German Migration to the American Colonies

When my Hochstetler ancestors arrived in Philadelphia aboard the ship Charming Nancy on November 9, 1738, they were part of a great migration of Germans to the American colonies. During the 18th century, more than 100,000 Germans arrived in this country. Among them were Mennonites, Amish, Swiss Brethren, and Pietists, who were the largest group. The Amish, which included my ancestors, and the Mennonites made up only about 5,000 of the German immigrants. Most of them settled in Pennsylvania, while smaller numbers made their homes in New York, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Together they became the largest non-English-speaking community in colonial North America.

German Peasants' War (1524-25), Lizenzstatus 1539

Why did so many Germans migrate here? During the 16th and 17th centuries, religious and political wars ravaged Germany and much of Europe. Armies trampled farmers’ crops, stole livestock, and put homes to the torch. Famine spread across the land and, along with ruinous taxes levied to pay for the wars and religious disputes resulting from the Reformation, made life intolerable. In addition, rulers determined what church their subjects belonged to, with no regard for personal conscience. The British colonies in North America, especially Pennsylvania under the Penns, offered them not only religious freedom and escape from constant wars, but also economic opportunity in the ability to own land, a right denied religious dissidents in Europe.

Conditions in Europe were bad, but the decision to move to America was not an easy one and required staunch determination and deep personal faith. The ocean crossing was often harrowing and could take as long as 2 months. A diary attributed to Hans Jacob Kauffman lists the deaths of many children and adults during his voyage. Below is Gottlieb Mittelberger’s vivid description of the conditions passengers endured during his passage in 1750.

The ocean crossing

“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.”

Once they arrived, the troubles of the hard-pressed immigrants were not necessarily over. Many were forced to bind themselves as indentured servants until they could pay off the cost of their passage. In most cases this was voluntary, but sometimes individuals were kidnapped, bundled aboard a ship, and sold to the highest bidder as soon as it reached port in America. Either way, they often found their masters difficult or even abusive.

Others, however, moved to the frontier, where they built homes, communities, and churches. My ancestors were among these, settling along Northkill Creek in Berks County, Pennsylvania, along with other members of their Amish church, where they lived peacefully for many years. But in time they faced another tide of destruction and loss as England went to war with France and her Native allies.

I have been fortunate that many records and oral stories exist about my ancestors who came to this country in 1738. Does your family have information about your own ancestors who came to this country, whether in colonial times or later? If so, share a little bit about their history.

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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.

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.