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Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York

Amazon.com Price:  $18.38 (as of 06/05/2019 07:38 PST- Details)

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Becoming German tells the intriguing story of the largest and earliest mass movement of German-speaking immigrants to The united states. The so-referred to as Palatine migration of 1709 started in the western a part of the Holy Roman Empire, where in all probability as many as thirty thousand people left their homes, lured by rumors that Britain’s Queen Anne would give them free passage out of the country and land in The united states. They journeyed down the Rhine and in the end made their way to London, where they settled in refugee camps. The rumors of free passage and land proved false, but, in an attempt to clear the camps, the British government in the end agreed to send about three thousand of the immigrants to New York in exchange for several years of labor. After their arrival, the Palatines refused to work as indentured servants and in the end settled in autonomous German communities near the Iroquois of central New York.

Becoming German tracks the Palatines’ travels from Germany to London to New York City and into the frontier areas of New York. Philip Otterness demonstrates that the Palatines cannot be viewed as a cohesive “German” group until after their arrival in The united states; indeed, they came from dozens of distinct principalities in the Holy Roman Empire. It was once only in refusing to assimilate to British colonial culture―as an alternative maintaining separate German-speaking communities and mixing on friendly terms with Native American neighbors―that the Palatines became German in The united states.

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