The Catholic Prince, Hyazinth, banned the delivery of charcoal to Protestant areas in the Siegerland, thus bringing the iron working there to a near halt due to the lack of this vital resource. The wood that could be grown in the Protestant area was not sufficient. In addition, Hyazinth tried to ban the sale of iron products. The iron working segment was hit very hard and the families who were involved found themselves falling into a deep state of misery.
On December 6, 1706, the subjects of the district of Weidenau rebelled against Hyazinth while he was in Vienna trying to convince the German Emperor to officially recognize him as the heir to the principality of Orange in the southern part of France. In March 1707, Prince William Hyazinth seized Friedrich Flender who was supposedly the leader of one of the rebellions of the miners and ironworkers in Weidenau. Flender was taken to the Upper Castle, convicted without a trial, and beheaded. His head was placed on a pole at the Upper Castle and pointed toward his home in Weidenau in order to intimidate Hyazinth’s opponents.
Josef I, the Holy Roman Emperor, intervened in this tumultuous state of affairs by turning over the administration of the Siegerland to the Archbishop of Cologne. This placed Siegerland under the rule of the Jesuits and living conditions did not improve in the Protestant region. On May 26, 1712, just one year before the emigration of the first Germanna Colonists, the situation became more violent when the imperial guards of the Upper Castle clashed with those of the Lower Castle during the Corpus Christi Procession. Cannon fire was exchanged, which resulted in a large number of military, as well as civilian, casualties in Siegen. The protestant Prince Adolf of Nassau-Siegen requested support from the King of Prussia and the Counts of Hesse shortly thereafter in the hope of restoring peace to the Siegerland.
In short, the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, the living conditions of the miners and iron workers in the Siegerland became worse and worse due to the political, economical, and religious circumstances there. The reigning Princes demanded more and more taxes from their subjects. Large sums of money were demanded from the Protestant areas for the reconstruction of the Lower Castle. The Catholic Prince Hyazinth cut off the delivery of new materials to the protestant parts of the Siegerland, this bringing the iron industry in those areas to a standstill which resulting in under employment.
When Johann Justus Albrecht appeared about 1710/11 seeking miners to go to the British Colonies in North America, this represented a great employment opportunity. Initially they were to mine silver but Spotswood eventually put them to work seeking iron ore.
(29 Jun 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.