The Pennsylvania Dutch (), also referred to as Pennsylvania Germans, are an ethnic group in Pennsylvania, United States, and Ontario, Canada, as well as in other regions of both nations. They largely originate from the Palatinate region of Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. While most were from the Palatinate region, a smaller number were from other regions of Germany and German-speaking areas of Europe, including Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony, and Rhineland in Germany, Switzerland, and the Alsace–Lorraine region of France.
The Pennsylvania Dutch are either monolingual English speakers or bilingual speakers of both English and the Pennsylvania Dutch language, which is also commonly referred to as Pennsylvania German.Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, pp. 1-2; pp. 60-66; pp. 342-343. Linguistically it consists of a mix of German dialects which have been significantly influenced by English, primarily in terms of vocabulary but also in grammar and pronunciation. Based on dialect features, Pennsylvania Dutch can be classified as a variety of Rhine Franconian, with the Palatine German dialects being most closely related.Michael T. Putnam: Studies on German-Language Islands, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 375Joachim Scharloth, Nils Langer, Stephan Elspaß & Wim Vandenbussche: Germanic Language Histories 'from Below' (1700-2000), De Gruyter, 2011, p. 166.
Geographically, Pennsylvania Dutch are largely found in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, Ohio Amish Country, and Indiana Amish Country. The main division among Pennsylvania Dutch is that between sectarians (those belonging to the Old Order Mennonite, Amish or related groups) and nonsectarians, sometimes colloquially referred to as ″Church Dutch″ or ″Fancy Dutch″.
Notable Americans of Pennsylvania Dutch descent include Henry J. Heinz (founder of the Heinz food conglomerate), Walter Chrysler (founder of automobile manufacturer Chrysler), U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
Autonym Differing explanations exist on why the Pennsylvania Dutch are referred to as Dutch, which typically refers to the inhabitants of the Netherlands or the Dutch language. Some authors consider the word Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch, which in medieval times could also be used to refer to speakers of various German dialects, to be an archaism specific to 19th-century American English, particularly in its colloquial form.Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, p.2 Other scholars contend that the Dutch in Pennsylvania Dutch is an anglicization of the Pennsylvania German autonym deitsch, which in the Pennsylvania German language refers to the Pennsylvania Dutch or Germans in general.Robert Hendrickson (2000). The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms. United States of America: Infobase Publishing. p. 723.Irwin Richman: The Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Arcadia Publishing, 2004, p.16.Nicoline van der Sijs:Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops: The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages. Amsterdam University Press, 2009, page 15.Sally McMurry: Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2011, page 2.Hostetler, John A. (1993), Amish Society, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 241
The migration of the Pennsylvania Dutch to the United States predates the emergence of a distinct German national identity, which did not form until the late 18th century.Hans Kohn (1951): The Eve of German Nationalism (1789–1812). In: Journal of the History of Ideas. Bd. 12, Nr. 2, S. 256–284, hier S. 257 (). The formation of the German Empire in 1871 resulted in a semantic shift, in which deutsch was no longer principally a linguistic and cultural term, but was increasingly used to describe all things related to Germany and its inhabitants. This development did not go unnoticed among the Pennsylvania Dutch who, in the 19th and early 20th century, referred to themselves as Deitsche, while calling newer German immigrants Deitschlenner 'Germany-ers'.Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, pp. 3–4.
Geographic distribution
The Pennsylvania Dutch live primarily in the Delaware Valley and in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a large area that includes South Central Pennsylvania, in the area stretching in an arc from Bethlehem and Allentown in the Lehigh Valley westward through Reading, Lebanon, and Lancaster to York and Chambersburg. Smaller enclaves include Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking areas in New York, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia, and the Canadian province of Ontario.
History Immigration to America
The Pennsylvania Dutch, primarily German-speaking immigrants from Germany, especially the Palatinate region, Switzerland, and Alsace, moved to America seeking better opportunities and a safer, more tolerant environment. Many, including Amish and Mennonites, faced religious persecution in Europe. Pennsylvania, established by William Penn as a haven for religious minorities, promised the religious freedom they sought. Economic hardship, marked by war, famine, and limited land access in 17th and 18th century Germany, pushed many to seek a better life in the New World, which offered abundant land and resources.
Europe's, and especially Germany's, political instability, with frequent wars like the devastating Thirty Years' War, contrasted with the relatively stable environment of the American colonies. The availability of fertile land was a significant draw for the immigrants, who were mainly farmers and craftsmen, for whom the chance to own and cultivate their own farms was highly appealing. Positive reports from early settlers as well as active recruitment by William Penn encouraged friends and family to join them, fostering tightly-knit communities.
About three fourths of all Germans in Pennsylvania were subject to several years of indentured servitude contracts. These indentured servants, known as redemptioners, were made to work on plantations or perform other work to pay off the costs of the sponsor or shipping company which had advanced the cost of their transatlantic voyage. In 1764, the German Society of Pennsylvania was founded to protect the German redemptioners.
The bulk of German migration to the American colonies began in 1683 but concentrated on the first half of the 18th century. Overall, the historian Marianne Wokeck estimates that just under 81,000 German-speakers entered the port of Philadelphia between 1683 and 1775, with two thirds of the immigrants arriving before 1755 of whom the majority (ca. 35,000) arrived in the five year period between 1749 and 1754. Marianne Sophia Wokeck: Trade in Strangers: The Beginnings of Mass Migration to North America. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, pp. 44-47 In 1790, ethnic Germans comprised 38% of the population of Pennsylvania, or approximately 165,000 people. Of these, over half resided in the counties of Berks, Lancaster, Northampton and York.
Anglo-Americans held much anti-Palatine sentiment in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin complained about Palatine refugees in his work Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, writing:
The Germans who immigrated to the United States saw themselves as related though distinct from later (post-1830) waves of German-speaking immigrants. The Pennsylvania Dutch referred to themselves as Deitsche and would refer to Germans who arrived after the period of almost non-existent emigration between 1760 and 1830 from the German lands as Deitschlenner, literally "Germany-ers", compare .Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, p.3-4
American Revolutionary War
The Pennsylvania Dutch composed nearly half of the population of the Province of Pennsylvania. The Fancy Dutch population generally supported the Patriot cause in the American Revolution; the nonviolent Plain Dutch minority did not fight in the war.John B. Stoudt, "The German Press in Pennsylvania and the American Revolution." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 59 (1938): 74–90 online Heinrich Miller of the Holy Roman Principality of Waldeck (1702-1782), was a journalist and printer based in Philadelphia, and published an early German translation of the Declaration of Independence (1776) in his newspaper Philadelphische Staatsbote. Miller, having Swiss ancestry, 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.A. G.. Roeber, "Henry Miller's Staatsbote: A Revolutionary Journalist's Use of the Swiss Past", Yearbook of German-American Studies, 1990, Vol. 25, pp 57–76
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."Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus Conrad" (biography), in "History, Art & Archives." Washington, D.C.: United States House of Representatives, retrieved online December 18, 2022.
The Pennsylvania Dutch contribution to the war effort was notable:
Many Hessian prisoners, German mercenaries fighting for the British, were held in camps at the interior city of Lancaster, home to a large German community known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Hessian prisoners were subsequently treated well, with some volunteering for extra work assignments, helping to replace local men serving in the Continental Army. Due to shared German heritage and abundance of land, many Hessian soldiers stayed and settled in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country after the war's end.
Pennsylvania Dutch Provost Corps Pennsylvania Dutch were recruited for the American Provost corps under Captain Bartholomew von Heer,"It is interesting to note that nearly all men recruited into the Provost Corps were Pennsylvania German." - David L. Valuska a Prussian who had served in a similar unit in Europe before immigrating to Reading, Pennsylvania, prior to the war.
During the Revolutionary War the Marechaussee Corps were utilized in a variety of ways, including intelligence gathering, route security, enemy prisoner of war operations, and even combat during the Battle of Springfield. The Marechausee also provided security for Washington's headquarters during the Battle of Yorktown, acted as his security detail, and was one of the last units deactivated after the Revolutionary War. The Marechaussee Corps was often not well received by the Continental Army, due in part to their defined duties but also due to the fact that some members of the corps spoke little or no English. Six of the provosts had even been Hessian prisoners of war prior to their recruitment. Because the provost corps completed many of the same functions as the modern U.S. Military Police Corps, it is considered a predecessor of the current United States Military Police Regiment.
American Civil War
Nearly all of the regiments from Pennsylvania that fought in the American Civil War had German-speaking or Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking members on their rosters, the majority of whom were Fancy Dutch.