19 Facts About German Palatines

Immigration and asylum had long been debated, from coffee-houses to the floor of Parliament, and the Poor German Palatines were inevitably brought into the political crossfire.

Defoe's Review, a tri-weekly journal dealing usually with economic matters, was for two months dedicated to denouncing opponents' claims that the German Palatines were disease-ridden, Catholic bandits who had arrived in England "to eat the Bread out of the Mouths of our People.

Since the majority of the Poor German Palatines were husbandmen, vinedressers and laborers, the English felt that they would be better suited in agricultural areas.

These attempts mostly failed, and many of the German Palatines returned from Ireland to London within a few months, in far worse condition than when they had left.

Ships were finally dispatched for them across the English Channel, and the German Palatines arrived in London, where they waited longer while the British government considered its options.

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About 350 German Palatines had remained in New York City, and some settled in New Jersey.

The German Palatines had not understood that the Haudenosaunee were a matrilineal kinship society, and that the clan mothers had considerable power.

The German Palatines had expected to meet male sachems rather than these women, but property and descent were passed through the maternal lines.

German Palatines'storians referred to the Haudenosaunee who moved to New France as the Canadian Iroquois, while those who remained behind are described as the League Iroquois.

The clan mothers believed that leasing land to the poor German Palatines was a preemptive way to block the governors from granting their land to land-hungry immigrants from the British isles.

German Palatines settled on the frontiers of New York province in Kanienkeh, the homeland of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League (becoming the Six Nations when the Tuscarora joined the League in 1722) in what is upstate New York, and formed a very close relationship with the Iroquois.

The German Palatines came from the patriarchal society of Europe, whereas the Haudenosaunee had a matrilineal society, in which clan mothers selected the sachems and the chiefs.

The German Palatines used their metal-working skills to repair weapons that belonged to the Iroquois, built mills that ground corn for the Iroquois to sell to merchants in New York and New France, and their churches were used for Christian Iroquois weddings and baptisms.

Some German Palatines learned to perform the Haudenosaunee condolence ceremony, where condolences were offered to those whose friends and family had died, which was the most important of all Iroquois rituals.

However, the Iroquois initially allowed the German Palatines to settle in Kanienkeh out of sympathy for their poverty, and expected them to ultimately contribute for being allowed to live on the land when they become wealthier.

Likewise, many Iroquois sachems and clan mothers complained that their young people were too fond of drinking the beer brewed by the German Palatines, charging that alcohol was a destructive force in their community.

German Palatines sent messages via the Oneida to Quebec City to tell the governor-general of New France, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, of their wish to be neutral while at the same time trading with the French via Indian middlemen.

The German Palatines tried to stall, causing Vaudreuil to warn them that this "trick will avail nothing; for whenever I think proper, I shall dispatch my warriors to Corlac".

At one point, the Oneida sent a message to Vaudreuil asking that "not to due [do] them [the German Palatines] any hurt as they were no more white people but Oneidas and that their blood was mixed with the Indians".