Franz Daniel Pastorius

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Memorial in Vernon Park, Philadelphia, in memory of Pastorius and the first settlers
Inscription plaque of the monument

Franz Daniel Pastorius (born September 26, 1651 in Sommerhausen , † between December 26, 1719 and January 13, 1720 in Germantown ) was a German lawyer . He founded the German overseas migration and was the only German writers of the Baroque in America .

Life

Franz Daniel Pastorius was born as the son of Melchior Adam Pastorius (1624–1702), a lawyer in Sommerhausen and from 1658 mayor of Windsheim , and his wife Magdalena (1607–1657). The father converted from Lutheranism to the Catholic Church in 1649 . Francis Daniel Pastorius studied 1668-1676 jurisprudence at the Universities of Altdorf , Strasbourg and Jena to obtain a PhD afterwards. From the beginning he did not like everyday legal work in Windsheim, and on a recommendation from superintendent Johann Heinrich Horb , he moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1679 . There he found access to the radical-pietist circle around Johann Jakob Schütz . Through the mediation of Philipp Jacob Spener , he took up a position as court master with Johann Bonaventura von Bodeck , with whom he traveled on a cavalier tour through Europe from 1680 to 1682 .

First German settlement in America

In 1682 the circle around Schütz founded the Frankfurter-Land-Kompagnie , on whose behalf Pastorius traveled with the ship America to Philadelphia in August 1683 to buy land in Pennsylvania for the society. When on October 6, 1683, instead of the hoped-for friends from Frankfurt, 13 families from Krefeld arrived on the Galleon Concord , the "German Mayflower ", in the port of Philadelphia, made up of Reformed , Quakers and Mennonites , Pastorius nevertheless organized the for this group Land acquisition (61 km²). In the year of arrival in 1683, Germantown was founded, the first German settlement in North America. Pastorius worked there as the head of the congregation, designed the official coat of arms , imparted knowledge about viticulture and horticulture and taught as a teacher. On behalf of German settlers, he also wrote letters in their homeland.

Protest note against slavery

On February 18, 1688, Abraham Isacks op den Graeff , Herman Isacks op den Graeff , Gerrit Henderich and Pastorius initiated the first protest against slavery in America . Pastorius had good contacts with William Penn , the governor of Pennsylvania, who owned slaves himself. In 1687 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly , of which he was a member until 1691. Penn also wore him to lead the higher Quaker School in Philadelphia (1698-1700).

Act

In terms of his inclinations, Pastorius was not a politician, but more a baroque private scholar and poet. He was the author of several publications in German and English. a. a highly regarded description of Pennsylvania from 1700 and an elementary book for English, which became the first textbook in Pennsylvania.

Marriage and offspring

Franz Daniel Pastorius married Änneke Klostermann on November 6, 1688 (* around 1663 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ). Your children were:

  • Johann Samuel (born January 30, 1690 in Germantown, † 1722)
  • Heinrich (born February 1, 1692 in Germantown; †?)

various

  • A painting in the Capitol in Washington, DC shows Franz Daniel Pastorius kneeling in front of Indians .
  • John Greenleaf Whittier , an American Quaker poet, immortalized Pastorius in his poem "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim" (1872)
  • " Operation Pastorius " was the code name of an organization that smuggled German saboteurs into the USA in 1942.
  • The bassist Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) was a descendant.
  • Michael Klemm wrote the play "America", a play about Franz Daniel Pastorius, the first German resettler to America and founder of the city of German Town in Pennsylvania (Sommerhausen 2002)

Works (selection)

Title page of the report from North America
  • Pastorius, Francis Daniel: Franz Daniel Pastorius description of Pennsylvania. Reprint of the 1884 edition . Hansebooks, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 3-7436-9450-6 .
  • Circumferential geographical description of the very last invented province of Pensylvaniæ, in which End-Gräntzen Americæ is located in the western world. Andreas Otto, Franckfurt / Leipzig (ie: Nuremberg) 1700 ( digitized ).
  • A New Primmer or Methodical Directions to attain the True Spelling, Reading and Writing of English. Printed by William Bradford, and sold by the author, sl 1698.
  • Henry Bernhard Koster, William Davis, Thomas Rutter et Thomas Bowyer, four boasting disputers of this world briefly rebuked, and answered according to their folly. Which they themselves have manifested in a late pamphlet, entituled, advise for all professors and writers. Printed and sold by William Bradford, sl 1697.
  • Seventeenth Century American Poetry. Edited with an introduction, notes, and comments by Harrison T. Meserole. New York University Press, New York NY 1968.
  • Deliciae Hortenses, or Garden-recreations, and Voluptates apianae (= Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture. 2). Edited by Christoph E. Schweitzer. Camden House, Columbia SC 1982, ISBN 0-938100-06-8 (poems).
  • Patrick Erben, Alfred Brophy, Margo Lambert (Eds.): The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader: Writings by an Early American Polymath. Penn State University, University Park 2019, ISBN 978-0-271-08328-5 .

Literature (selection)

  • Franz Brümmer :  Pastorius, Franz Daniel . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 219.
  • Gerhard Dünnhaupt : Franz Daniel Pastorius (1651–1719). In: Gerhard Dünnhaupt: Personal bibliographies on the prints of the Baroque. Volume 4: Klaj - Postel (= Hiersemanns bibliographical handbooks. 9). 2nd, improved and significantly increased edition. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7772-9122-6 , pp. 3075-3079 (list of works and references).
  • Patrick Erben, Alfred Brophy, Margo Lambert (Eds.): The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader: Writings by an Early American Polymath. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 2019, ISBN 978-0-271-08328-5 .
  • Mark Häberlein :  Pastorius, Franz Daniel. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 97 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Marion Dexter Learned: The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius. The Founder of Germantown. With an Appreciation of Pastorius by Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker . Campbell, Philadelphia PA 1908 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
  • Martin Lohmann: The importance of the German settlements in Pennsylvania (= writings of the German Foreign Institute. A: Kulturhistorische Reihe. Volume 12, ZDB -ID 500976-5 ). Abroad u. Heimat Verlags-Aktiengesellschaft u. a., Stuttgart a. a. 1923 (also: Leipzig, dissertation, 1923).
  • Friedrich Nieper: The first German emigration to Pennsylvania in 1683 and the founding of Germantown. Printing house of the Diakonen-Anstalt, Duisburg 1937 (partial edition (Chapter 5) of: Friedrich Nieper: Anabaptism and mystical separatism in Krefeld and in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. Bonn 1937 (Bonn, University, dissertation, 1937)).
  • Friedrich Nieper: The first German emigrants from Krefeld to Pennsylvania. A picture from the history of religious ideas in the 17th and 18th centuries. Bookshop of the educational association, Neukirchen district of Moers 1940.
  • Peter Nitschke:  Pastorius, Franz Daniel. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 1594-1597.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Pastorius, Francis Daniel . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 4 : Lodge - Pickens . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1888, p. 668 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marion Dexter Learned: The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius, the Founder of Germantown . WJ Campbell, Philadelphia 1908, p. 286.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Overhoff: The American friend . In: The time . No. 16 , 2008 ( zeit.de ).
personal data
SURNAME Pastorius, Franz Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American lawyer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1651
PLACE OF BIRTH Sommerhausen
DATE OF DEATH September 27, 1719
Place of death Germantown