Looking at the motivations that the Germans who left the Siegen area in 1713 might have had, we were led back to looking at the significant number who left in 1709 from the area. Why did they leave? Religion was discounted as a major factor. Though the Siegen area was, and is, divided basically by a line through it, with the Catholics on the east, and the Reformed people on the west, most of the 1713 emigrants lived in the Protestant area, and were Protestants. The Hofmanns were an exception as they were Reformed and lived in the predominantly Catholic area; however, there is no evidence that this was a factor in 1709.
War is mentioned as a factor, and one would have to study the history in detail to know whether it was significant. We do know that Johann Wilhelm Hofmann (brother to the 1713 emigrant, John Hofmann) felt that wars were oppressive and a burden. Though this was in the 1740 time frame, it illustrates how little we know the political and military history of the area.
Farther south, nearer Heidelberg, we know that the period from the late 1600's to the early 1700's was a very bad period, when the French armies were in the area and living off the land. (This is when the Heidelberg Castle [see the German photos] was destroyed, along with the whole town of Heidelberg.) Then, in the first half of the seventeenth century, the Thirty Years' War raged over all of Germany. This had major repercussions throughout Germany.
Still, though we see the wars of the time as very bad, and as a cause for emigration, we do not have a good understanding of how the citizens felt about it. Perhaps the attitude expressed by Johann Wilhelm Hofmann in his diary tells us something. Wilhelm thought his role was that of a peasant who had no control over what happened. He had to do what God and the overlords said to do. Eventually, he broke out of this mind set and emigrated to Pennsylvania. He does, though, express the idea of fatalism, and that this was his fate. It is easy for us to see reasons, but the citizens of the time did not usually see it as we see it.
Remember that we are still focusing on the emigration of 1709, and the reasons they had for emigration. Taxation was heavy in general. After the Thirty Years' War, the population was reduced sharply, but the appetites of the rulers were not. So the rulers saw the solution as having everyone pay more. Again, though, the citizens may not have realized what the alternatives were. We do know that those who went to America were surprised at how low the taxes were. In 1709, not enough reports had come back from America for those in Germany to realize that taxes could be a lot lower than what they were paying. So taxation is not a strong reason in the face of the fatalistic attitude of the German citizens.
Our problem in understanding the period is that we put ourselves into the physical situation then, and base our conclusions on our attitudes of today in that situation. This tells us nothing about what people were thinking then.
(28 Mar 01)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.