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.

Migration to Canada
An early group, mainly from the Roxborough-Germantown area of Pennsylvania, emigrated to then colonial Nova Scotia in 1766 and founded the Township of Monckton, site of present day Moncton, New Brunswick. The extensive Steeves clan descends from this group.

After the American Revolution, John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, invited Americans, including Mennonites and German Baptist Brethren, to settle in British North American territory and offered tracts of land to immigrant groups. This resulted in communities of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers emigrating to Canada, many to the area called the German Company Tract, a subset of land within the Haldimand Tract, in the Township of Waterloo, which later became Waterloo County, Ontario. Some still live in the area around Markham, Ontario and particularly in the northern areas of the current Waterloo Region. Some members of the two communities formed the Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference. Today, the Pennsylvania Dutch language is mostly spoken by Old Order Mennonites.

From 1800 to the 1830s, some Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites in Upstate New York and Pennsylvania moved north to Canada, primarily to the area that would become Cambridge, Kitchener/Waterloo and St. Jacobs/Elmira in Waterloo County, Ontario plus the Listowel area adjacent to the northwest. Settlement started in 1800 by Joseph Schoerg and Samuel Betzner, Jr. (brothers-in-law), Mennonites, from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Other settlers followed mostly from Pennsylvania typically by Conestoga wagons. Many of the pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania after November 1803 bought land in a 60,000 acre section established by a group of Mennonites from Lancaster County Pennsylvania, called the German Company Lands.

Fewer of the Pennsylvania Dutch settled in what would later become the Greater Toronto Area in areas that would later be the towns of Altona, Ontario, Pickering, Ontario and especially Markham Village, Ontario and Stouffville, Ontario. Peter Reesor and brother-in-law Abraham Stouffer were higher profile settlers in Markham and Stouffville.

William Berczy, a German entrepreneur and artist, had settled in upstate New York and in May 1794, he was able to obtain 64,000 acres in Markham Township, near the current city of Toronto. Berczy arrived with approximately 190 German families from Pennsylvania and settled here. Others later moved to other locations in the general area, including a hamlet they founded, German Mills, Ontario, named for its grist mill; that community is now called Thornhill, Ontario), in the township that is now part of York Region.

Cultural legacy
Pennsylvania Dutch culture is still prevalent in some parts of Pennsylvania today. The Pennsylvania Dutch today speak English, though some still speak the Pennsylvania Dutch language among themselves. They share cultural similarities with the Mennonites in the same area. Pennsylvania Dutch English retains some German grammar and literally translated vocabulary, some phrases include "outen or out'n the lights" (German: "die Lichter loeschen") meaning "turn off the lights", "it's gonna make wet" (German: "es wird nass") meaning "its going to rain", and "its all" (German: "es ist alle") meaning "its all gone". They also sometimes leave out the verb in phrases turning "the trash needs to go out" in to "the trash needs out" (German: "der Abfall muss raus"), in alignment with German grammar. The Pennsylvania Dutch have some foods that are uncommon outside of places where they live. Some of these include shoo-fly pie, funnel cake, pepper cabbage, filling and jello salads such as strawberry pretzel salad.

Notable people

 * Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), 34th President of the United States
 * Anne F. Beiler (b. 1949), founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels
 * Andrew Muhlenberg (b. 2002), YouTuber known for playing the character Terry Bloxton

Fictional characters

 * Dwight Schrute, fictional character in The Office, paper salesman.