Pennsylvania Dutch

A distinctive group of immigrants who settled in southeastern Pennsylvania before 1800, the Pennsylvania Dutch are known for their ideal of independence gained from private ownership of farms. The region prides itself on its early posture against slavery and its diversity in religion. The title Pennsylvania Dutch is something of a misnomer. Although it seems to indicate an association with the Netherlands, it is in fact a transliteration of the German word Deutsch, meaning German. Although often associated with the Amish, there is no one religious affiliation of the area; many Pennsylvania Dutch are Lutheran, members of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, as well as Amish or Mennonite. Until World War II, many spoke a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania German, but since that time, most now speak English.

A Pennsylvania Dutch barn decorated with two traditional circular painted hex signs in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in 2009. The Pennsylvania Dutch (or “Deutsch”) are actually descended from German settlers who arrived in the area before 1800.

Before the American Revolution, thousands of German immigrants had found a home in Pennsylvania. Germany as it is known today did not exist at that time; it was a group of independent states without a centralized government. After the Thirty Years’ War, the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany became inhospitable to members of Protestant faiths. William Penn, a Quaker, had been granted a tract of land by Charles II in payment for a debt; Penn vowed to undertake the creation of a land of religious freedom.

Having heard of Penn's utopia, in 1683, the first 34 German Mennonites sailed to Philadelphia on the Concord and founded Germantown (now a neighborhood of Philadelphia). From that time until 1727, about 8,000 immigrated to the colonies, with about 700 going to North [Page 1689]Carolina, 2,300 going to New York, and the rest settling in Pennsylvania.

The resettlement of Palatines from 1727 for the next 28 years resulted in 58,000 Germans settling in Pennsylvania. From the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France in 1756, immigration slowed. Nevertheless, by 1790, the German settlers went from being a small minority to being a major factor in the new nation, gaining a reputation for their agricultural work, religious outlook, and political acumen.

Social groups organized around Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry often require members to trace their heredity to immigrants who arrived before 1800. Although there was significant immigration from Germany to the United States after this period, these later immigrants came from different areas in Germany and tended to move to cities in the west.

The first attempt to calculate the size of this population by the U.S. Bureau of the Census was in 1909, in the study titled “A Century of Population Growth.” By examining surviving census records, the researchers attempted to use their inexact knowledge of surnames to count the German settlers in Pennsylvania in 1790. This process was stymied, however, because they failed to recognize names similar to British names (Mann, Peters) and also simplifications of spelling (Baumann to Bowman, and Albrecht to Allbright). This study determined that Germans made up 5.6 percent of the country's population and 26.1 percent of Pennsylvania's population in 1790.

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