Humboldt Capital


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Humboldt Capital

Humboldt Capital

Fall is the season of German-American identity. It begins in September when New York area Germans march down 5th Avenue in the annual Steuben Day parade, continues into October with October Fest, and culminates at Christmas with the many practices and images brought over from the old country such as decorated trees and Santa Claus. Over 33 million Americans can claim some German ancestry through the various phases of immigration that began in the Colonial period. It’s hard not to find tangible evidence of German influence in American history, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the first NASA rockets. German contributions have helped further the cause of American freedom and well-being for over three hundred years.

Germans in the Colonial Period

In 1683 thirteen Pietist families settled near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a community that came to be known as Germanton. Some historians refer to this as the first wave of German immigration, although individual Germans were already living in various colonies, including Jamestown. In future years, however, so many Germans flocked to Pennsylvania that to this day the Amish are referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch – a misnomer. The originally used term was Deutsch, the German term of self-identification, but it rapidly devolved into the anglicized “Dutch.”

Pennsylvania was also the site of Valley Forge where the Continental Army wintered in 1778. It was here that a Prussian officer from Germany was asked by General Washington to bring order to his troops. Baron von Steuben drilled the troops and later wrote an army training manual that was used into the next century. Following the American victory at Yorktown, the Prussian king, Frederick the Great, concluded one of the first agreements with the new nation: the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Perhaps the king was aware that thousands of German mercenary soldiers had chosen to remain in America rather than return home.