Pennsylvanian Germans (America Done Right)

The Pennsylvanian Germans (Pennsylvania German: Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch), colloquially known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants settling in the state of Pennsylvania during the 18th and 19th centuries. These emigrated primarily from German-speaking territories of Europe, now partly within modern-day Germany (mainly from the Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, and Rhineland), but also from the Netherlands, Switzerland and France's Alsace-Lorraine Region, traveling down the Rhine river to seaports.

The first settlers described themselves as Deitsch, corresponding with the German language Deutsch (for "German") later corrupted to "Dutch". They spoke numerous south German dialects, including Palatine. It was through their cross-dialogue interaction, the relative lack of new German immigrants from about 1770 to 1820, and what was retained by subsequent generations that a hybrid dialect emerged, known as Pennsylvanian German, which has resonance to this day.

The Pennsylvanian Germans maintained numerous religious affiliations, with the greatest number being Lutheran or German Reformed, but also many Anabaptists, including Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren. The Anabaptist groups espoused a simple lifestyle, and their adherents were known as Plain people (or Plain Dutch); this contrasted to the Fancy Dutch, who tended to assimilate more easily into the European American mainstream. By the late 1700s, other denominations were also represented in smaller numbers.

Geography
The Pennsylvanian Germans live primarily in Southeastern and in Nova Germania, a large area that includes South Central Pennsylvania, in the area stretching in an arc from Bethlehem and Allentown through Reading, Lebanon, and Lancaster to York and Chambersburg. Some Pennsylvanian Germans live in the historically Pennsylvanian German-speaking areas of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

Migration to the US
The devastation of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and the wars between the German principalities and France caused some of the immigration of Germans to America from the Rhine area. Members of this group founded the borough of Germantown, in northwest Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. They settled on land sold to them by William Penn. Germantown included not only Mennonites but also Quakers.

This group of Mennonites was organized by Francis Daniel Pastorius, an agent for a land purchasing company based in Frankfurt am Main. None of the Frankfurt Company ever came to Pennsylvania except Pastorius himself, but 13 Krefeld German (South Guelderish-speaking) Mennonite families arrived on October 6, 1683, in Philadelphia. They were joined by eight more Dutch-speaking families from Hamburg-Altona in 1700 and five German-speaking families from the Palatinate in 1707.

In 1723, some 33 German Palatine families, dissatisfied under Governor Hunter's rule, migrated from Schoharie, New York, along the Susquehanna River to Tulpehocken, Berks County, Pennsylvania, where other Palatines had settled. They became farmers and used intensive German farming techniques that proved highly productive.

Another wave of settlers from Germany, which would eventually coalesce to form a large part of the Pennsylvania Dutch, arrived between 1727 and 1775; some 65,000 Germans landed in Philadelphia in that era and others landed at other ports. Another wave from Germany arrived 1749–1754. Not all were Mennonites; some were Brethren or Quakers, for example. The majority originated in what is today southwestern Germany, i.e., Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg; other prominent groups were Alsatians, Dutch, French Huguenots (French Protestants), Moravians from Bohemia and Moravia and Germans from Switzerland.

The Pennsylvania Dutch composed nearly half of the population of Pennsylvania and, except for the nonviolent Anabaptists, generally supported the Patriot cause in the American Revolution. Henry Miller, an immigrant from Germany of Swiss ancestry, published an early German translation of the Declaration of Independence (1776) in his newspaper Philadelphische Staatsbote. Miller often wrote about Swiss history and myth, such as the William Tell legend, to provide a context for patriot support in the conflict with Britain.

Frederick Muhlenberg (1750–1801), a Lutheran pastor, became a major patriot and politician, rising to be elected as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.