Recently I mentioned Savannah. It does have a German connection arising from the emigration of many German-speaking people from Salzburg. So many of the people did come from there that the Germans in Georgia are often spoken of as Salzburgers. This reminds us of the practice of calling German immigrants Palatines. Of course, in the Eighteenth Century there was no Germany, so the German-speaking emigrants were called after the name of one of the larger principalities. Eighteen-Century Salzburg was another one of the un-unified German states.
The Salzburgers who emigrated did so because of their Protestant faith. They were exiled from the Roman Catholic Salzburg. Many of them went to Prussia, but a fraction of them ended up in England. There they were persuaded to become a part of the last American colony to be founded by the English Georgia.
About sixty Salzburgers arrived in Georgia on March 12, 1734. (The choice of Georgia was fitting for it was named after King George II of England, who spoke German in his youth.) The numbers of the Germans grew to more than three hundred by 1741. These Germans founded Ebenezer, the second community in Georgia. They formed Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 1769 they had completed a brick church which is now the oldest church building in Georgia. Sometimes it is called the oldest public building in the state.
The Salzburgers were joined by other German speaking individuals from Switzerland, the Palatinate, and Swabia. Though their numbers were never very large, the state’s first governor under its Revolutionary Constitution was Johann Adam Treutlen who had arrived as a teenager in 1746.
The Salzburgers may be said to be one of the groups from Germany who came because of religious reasons. Throughout the British colonies, only a small percentage of the German emigrants had come because of religious reasons. Mostly they came for economic reasons. Even though they came for economic reasons, they did not leave religion behind.
Without knowing what the relative ranking was in their minds, the Anabaptists (Mennonites and Amish) had an element of religious motivation in their decision to emigrate. Economically they were successful in Germany and the 1710 Mennonite immigration must have had some religious motivation.
In the German colonies, economic reasons were the major reason for emigrating; however, they were interested in having churches and pastors. For many years, they had to do without pastors and they considered this a hardship. They never described their decision to emigrate as religiously motivated.
(30 Jan 06)
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.