Germans Settling North America : Going Dutch – Gone American
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Gellinek Going Dutch – Gone American Christian Gellinek Going Dutch – Gone American Germans Settling North America Aschendorff Münster Printed with the kind support of Carl-Toepfer-Stiftung, Hamburg, Germany © 2003 Aschendorff Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Münster Das Werk ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Die dadurch begründeten Rechte, insbesondere die der Überset- zung, des Nachdrucks, der Entnahme von Abbildungen, der Funksendung, der Wiedergabe auf foto- mechanischem oder ähnlichem Wege und der Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungsanlagen bleiben, auch bei nur auszugsweiser Verwertung, vorbehalten. Die Vergütungsansprüche des § 54, Abs. 2, UrhG, werden durch die Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort wahrgenommen. Druck: Druckhaus Aschendorff, Münster, 2003 Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier ∞ ISBN 3-402-05182-6 This Book is dedicated to my teacher of Comparative Anthropology at Yale Law School from 1961 to 1963 F. S. C. Northrop (1893–1992) Sterling Professor of Philosophy and Law, author of the benchmark for comparative philosophy, Philosophical Anthropology and Practical Politics This Book has two mottoes which bifurcate as the topic =s divining rod The first motto is by GERTRUDE STEIN [1874–1946], a Pennsylvania-born woman of letters, raised in California, and expatriate resident of Europe after 1903: AIn the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.@1 The second motto has to do with the German immigration. It is borrowed from a book by THEODOR FONTANE [1819–1898], a Brandenburg-born writer, and a critic of Prussia. An old German woman, whose grandchildren have emigrated to Anmerica is speaking in her dialect of Low German: [ADröwen in Amirika. Doa verstoahn set. Un worümm? Wiehl se watt hebben. Un woa se watt hebben, doa künn se ook wat. Und ick woll, ick wihr ook all doa. Joa, min Seel, un et kümmt ook noch so. Man blot, dat man ihrst röwer wihr.@]2 AOver there in America! There they have the know. And why? Everyone possesses something. And where they own something, they can get ahead. And I=d wish I was there. Yea, upon my soul, I=m going to get there yet. If only one had made it to over there.@ 1AThe Geographical History of America@, 1936. 2Spreewaldwanderung [1882] Sämtliche Werke [NFA], vol. 12 (Munich 1960) 12: 37. Translation is mine. VI PREFACE Two major interests of the long-time scholar in the field of German Studies Christian Gellinek are here combined: history of the German immigration to North America and philology. In his numerous other volumes published over a span of thirty-five years, Prof. Gellinek has explored the complex history of the migration of German-speaking people to the “New World” as well as topics in the history of the German language. His interests in both reach back to early periods. In the case of language studies, he has concerned himself especially with the Medieval and early modern periods, thus acquiring considerable knowledge about many aspects of language usage and terminology for those periods. Similarly, Prof. Gellinek’s extensive research in early emigration, more accurately general migration of German-speaking people during early periods, has given him insights into aspects of complex patterns of movement by migrating people. It is in the combination of these two areas of knowledge that Going Dutch makes its contribution to German-American Studies and to the history of language. It is important to realize the extent of German trade and movement of people within the restricted boundaries of North Central Europe as well as the involvement of German speakers of various dialects in the trade of other nations, particularly Holland in the early period. This led to very early involvement of Germans in the New World with concomitant linguistic implications. Northern Germans in particular were present in the Dutch settling of the Hudson River area. The relationship to the English is discussed based on the Low German term Jantje (Kleinhans, common person). The word was transformed in the course of political and social events. Thus Prof. Gellinek proceeds to narrate the migratory and linguistic movements of German immigrants through the long period of German immigration to the New World. Much of the story is in language, the words acquired by the surrounding linguistic environment and even more so in place names. While the methodological path may appear meandering, it in fact sets up the background for examining aspects of both colonial and post-colonial American history. As becomes clear in the story of the dollar, the restrictive British colonial monetary policy caused in a convoluted pattern the adoption of the free-wheeling maritime thaler. This is then followed back to the Central European less restricted, even chaotic monetary situation. The book moves in this fashion through many aspects of American cultural history relating it back to the influence of German-speaking Central Europeans, their cultural background and migration. Considerable original materials in addition to past and current research are reflected in this study. Topics and concepts are drawn across a wide range of materials. A reflection on Alexis de Toqueville and Gottfried Duden and their contrasting intellectual approaches to the new American republic shows how both had incomplete, but from their won perspectives accurate views of American life, de Toqueville more optimistic and Duden more skeptical. Prof. Gellinek’s excursus on these seminal characters fits VII into a patchwork of analysis that is unified in the whole. This fits also a style of writing that does not eschew the colloquial or direct language when a point is to be made. What is further unique in this book is how smaller details of life and language are teased out of broader contexts and examined for what may be learned that is new or that throws a different light on events that are taken for granted. The early period is clearly Prof. Gellinek’s forte, and it is here that much is to be learned that was previously ignored or inadequately explored. This is not to say that the attempt was made to be exhaustive, but rather to present insights, new ways of looking at accepted facts, and, in so doing, influence the direction of scholarship while at the same time providing an interesting story for anyone interested in the German influence on the New World from its early colonial period on. The German-American story is one that has many facets, a lot of which have yet to be explored. Prof. Gellinek in tying up some of the loose ends of his years of scholarship has elucidated more of these facets and pointed out others yet to be examined. Thus we are well served. Giles R. Hoyt Max Kade German-American Research and Resource Center Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis VIII TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ XI PART ONE PRE-EMIGRATION AND TRANSPORTATION: From Prelude to Surviving, Peopling and Serving .............................................. 1 Chapter 1 Shipbuilding in Lübeck....................................................... 5 Chapter 2 Sequestering ships ........................................................... 10 Chapter 3 Transportation of Cohort Germans by the Dutch Merchant fleet to New Amsterdam .......................... 14 Chapter 4 New Amsterdam changing to New York............................ 19 Chapter 5 The Yankee vs. the Yorker type ........................................ 21 PART TWO FORMATION HISTORY: Fragments of Freedom Combined.................................................................. 25 Chapter 1 The spread of the dollar as specie ..................................... 25 Chapter 2 Libel or freedom of the press as token of democracy........... 29 Chapter 3 1803: The Louisiana Sale and Purchase and its repercussions on German mass immigration from 1804–1861; Acohort@ settling of the wilderness.................... 34 Chapter 4 The yarn spinner Gottfried Duden vs. Alexis de Tocqueville=s Democracy.................................... 38 Chapter 5 The years 1848–1864; the paradigm of the Deitch company; the Mason-Dixon line; the strengthening of Northern power and the expansion of the US stature........... 45 PART THREE FOUNDING HISTORY: Rural and Urban Co-founded Settlement Places ............................................... 53 Chapter 1 The naming process of places in America........................... 53 Chapter 2 A list of co-founded places in the British and French provinces of North America [Canada]................................ 58 Chapter 3 A list of co-founded places in 18th–19th century US history .. 70 A. Extended North ........................................................... 73 B. Extended South ........................................................... 94 C. Extended Atlantic.......................................................107 D. The West ...................................................................127 E. Pacific Coast .............................................................133 Chapter 4 Comparative results and hindsight perspectives on the co-founding processes ..........................................138 A. US............................................................................138 IX B. Canada......................................................................146 C. A comparison of name losses in Canada and the US .......149 Chapter 5 The differences ..............................................................155