Bohemian settlement Puhoi

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The Bohemian settlement of Puhoi in New Zealand was founded around 50 km north of Auckland in 1863 and was the result of an initiative by Martin Krippner , the son of a blacksmith from Mantau in Bohemia . Krippner, who emigrated to New Zealand with his wife in 1859, is considered to be the founding father of Puhoi . Today, the settlement is one of the few historical places in New Zealand where the history, tradition and customs of the settlers of those days are still actively maintained.

history

Martin Krippner, who with 42 years of his brother- Pynson Wilmot Long Dill was persuaded to emigrate to New Zealand, reaching Auckland with his wife Emily Long Dill, a teacher and native English woman and four children on 22 March 1860. He settled in Orewa , was Postmaster there and is said to have been in good contact with Governor George Edward Gray . With the problem of getting reliable workers in the still young New Zealand colony in mind, Krippner campaigned through his brother Michael, who was still living in Bohemia, for a settlement project that he had negotiated with the then Provincial Council of Auckland . The Provincial Council provided Krippner with hilly bushland north of Auckland for settlement purposes on the basis of the Waste Land Act .

Under the promise of 40 acres of free land for every adult plus 20 acres for every child between the ages of five and 18, 82 settlers set out from Staab on February 26, 1863, via Prague , Hamburg and London to New Zealand . Staab ( Czech Stod) is a small town about 20 kilometers southwest of Pilsen, its population was purely German-speaking in the 19th century. On the War Spirit under Captain Lückes they reached Auckland four months later on June 27, 1863 , Krippner's brother with them. A few days later they carried a small boat to the mouth of the Puhoi River , from where Māori then took them upriver to the Puhoi block by canoe .

The culture shock for the settlers was great because they were confronted with the native inhabitants of the country for the first time and found land that was difficult to cultivate. To feed on the yields of the soil and nature was very difficult and initially it was not possible to generate salable products. The settlers only survived the early years with the support of the local Māori of the Nga Whetu tribe. Their chief , Te Hemara Tauhia , a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi , was friendly to the settlers. After three years of hard construction, on March 5, 1866, another 31 settlers came to Puhoi with the Liverpool to settle there. Four more groups of settlers followed by 1876 (see table).

In the early 1880s, the settlement's infrastructure was complete. A school was built as early as 1872, followed by the opening of a school under the control of the colonial government, the construction of a hotel and the establishment of a postal service. In early 1880 the construction of the Church of St. Peter and Paul began and in 1882 a regular stagecoach service was set up to Devonport , now a suburb of Auckland . The connection to the telephone network followed in 1887.

The emigrants and settlement founders were citizens of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . They spoke a German, the Egerland dialect, which belongs to the North Bavarian dialect family. Among their 49 family names there are 36 German names and 13 names of Czech and other origin. In New Zealand they were seen as hard-working and hardworking Germans and were very much appreciated by the public. All immigrants to Puhoi saw themselves as Germans, and they were officially perceived as Germans by the majority of New Zealand's population at least until World War I. Only as a result of the two world wars and the mood against Germans in New Zealand did the descendants of the immigrants no longer refer to their ethnic and cultural origin but to their regional origin, namely as people from Bohemia, i.e. H. in English as "Bohemians". In 2014 only seven residents of Puhoi could express themselves in the Egerland dialect.

Groups of Bohemian settlers

group number departure port ship number Arrivals port annotation
1. 12 November 8, 1859 London Lord Burleigh 12 March 22, 1860 Auckland Martin Krippner with family and employees
2. 82 March 12, 1863 London Was spirit 83 June 27, 1863 Auckland one person died, 2 children were born
3. 31 November 8, 1865 London Liverpool 31 March 5, 1866 Auckland
4th 17th July 16, 1872 London Queen Bee 17th October 26, 1872 Auckland
5. 12 May 10, 1875 Hamburg Friedeburg 12 August 24, 1875 Napier
6th 30th October 17, 1875 Hamburg Shakespeare 0 January 23, 1876 Wellington
7th 11 November 15, 1875 Hamburg Terpsichore 11 March 15, 1876 Wellington

Source: Puhoi Historical Society Inc.

today

In 1976, the Puhoi Historical Society Inc. was founded with the aim of preserving historical interest in the Puhoi settlement, conducting further research and maintaining one's own identity. On June 29, 2013, the 150th anniversary is to be celebrated with a celebration in memory of the first settlement of Puhoi by the Bohemian settlers. For the 100th anniversary in 1963, over 6,000 visitors came to the small town.

literature

  • Judith Williams : Puhoi, the Bohemian Settlement . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 8 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, ISBN 0-19-558283-7 , pp. 65-72 (English).
  • Wilfried Heller : 19th century emigrants from Bohemia to New Zealand and their descendants . In: German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe (Ed.): To Übersee - German-speaking emigrants from Eastern Europe around 1900 . Potsdam 2015, ISBN 978-3-936168-70-9 , pp. 56-89 u. 267-271 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Nancy Swarbrick : Martin Krippner. In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , July 4, 2012, accessed August 23, 2012 .
  2. ^ History of Puhoi . Puhoi Historical Society Inc , archived from the original on July 25, 2013 ; accessed on April 3, 2018 (English, original website no longer available).
  3. ^ Heller: Emigrants of the 19th century from Bohemia to New Zealand and their descendants . In: To overseas . 2015, p. 87 .
  4. ^ Judith Williams : Puhoi, the Bohemian Settlement . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 8 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, pp.  71 (English).
  5. ^ Heller: Emigrants of the 19th century from Bohemia to New Zealand and their descendants . In: To overseas . 2015, p. 58 u. 80 .
  6. ↑ Bohemian Puhoi Arrivals . Puhoi Historical Society Inc , archived from the original on July 25, 2013 ; accessed on February 4, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).
  7. ↑ The Puhoi Historical Society Inc. . Puhoi Historical Society Inc , archived from the original on July 27, 2013 ; accessed on April 3, 2018 (English, original website no longer available).
  8. ^ Earlier Years & Previous Celebrations . Puhoi Historical Society Inc , archived from the original on July 25, 2013 ; accessed on February 4, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).