| European Migration |
By
Birgit Rausch
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Between
1820 and 1930 about 6Million Germans
from all parts of Germany emigrated to the USA. From the Ravensberg area,
which means the landscape between Bielefeld and Minden, also thousands
emigrated, about 90 % to the USA and only a few to other countries. From
Herford district a number of 10.000 people can be estimated, which is about
as much as the population of the city of Herford in 1865, or 1/7 of the
population of Herford district in the same year.
Reasons
for emigration were mostly economical. The rural lower class of farm workers,
called “Heuerlinge”, had made their living during the winter by spinning
or weaving, which became impossible in the 19th century because
of the English machine spinning and weaving. The decline of wages was accompanied
by an increase of food prices, caused by several successive crop failures
during the forties. Poverty caused people from 1820 on to emigrate, first
choosing destinations like the nowadays so-called Ruhr areaor
the principality Lippe, which were foreign in these days. Only a few very
brave people dared to cross the Atlantic ocean into a totally unknown way
of life.But very soon the emigration
wave grew like an avalanche and reached its climax in 1853.
The
process of emigration took place as follows: The person who was willing
to emigrate or the father of the family went to the senior civil servant
of his district and applied for a “release from the Prussian community
of subjects”. The senior civil servant wrote down the names and birth dates
of the involved persons and made a statement regarding the military duties
of young men or the possibly existing debts whose payment one could try
to escape. Then he sent the application to the district officer in Herford,
called “Landrat” in German, who sent the files on to the government of
the administrative district in Minden, where the release certificate was
written out and sent back by the same way to the senior civil servant who
then could hand it over to the applicant after he paid his dues. After
this process the man, woman or family was free to leave. They sold everything
they could not take with them, getting money to pay the voyage, perhaps
lent the rest of the travel expenses from relatives, and started their
long way by first travelling by boat, later by railway, to Bremen or Hamburg.
Besides
legal emigration like I just described of course there was a high number
of people who emigrated illegally, just vanishing during the night, for
different reasons. Many young men tried to avoid Prussian military duty
by emigration, but their left-behind family had to pay fines for that.
Sometimes people only emigrated illegally because they did not have the
money for the emigration license.
Sometimes
even people were sent away against their will to get rid of them, being
poor or criminal, so they were no longer a problem for the community. The
local police officer guided them to their ship to make sure they were gone
forever.
It
is scarcely possible to imagine the despair people had to feel for daring
to do such a step. Rural people from Ravensberg seldom had left their own
village or its vicinity and knew only landscapes they could reach by walking,
if military duties had not taken them to other countries. Emigration normally
was final, expecting never to be able to come back again. This meant to
say good-bye to people who would or could not come along, and to the places
they knew. Ahead of them lay an uncertain future, a dangerous voyage across
the ocean many people did not survive, and an equally dangerous life in
the New World, threatened by Indians or by diseases like cholera.
Of
course none of our people knew only one word in English, so it is only
logical they did prefer to go after their arrival in New York or New Orleans
to places where friends, relatives or former neighbours already had settled,
who spoke the same language and who had promised to support them in the
beginning. By this way, many “German” settlings like New Paderborn, New
Melle or Hermann in Missouri, where people from the Detmold area had settled,
were formed. In Quincy/Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi, many
emigrants from the Herford area, especially from Elverdissen, came together,
founded their own parish, St. James, with a pastor from Valdorf near Vlotho.
Many well-known names from our area you can still find today in the Quincy
directory.
Although
many emigrants “got stuck” in cities like Quincy, St. Louis or Chicago,
it was the aim of most to get their own farm. The American government gave
them farmland for low prices, which of course had been taken away from
the Indians, and had first to be cultivated with immeasurable trouble.
The family had to live in a hole in the ground for the beginning, until
there was time to build a log cabin, giving shelter for people and cattle.
Weather disasters like hurricanes or floods, diseases or Indian attacks
were a constant threat. Despite all work and trouble it cost, for most
emigrants it has been worth wile to venture the voyage to America, being
accustomed to working hard. While here, in the old home, one had seldom
enough food, many managed to build a new existence and a prosperity in
the New World meaning to have plenty of food every day, and a home or farm
of their own, which was more than what the old home had to give to them.
_________________________________________________________________________
Birgit Rausch
Herford,
May 2000
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