A Brief History of the Anabaptists

Amish Buggy

Amish romances have been camped out on top of fiction sales charts for many years now. But how much does the ordinary reader really know about the Amish, what they believe, and why they live as they do? There’s a whole lot more to this plain Christian sect than their simple rural lifestyle and close-knit families and communities. Today I’m going to give you a crash course on the history of the Anabaptists, a group of Christian believers that includes not only the Amish, but also the Mennonites, Dunkards, Landmark Baptists, and Hutterites, as well as Beachy Amish and some Brethren groups.

During the Reformation, the word Anabaptist was applied to Christians who rejected infant baptism in favor of baptizing only those old enough to profess faith in Jesus Christ for themselves. The term, which means re-baptizer, was not complimentary, just as the label Christian was used in a negative sense when it was first applied to Jesus’ disciples. At the time of the Reformation infant baptism was the norm not only in the Roman Catholic Church, but also in Protestant denominations that had split away. That meant that most people who wished to make a confession of faith and be baptized as adults had already been baptized as infants, so they had to be re-baptized.

Menno Simons

The Anabaptists first emerged in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525. Along with Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, Moravians, and a number of other denominations, this movement arose from the desire of many believers to return to the beliefs and practices of the apostolic first-century church. Anabaptists also believed in the separation of church and state and voluntary church membership. They regarded the Bible as their only rule for faith and life and demanded that believers live a holy life.

At that time in Europe people weren’t given a choice as to which denomination to join. They were enrolled as members in the official church of their country at birth. If you were born in a Catholic country, you were a Catholic. If your country was Lutheran, then you were a Lutheran. Rejecting the prevailing church and becoming an Anabaptist led to serious persecution if not a death sentence. Many believers were formally expelled from their country or forced to flee, only to face persecution from the church holding sway in the country to which they fled.

Jakob Ammann

In spite of opposition, the Anabaptist movement continued to spread in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 1536, a Dutch priest from Friesland named Menno Simons left the Catholic church and soon became an Anabaptist leader. He formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders, including the doctrine of nonresistance. Then in 1693, the Anabaptist preacher Jakob Ammann and his followers broke with the Swiss Brethren, led by Hans Reist, because of doctrinal issues that included matters of church discipline such as shunning, which Ammann supported and Reist did not. Ammann’s followers became known as Amish, while those who sided with Reist, along with the Dutch Anabaptists, eventually became known as Mennonites due to the leadership of Menno Simons.

During the 18th century, the continuing pressure of persecution in Europe led to the migration of many Anabaptists to the English colonies in North America, among them the Amish and Mennonites. Many members of these groups originally settled in Pennsylvania, where a large number of their communities are still located today.

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J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers, an author, editor, and publisher, and a lifelong student of history. Her novel Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with bestselling author Bob Hostetler, won ForeWord Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases in Spring 2017. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

To Thee or Not to Thee

When we consider the everyday use of the Old English "thee" we are primarily thinking of the Middle Ages. The last remnants of common usage "thee" and "thou" had completely disappeared by the middle of the 1600s. At about that same time, the Quaker religion was founded by George Fox.

Research doesn't agree on exactly when the Quakers resurrected the pronoun "thee" and declared it the preferred term for plain speech, but certainly by the 1800s, it was commonplace.

Tweet this: Quakers used "thee" and "thou" but not like traditional Old English #history #amwriting

In the Old English, "thee" was the singular pronoun, equal to he or she. "Thou" was the plural pronoun, equal to they. Most research - but not all - supports the notion that the Quakers dropped the use of "thou" because they saw it as prideful. As modern day language recognizes "you" as both singular and plural, the Quakers used "thee" as both.

"Thee is well-read on this subject."

"Thee are a happy lot."

"Is that all thee has to do?"

"No matter what thee have, 'tis enough."

All are correct, if you're a Quaker in the 19th Century.

Pegg Thomas - Writing historical fiction with a touch of humor.

Coming to America

Detail of John Michael Groves's Gale Coming On

In researching my latest release, Northkill, the story of my Amish ancestors who came to this country in 1738, I ran across several descriptions of what immigrants in the 18th century endured just to get to America. Many Anabaptists made that journey because of the persecution they were subjected to in Europe, but it was not for the fainthearted. Below are three accounts of the 3,000 mile sea voyage, condensed from articles in the April 2004 issue of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin. The first is quite positive though it took place at a dangerous time during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Twenty-nine Mennonites from the Palatine boarded the ship Mary Hope in London, June 24, 1710, and landed in Philadelphia, September 23, 1710. Although they embarked on “a beautifully calm Sunday,” they quickly encountered a storm that made most of the passengers seasick, snapped off several masts, and sent their ship back to England for repairs. Finally back at sea, they joined a convoy of Russian battleships for protection. After the Russian ships left them, the passengers were frightened by the appearance of several French warships. Thankfully a heavy fog allowed the Mary Rose to creep safely away.

The voyage turned out to be very pleasant. “I think that I never was on a more healthy vessel,” a Quaker passenger named Chalkley recorded in his journal. He noted that fellow passengers were fascinated by seafowl, porpoises, flying fish, and whales, and that amid a great storm they watched mountainous waves rise above the ship’s deck with outward calm. Chalkley held Quaker meetings on the deck, and the Mennonites seemed to him “tender” and moved by his words. They “behaved soberly, and were well satisfied; and I can truly say, I was well satisfied also.”

The article also included a delightful description by a German schoolmaster, who recorded that two days before his ship sighted land, a sailor told the passengers that he could smell America. After a while the passengers “also felt a sweet, pleasant aroma, because a gentle wind came from there to us.” When they entered Delaware Bay, “we saw right and left the land that we had wished to see with such great desire for such a long time, although still in the distance, since the bay at its mouth is very wide; but the farther we went in, the closer the banks on both sides came toward us. We then ran from one side of the ship to the other, so as to overlook or miss nothing. . . . It is an indescribable joy when one has seen nothing in such a long time except sky and water and now all of a sudden sees the wonderful green of the forests, the mountains, the valleys and fields.”

A diary attributed to Hans Jacob Kauffman, written in the margins of an almanac, gives a very different and heartwrenching account of his 1737 voyage on the Charming Nancy (the same ship that brought my ancestors the following year) that illustrates the often horrendous conditions passengers in 18th century vessels endured.

Port of Philadelphia in 18th century

“The 28th of June while in Rotterdam getting ready to start my Zernbli died and was buried in Rotterdam. The 29th we got under sail and enjoyed one and a half days of favorable wind. The 7th of July, early in the morning, Hans Zimmerman’s son-in- law died.

“We landed in England the 8th of July, remaining 9 days in port during which 5 children died. Went under sail the 17th of July. The 21 of July my own Lisbetli died. Several days before Michael’s Georgli had died.

“On the 29th of July three children died. On the first of August my Hansli died and the Tuesday previous, 5 children died. On the 3rd of August contrary winds beset the vessel and from the first to the 7th of the month 3 more children died. On the 8th of August, Shambien’s Lizzie died and on the 9th Hans Zimmerman’s Jacobli died. On the 19th, Christian Burgli’s Child died. Passed a ship on the 21st. A favorable wind sprang up. On the 28th Hans Gasi’s wife died. Passed a ship 13th of September. Landed in Philadelphia on the 18th and my wife and I left the ship on the 19th. A child was born to us on the 20th—died—wife recovered. A voyage of 83 days.”

Kauffman’s report is not unusual for sea voyages during this period. In 1750, Gottlieb Mittelberger vividly detailed the miserable conditions on crowded vessels.

“Children from one to seven years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water. I witnessed such misery in no less than thirty-two children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea. It is a notable fact that children, who have not yet had the measles or small-pocks [sic], generally get them on board the ship, and most die of them. Often a father is separated by death from his wife and children, or mothers from their little children, or even both parents from their children; and sometimes whole families die in quick succession; so that often many dead persons lie in the berths beside the living ones, especially when contagious diseases have broken out on board the ship.”

Clearly incredible determination and courage were required to make the voyage across the ocean in the 18th century. I’m inspired by these stories and that of my ancestors, portrayed in Northkill, to remain steadfast amid the trials I encounter today—none of which,I have to admit, are near as challenging as theirs were! In what ways do these stories speak to you?