Colin Ross, "Unser Amerika", Chapter 20

 

20.

The Americans of German Blood as Freedom Fighters

When the American War of Independence broke out, one hundred and seventy years had passed since the founding of Jamestown, the first British settlement on American soil. A race had grown up which, while it certainly felt British, was no longer in living touch with the mother country. It must not be forgotten that the 3,000 miles separating America from Europe did not mean five or six days' sea voyage at that time, but as many weeks, sometimes even months. Puritan immigration had already ceased in the main by 1640, and that of the "Cavaliers" had ended a few decades later. What came next were primarily non-Britons, Germans above all, Irish and French Huguenots. 

Nevertheless, one could not speak of an American people, nor of a general spirit of revolt against England. As long as the economic situation was tolerable, no one in the thirteen colonies thought of apostasy. In a sense, these thirteen colonies were already as many independent states. The high degree of self-government they possessed made a change in their relations with the mother country hardly necessary, not even desirable. Their independence, however, as well as their great diversity from one another, made joint action against England extremely difficult.

At the beginning of the rebellion, only a small circle had the achievement of complete independence in mind, even as a desirable goal. How little enthusiasm there was for the cause of freedom in wide circles, even much later, is evident from a letter of General von Kalb, the German officer in French service, who had joined Lafayette's auxiliary corps. He wrote, appalled and dejected at the mood in America, that Americans clung to their English motherland with fervent, deep-rooted devotion. One had to marvel at the thoughtless folly with which England mishandled this feeling. There was a hundred times more enthusiasm for the American Revolution in a Parisian coffee house than in all thirteen united provinces of America.

Most historians estimate that only about one-third of the colonists were in favor of the Revolutionary cause, one-third were loyal to the British Crown, and the last third were wait-and-see. This estimate is, of course, an inadmissible generalization. The percentage in the hundreds of the three parties varied according to place and time. In the beginning the number of Loyalists, partisans of England, was considerably greater, and they were more numerous in the South than in the North throughout the War of Independence. In North Carolina the Loyalists considerably outnumbered and influenced the rebels, the so-called Patriots, and in Georgia their superiority was such that that colony was still planning to defect from the common cause of the Revolution in 1781, a full four years after the Declaration of Independence.

Opponents and supporters of independence were socially divorced. In general, the "better people" were in England's camp, the big merchants, the clergy, especially those of the Episcopal Church, the big landowners and in general the "educated". But the "little people", the farmers, the workers and the tradesmen, were revolutionaries. A part of the population, however, stood everywhere almost uniformly and unitedly in the camp of the Star Spangled Banner, independent of wealth and social position, and these were the Americans of German blood.

The Germans had come to America as to a foreign country under a foreign flag. There they had been received with mistrust in many cases. The Palatines who had emigrated to Pennsylvania had sworn an oath that they would be true and loyal subjects to King George II and his successor. They kept this oath honestly, as did the German settlers in the other colonies, although they had cause for revolt and apostasy more than once, until the shots were fired at Lexington and the storm broke. There the Germans were among the first to stand faithful to the cause of freedom, and they were among those who remained faithful from the first day to the last, regardless of all setbacks.

It has been common in America from the beginning, and it still is today, to suspect loyalty and allegiance of fellow citizens of German stock. Already during the Indian and French wars the assertion was spread that the Germans might make common cause with these enemies, without the slightest reason and without the least proof. But during the War of Independence they did not dare to do so, for the determination and unity with which the Germans in their entirety professed the flag of the Revolution was too great, and the difference from the frequently wavering attitude of the Americans of English blood too embarrassing. Of the Germans, neither one-third nor even one-sixth were in King George's camp; German loyalists were such rare exceptions that they could almost be counted on one hand. 

I could not have been otherwise. The Germans had no ties of blood to England or lore and memory to the British crown. They had sought the land of freedom in America and had not found it, or had found it only to a very limited extent; indeed, in many cases they had been sold into worse bondage in the New World than that to which they had been consigned in the old one. Now the dawn of real freedom appeared, a freedom they could fight for and win themselves. Was it any wonder when a shout of enthusiasm ran through the ranks of the German farmers, when they hurriedly flocked to arms, when they put the best fighters to the armies of the revolution? If the initial quarrel over money and economic questions, over the right of taxation and the advantages and disadvantages of trade policy, in time became a struggle to the death for freedom and independence, for the birth of a new, young state, the credit for this lies not in the least with the Germans and with the Irish, who were not yet half English, but already whole Americans.