Dutch urban culture in 1854:

The chairman: "How important is Germantown?"

Mr Hasten: "It is a very rich community and is the finest district around Philadelphia. The highest class of people that can be served in such a community, probably of the whole American Union, is a resident in Germantown. It is a distinctly separate city."^[17]

Pennsylvania Dutch had a strong dislike for New England, and to them the term "Yankee" became synonymous with "a cheat." Indeed, New Englanders were the rivals of the Pennsylvania Dutch.^[16]

Germantown, Pennsylvania[edit]

Although the arrival by ship of the Original 13, the later founders of Germantown in Philadelphia on October 6, 1683, was later to provide the date for German-American Day, a holiday in the United States, historical research has shown that nearly all of the first thirteen Quaker and Mennonite families were in fact Dutch rather than Germans. These families, which were mainly Dutch but also included some Swiss, had relocated to Krefeld (near the Dutch border) and Kriegsheim (in Rhineland-Palatinate) some years prior to their emigration to America to avoid persecution of their Mennonite beliefs in the Dutch Republic and Swiss Confederacy. The town was named Germantown by the group's leader Franz Pastorius, a German preacher from Sommerhausen.^[18][19]

In 1688, five years after its founding, Germantown became the birthplace of the anti-slavery movement in America.^[20] Pastorius, Gerret Hendericks and the brothers Derick and Abraham op den Graeff gathered at Thones Kunders's house and wrote a two-page condemnation of slavery and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church, the Society of Friends. The petition was mainly based upon the Bible's Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Though the Quaker establishment took no immediate action, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was a clear and forceful argument against slavery and initiated the process of banning slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and Pennsylvania (1780).

In 1723, Germantown became the site of the first congregation of Schwarzenau Brethren in the New World. The Church of the Brethren – among other churches – have their roots in the Schwarzenau Brethren.^[21]

When Philadelphia was occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War, British units were housed in Germantown. In the Battle of Germantown, on October 4, 1777, the Continental Army attacked the garrison. During the battle, a group of civilians fired on the British troops as they marched up the avenue, mortally wounding British officer James Agnew. The Americans withdrew after firing on one another in the confusion of the battle, which resulted in the battle becoming a British victory. The American losses amounted to 673 men and the British losses consisted of 575 men, but along with the American victory at Saratoga on October 17 when John Burgoyne surrendered, the battle led to the official recognition of the Americans by France, which formed an alliance with the Americans afterward.

During his presidency, George Washington and his family lodged at the Deshler-Morris House in Germantown to escape the city and the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. The first bank of the United States was also located here during his administration.

Germantown proper, and the adjacent German Township, were incorporated into the City of Philadelphia in 1854 by the Act of Consolidation.

Pennsylvania Dutch Country[edit]

By the American Revolution in the 18th century, Pennsylvlvania had a high percentage of German inhabitants. Religiously, they were predominantly Lutherans but also included German Reformed, Moravian, Amish, Mennonite, Schwarzenau Brethren, and other German Christian denominations. Catholics settled around early Jesuit missions in Conewago near Hanover and Goshenhoppen, now known as Bally. The term Pennsylvania Dutch Country was used in the middle of the 20th century as a description of a region with a distinctive Pennsylvania Dutch culture, but in recent decades the composition of the population is changing and the phrase is used more now in a tourism context than any other.^[22][23][24]

References[edit]