Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775

Early American Studies

by Aaron Spencer Fogleman

In 1700, some 250,000 white and black inhabitants populated the thirteen American colonies, with the vast majority of whites either born in England or descended from English immigrants. By 1776, the non-Native American population had increased tenfold, and non-English Europeans and Africans dominated new immigration. Of all the European immigrant groups, the Germans may have been the largest.

Aaron Spencer Fogleman has written the first comprehensive history of this eighteenth-century German settlement of North America. Utilizing a vast body of published and archival sources, many of them never before made accessible outside of Germany, Fogleman emphasizes the importance of German immigration to colonial America, the European context of the Germans' emigration, and the importance of networks to their success in America

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1996

About the author

Aaron Spencer Fogleman is Professor of History at Northern Illinois University.

Reviews

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, wrote this book, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775, as a cause and effect analysis of the German immigrant experience in Germany and North America during the eighteenth century. The author’s purpose is to prove how the “collective strategy best suited the immigrants from the time they left their communal peasant villages in Europe until they consolidated their new positions politically in colonial American society.”
The author supported his thesis by dividing the book into two sections to focus on the world the German immigrants left behind in southwestern Germany, and then showed how these immigrants succeeded or failed and influenced politics in the Neuland. The author breaks each section down further into chapters and then further to analyze a particular region or topic. For example, Chapter 2: “Peasant Communities and Peasant Migrations” breaks down to a particular region (Kraichgau), aristocrats vs peasants, village boundaries and then migrations. Fogleman includes a multitude of tables, graphs, and art to further explain his text. The author thoroughly researched this topic to build tables and graphs and went further into detail in the Appendices to show his methodology from the statistics available.
The sources for Fogleman’s book include an array of secondary sources as well as the author’s own methodology of historical statistics to support his argument. The author’s referenced primary sources include letters from immigrants, council minutes, Moravian records, and census records. Between the lack of available sources from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the documents available limited the author’s sources and forced him to make educated estimates. Additionally, the author’s modern perspective on the cause of the emigration also limits perspectives to pull information to support his thesis. Fogleman states, “older literature placed too much emphasis on seventeenth-century warfare as a direct “cause” of eighteenth-century emigration.” Therefore, he needed to re-analyze the sources to create a new perspective.
Fogleman’s work included many strengths as this book’s length with the abundant use of charts and tables made for a quick and easy read. The author included statistical evidence to support his text within the chapters of the book to make it easy to reference. He added a few names to bring the voyage of a few immigrants to life, but did not use so many that they became lost within the text. Additionally, he asked questions to the reader that grabbed their attention and motivated the reader to get into the writing to find the answers.
A potential weakness that could have skewed some of the research or evidence in the book could be the author’s argument on the German influence in American colonial politics. The German immigrants represented a large percentage of the population, and the author foreshadowed this argument as early as Chapter 2 while discussing the oppression the peasants felt in the Old World. “They often took direct action when they perceived a threat to their interests – a pattern that would resurface among the Germans living in the North American colonies.” Germany and even the New World colonies most likely had many villages that would have reacted in a similar manner when feeling oppressed from the nobility of their lands. It may be a far stretch that it was the German influence in Pennsylvania that led to the American Revolution.
Overall, Fogleman’s book supported his thesis on how sticking together as an ethnic group or religious sect assisted in their survival and ability to flourish in the New World. “Those who succeeded often came to the country with significant wealth, or had family, friends, fellow villagers, or members of their religious group to support them along the way. For those who arrived with few or none of these advantages, it was much more difficult, though not impossible, to make a go of it.” His examples on those immigrants that traveled needing to search for land and wealth contrasted with those that had sponsor families to assist them up upon arrival proved how the support systems created better results.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have ancestors in Pennsylvania, or have a general interest in how the peoples of colonial-era Pennsylvania adapted to the New World, this book is informative. There is a helpful comparison early on between the three waves of German settlement in the 13 colonies, and the author also points out that not all German immigrants were inclined - or able - to join the German ethnic enclaves that developed in Pennsylvania; some of them survived by building ties instead to the English-speaking settlers, and their paths to success (or at least survival) were thus different.

[Ann Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched (the end notes are worth reading). In addition, I found this book quite readable for the non-scholarly lay person. If you are interested in Colonial settlers from the Palantine (in particular), perhaps for ancestry reasons, this is a good place to start.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read paralleling multiple ancestors immigration to Pennsylvania. Specifically mentioned the ships several of them arrived on in 1727 and 1732.

[Caris Layman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative

[Denise Kettering · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a strong argument and discussion of the reasons that Germans migrated to Pennsylvania. The book begins with a discussion of the German world. He emphasizes the way that the Palatine had been torn apart by continuing religious wars as well as the pressure imposed by scarcity and emigration. There was a population issue as growth occurred after the religious wars. Fogleman also highlights growing class divisions and overcrowding that were prevalent in Germany. All of these factors set the stage for emigration and change in Germany. The second part of the book discusses why so many Germans came to Pennsylvania. He focuses on the way that in order to be successful at the emigration, people needed to be in communities and groups to settle together. He discusses the Moravians strategies at length. Finally, he moves towards the way that the Germans became in politics and how they engaged in German democratic solutions in part because of their experience in migration. Overall, a helpful book for understanding both the reasons Germans came to America and how they managed success.

[Hunter McCleary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good backgrounder on why Germans emigrated in the 18th century. Well researched and documented. Bibliography should be good for further explorations. the one shortcoming is that despite the title there was no discussion of their role in the Revolution. Many German emigrants arrived and within several decades were thrown into this great upheaval that included fighting against fellow Germans (Hessian mercenaries).

[Jabberwock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really outstanding coverage of the third and largest German immigration wave of mid-18th century.

My interest in this history is primarily genealogical and this book is distinctive in covering details in Germany that triggered immigration - now I know what my ancestors were leaving behind.