Latin Settlement

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" Latin Colony " or " Latin Settlement " is the name of several settlements founded in the 1840s - mainly in Texas and Missouri , but also in other US states - in which German intellectuals ( free thinkers and Latins ) came together to get together deal with German literature , philosophy , classical music and the Latin language .

history

As a consequence of their political struggle in Germany in the context of the March Revolution of 1848, many professors and students saw themselves forced to emigrate to North America , on the one hand to avoid criminal prosecution or, on the other hand, in the North American states, which were still being established at the time, to do their political thing implement ideal of a "free German state" in Texas: "Ubi libertas, ibi patria - Where liberty is, there is my country." These refugees the years from 1848 were later - as the successor of the " thirties " - also called " Forty- Eighters "called. As early as 1832/1833, groups of German intellectuals had repeatedly come to North America.

Most of them settled in closed settlements in the United States , as many of them emigrated with the support of associations such as the Giessener Emigration Society or the Mainz Adelsverein , which were therefore called "Latin Settlements".

But these settlements were only granted a short lifespan: the settlers were young adventurers or humanistically educated intellectuals (“Latins”), sometimes both, but by no means farmers. Therefore most of them moved to bigger cities like San Antonio or Houston after the civil war and the "Latin Settlements" slowly fell into disrepair.

Eckehard Koch wrote an apt description of the living conditions of German settlers at the time:

“ Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903),“ a landscape architect and traveler in Texas, went to see these Germans and described them and their oddities. Afterwards they had valuable Madonnas on wooden walls, drank coffee from pewter cups that stood on saucers made from valuable Dresden porcelain, they played the piano and had chests that were half filled with books and half with potatoes. After dinner, they came to a meeting place in a log cabin for miles around, where they sang, played and danced. But the attempt of these utopians had to fail and degenerate into a farce . It soon turned out that they weren't really happy, even if they didn't want to swap with anyone. The German-American writer Friedrich Kapp met an old fellow student on his trip to Texas in 1867, who informed him about his situation: 'I'm not happy in the truest sense of the word, but I'm not unhappy either, because I live freely and at ease. I'm not dependent on anything except my oxen and the weather. Nothing prevents me from my plans and projects, except that I have no money. Nothing prevents me from expressing my revolutionary feelings except that I have no audience. ' The evening after the meeting, Kapp took part in a meeting of the 'Latin farmers'. The gathering began as an attempt to revive the old Heidelberg student days, their customs, their songs and their revelry, but it ended with useless conversations: 'Our life here would be quite bearable if we only had a bowling alley.' " "

Settlements

The five settlements officially named "Latin Settlement" are:

The following Texan locations are also occasionally included:

or in other states e.g. Belly

Latin settlers

literature

  • Kurt Klotzbach : Ernst Kapp, the founder of the "Latin Colony" Sisterdale , in: Mindener Heimatblätter 54 (1982), pp. 21-22
  • Rudolph L. Biesele: The History of the German Settlements in Texas 1831–1861 , published by Boeckmann-Jones, Austin (Texas) 1930. New edition 1964.
  • Adalbert Regenbrecht: The German Settlers of Millheim before the Civil War , in: Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Heft 20, 1916.
  • Louis Reinhardt: The Communistic Colony of Bettina , in: Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 3, 1899.
  • Annie Romberg: Texas Literary Society of Pioneer Days , in: Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Issue 52, 1948.
  • Moritz Tiling: History of the German Element in Texas from 1820 to 1850 , Houston 1913.
  • Gilbert G. Benjamin: The Germans in Texas , University of Pennsylvania, D. Appleton Co., 1909.
  • Don H. Biggers: German Pioneers in Texas , Gillespie County Edition, Fredericksburg Publishing, Fredericksburg 1925.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eckehard Koch: The history of the Germans in the Wild West: Karl Mays Väter ; Chapter: In untouched land ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; on the website of the Karl May Foundation , accessed on July 11, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.karl-may-stiftung.de