Germany - 18th Century¶
Life in Rural Germany, 1600-1800¶
Most Germans lived in rural areas between the 17th and 19th century. In the 18th century, statistics show that this was true for about 80% of the population. Most farmers were not owners of the land. The land belonged to wealthy land owners, and the cultivator of the land was a mere servant and in many instances, a serf. If a farmer was treated as a serf, he had no personal freedom, i.e., he was not able to marry without consent of his sovereign lord, he could not move anywhere else and could not sell or obtain land. Therefore, few people were able to sell out. If they did, they were free of obligations towards the authorities and could buy, sell, lease, inherit, etc., without interference. Still, their business was recorded.
People who were put in charge of land and a working farm were able to pass it on with the understanding that the successor would ensure the same care and yield as the previous user did. If a farmer died, several scenarios could take place. The farmland could be divided among all heirs or be given to the oldest or youngest son while other brothers and sisters received monetary compensations. If a farmer had no heir, the sovereign or manor lord took back the property and gave it to another farmer who could be a relative of the deceased.
All members of a farming community had to develop a fine-tuned working relationship with each other. This did not work smoothly at all times. There were disputes. People would let their cattle graze on fields just ploughed or cattle would trespass an area not yet harvested, for example. This happened because the farming land was divided into narrow strips, therefore not easily accessible.
The social hierarchy of a village was determined by the size of farmland and personal property. People with little or no property found themselves at the bottom on the social ranking. These were the sons and daughters of farmers who were not entitled to inherit the farm. The number of people in such predicament grew steadily after the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). They had to work as day laborers or seasonal workers and had to be very creative to make ends meet. Many bought looms and made money by weaving.
Whether your ancestor was lucky to run a farm or was a day laborer, he left behind records of his business or labor. Such records can be found today in state or private archives.
Peasant Life¶
Mecklenburg, Germany - Northern area of Germany near Denmark
Understanding Your Western European Ancestors
Ancestors in Specific Locations: Mecklenburg, Germany: Peasant Life
This website includes a lot of information about peasant life under the heading “Understanding Your Western European Ancestors.” Much of the information found there applies to peasants in Mecklenburg as well. Please read those sections first for a good background. I’ve chosen to highlight here mostly information that was particular to peasants in Mecklenburg.
Living Conditions
Life was hard for peasants of all classes in Mecklenburg. They lived in some of the worst living conditions in all of Western Europe, sharing more in common with the peasants of Eastern Europe. As described in Some Major Events of History section, serfdom in Mecklenburg existed from soon after the close of the Thirty Years’ War until 1820. Peasants had little freedom, but lived under the jurisdiction of the landlord.
The Social Class page of the “Western European Ancestors” describes the general make-up of society during the 1700 and 1800s. Mecklenburg followed this basic pattern. The vast majority of the people of Mecklenburg were peasants. They could be further subdivided based on how much land they owned as described in that section.
Nearly everyone in Mecklenburg was poor – and in each class the people were worse off then those in the same class in many other Western and Northern European localities. Landless peasants made up the majority of the population. They had few possessions of their own. Most owned no land, no farm, and often no home. Sometimes landless peasants built little temporary houses. Other times, they lived in the homes of landowners. They went from place to place, working on the farms of other people. They had no power and no rights.
Men worked long, physically draining days. During harvest season, work days could last seventeen to eighteen hours. Women weren’t spared from hard labor, either. They often worked alongside their husbands, planting and harvesting in the field. Women cleaned out the stables, milked the cows, and fed and cared for the livestock. Besides participating in “men’s work,” they performed traditional female tasks such as caring for the children, mending clothes, tending the garden, and washing the laundry.
Landowning peasants enjoyed a slightly higher standard of living. During the long years of serfdom, heir farms were still on someone else’ estate – perhaps the estate of a knight or noble. The estate owner often required them to work three to five days of the week for him, in addition to running their own farms. Even with the help of farmhands whom the family employed, landowning peasants worked long, hard hours. In some places, after paying dues and labor to the estate owners, landowning peasants earned little more than the rural laborers. Many years these families operated in deficit, increasing their dependence on their estate owner.
German Immigrants¶
Later Eighteenth Century Arrivals
The Palatines of 1709 didn’t mark the only mass migration to America of that century. Instead, they marked the beginning of a trend. As word traveled home, excitement to come to America grew. When the port of Pennsylvania began keeping seemingly complete and accurate records in 1727, about six immigrant ships were coming every year. These numbers grew until around 1756 when the Seven Years War halted immigration. After the war’s conclusion, immigration picked up again until the outbreak of the American Revolution.
German immigrants generally came from the same area and settled in the same area. As before, the majority came from the southwestern part of Germany. The term “Palatine” continued to be used to describe the German-speaking emigrants throughout the century, although they came from a variety of places.
Pennsylvania became the destination of choice. This was partly because the earlier settlement of Germans there led to families, friends, and others following their lead. It can also be attributed to the fact that many arrived through the port in Philadelphia. Also, Pennsylvania offered good, fertile land to these mostly farmer immigrants.
From 1728 until 1820, a unique system shaped the character of German emigration. Over half of the approximately one hundred thousand German emigrants to come this county arrived as redemptioners. In this system, poor Germans made the journey to America for free in exchange for providing labor for a certain number of years to a master. The master, in turn, paid the ship’s captain. Critically called “white slavery,” the redemption system brought thousands of Germans who couldn’t have come otherwise.
Around the middle of the century, the only substantial group of Germans to come to New England during the colonial period arrived. Although there is some conflicting evidence, many believe that the first German emigrants arrived in what is now Waldoboro, Maine in 1739 – then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Within a few years, starvation, disease, and Indian attacks had wiped out the settlement completely.
New families followed – most significantly sixty families who emigrated from southwest Germany to Portsmouth, Maine in 1753. The new settlers also found life to be hard. In addition to the plagues of hunger and cold, the French and Indian war broke out. Numerous settlers were killed or kidnapped. Others lived in constant fear. But, this time the colony survived. Although English settlers joined the Germans in the 1770s, Waldoboro retained its German character.
The numbers from near the end of the eighteenth century show how lopsided German emigration had become. One-third of the population of Pennsylvania was German, followed by Maryland with just under twelve percent. On the other hand, of the six New England states, all but Maine had less than one percent of the population claiming a German background. In Maine, the number was 1.3 percent. New England with its strongly British and Puritan identity had managed to stay a fairly homogenous area – and not one very open to outsiders.