John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 343

For someone who wishes to examine early documents pertaining to the history of the Germanna Colonies, here are some recommendations:

The following is a secondary source by Klaus Wust: " Palatines and Switzers for Virginia, 1705-1738: Costly Lessons for Promoters and Emigrants ", in YEARBOOK OF GERMAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, v.19 (1984), pp.43-55 .  As a general rule, anything by Klaus Wust merits your attention.  Klaus examines many documents, in a variety of languages, to obtain his information.  Because some of the documents are in German and French and inaccessible, Klaus' studies and reports are the best things for most of us.  Be sure and study his notes and bibliography.

Christopher de Graffenried wrote three longhand manuscripts after he returned to Switzerland from America.  Two of these are in French and one is in German.  They are quite similar in tone but each of them has different marginal notes, which he appears to have added.  Vincent H. Todd examined these manuscripts and compared them.  He published a summary with notes that comment on the differences in the manuscripts.  See " Christoph von Graffenried's Account of the Founding of New Bern " in PUBLICATIONS OF THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL COMMISSION, Raleigh, 1920 .  The tenor of the notes is that Graffenried felt his failure in America was not his fault and he is determined to let the world know that.  He divides his notes into sections and tells what went wrong.  Though extremely self-serving, these memoirs do have many facts embedded.  The most frustrating thing about the notes is the absence of dates.  One has to consult other sources to fix the times.

R. A. Brock, as editor, collected the letters of Alexander Spotswood and published them as " The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood " in COLLECTIONS OF THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, New Series, v. 1, (1882) .  Unfortunately, this is not a complete set, but the period of his early governorship in Virginia is well covered.  Like many authors, his comments are self-serving even though he was describing official actions.

More information about Spotswood and others is to be found in the Library of Virginia in the Colonial Records Project.  This came about shortly after World War II when Virginia was preparing for the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.  They sent a crew to England to examine colonial records and to photograph all of them which mentioned Virginia.  Back home, they prepared an index to these records by subjects and names of people.  These indices are available on-line through the Internet for searching but the copies of the records require a physical presence in Richmond.  Using these is great fun, though the delay and expense of copies are frustrating.  It is very exciting to see a microfilm of things like the map that Franz Michel drew in the first decade of the 1700's which was the cause of there being a Germanna.