Harxheim emigrants in the 18. and 19th century

“We are now starting the journey to the country of Brazil”.

Similar to the case of the Josephinian colonization to Galicia, after Brazil’s independence in 1822, the new Brazilian Emperor Pedro I and his Habsburg wife Leopoldine tried to find settlers for their empire by promising privileges. In addition to personal reasons, the difficult economic situation in the home country was a major motive for emigrants to leave their homeland. A rapid increase in population as well as the practice of real division led to an ever greater fragmentation and consequent reduction in the size of agricultural landholdings, which resulted in economic hardship and poverty. Certainly with the hope of starting a better life, at least nine people from Harxheim also set out in the first of a total of three emigration waves (1817-1830): Michael Deiss emigrated to Brazil in 1825 with six children. Georg Becker emigrated in 1828 with his wife Anna Elisabeth (née Meisterling from Wahlheim). Whether and to what extent the emigration agents of the German Major Dr. Georg Anton Schäffers, who recruited settlers on behalf of the Brazilian monarchy from 1823 on, were involved in the emigration of the Harxheimers cannot be proven, but it is not unlikely. It is certain that for emigration there had to be a state permit.

The arduous journey, which lasted several months and which many emigrants did not survive, presumably went from Bremen or Bremerhaven to Rio de Janeiro. From here they traveled on smaller ships to the southern states of Rio Grande de Sol, Paraná, and Santa Catarina, where numerous German communities were established and a large percentage of the population still has German ancestors.

The land of opportunity

Unlike the emigrants to Galicia and Brazil, who emigrated within a relatively short period of time, Harxheimers emigrated to what is now the United States of America from 1840 onwards, whereby temporal focuses can be determined. The group of emigrants to the USA also represents the largest in terms of numbers, with 78 people.

According to sources, the first Harxheimers to emigrate to the United States were the 36-year-old farmer Jacob Schneider, who traveled to America in February 1840 together with his 27-year-old wife Catharina (née. Finkenauer) and their three children Anna Regina (4 years), Philipp Jacob (2 years) and Catharina (3 months), as well as the 62-year-old Justus Schneider, whose occupation is also given as Ackersmann and who emigrated with his 60-year-old wife Catharina (née Hofmann). The motive of their emigration and that of the other emigrants of the 1840s may be similar to that of the Brazil emigrants in the economic hardship created by population growth and real division. Another aspect that worsened the economic situation of many was the freedom of trade introduced in the Napoleonic period, which led to many crafts being overstaffed. For the government of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, to which Harxheim belonged at this time, emigration represented a “social overpressure valve” (Schmahl) and was therefore, according to the then Hessian Minister of the Interior du Thil, a good way to deal with the “greatest evil from which a state can suffer” – namely overpopulation. It is difficult to say whether political motives connected with the ideas of Vormärz also played a role in the emigration.

In 1843, a total of 29 people emigrated from Harxheim to the USA, making this the year with the highest number of emigrants. Considering that Harxheim had about 400 inhabitants at that time, more than 7 percent of the inhabitants left their village in a short period of time. January was already the month with the most emigrants, namely ten. In January 1843, the 60-year-old Nikolaus Ackermann and the 25-year-old blacksmith Andreas Schneider, born in Obermoos/Upper Hesse, left with his wife Catharina (née Deis) and their children Andreas (13 years), Maria (8 years) and Sophia (3 years). Melchior Schneider, a 28-year-old farmer, also left his old home with his wife Regina Margarete (née Schneider) and two children, whose ages are not known. In February, Johann, a manual laborer born in 1795, was followed by his six children, Jacob Friedrich (age 24), Anna Sophia (age 21), Catharina Clara (age 20), Johann Nikolaus (age 18), Johann (age 16), and Heinrich (age 11). The 50-year-old farmer Johann Knußmann finally emigrated in December with his wife Anna Maria (née Sänger from Elsheim) and their children Catharina (age 21), Anna Maria (age 20), Joachim (age 14) and Christine (age 12). In which month of 1843 Jacob Schenkelberger, born in 1801, emigrated with his wife Maria Sophia (née Ebeling) and their four minor children, the oldest of whom was 17 years old, is not clear from the sources.

Between 1844 and 1860, according to sources, no other Harxheimers made their way to the United States of America. This is remarkable because in 1842 the “Association for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas”, in short “Mainzer Adelsverein”, was founded in Biebrich Castle with the aim to settle German emigrants in Texas. Between 1844 and 1847 about 7,400 Germans followed its call.

The next year clearly indicated in the sources is 1860, when in April the blacksmith Franz Lang emigrated together with his wife Margarete (née Holzenthal) and his son Franz (20 years old). The 45-year-old day laborer Jacob Friedrich II emigrated in August 1862 with his wife Anna Maria (née Göth) and their children Jacob II (14 years) and Barbara II (10 years). In March 1863, the 35-year-old farmer Georg Konrad III left his old home with his wife Christine Philippine (41 years) and their six children Apollonia (13 years), Peter (11 years), Katharine (9 years), Martin (5 years), Johann Baptist (4 years) and Jacob, who was only one month old. Two years later in March 1865, 43-year-old farmer Jacob Happel emigrated together with his wife Marianna (née Fries, age 36) and their children Anna Marie (age 14), Jacob (age 12), Adam (age 11), Regine (age 10), Georg (age 9), Anna (age 4) and Karl (age 3). In May 1868, 23-year-old Christian Wenz emigrated to New York. The 24-year-old shoemaker Friedrich Peter Schneider emigrated in April 1870. Also in the 1860s, economic hardships were certainly a major reason for migration to the United States of America. Repeated crop failures (1846 and 1853) in particular caused prices of staple foods to rise sharply, leading to famine and impoverishment of large segments of the population. To what extent the phenomenon of so-called chain migration also played a role is difficult to say. By the term “chain migration” is meant that those who stayed behind also decided to emigrate due to positive news from those who had already emigrated. In the new homeland, they then often settled near them.

It is not known when Andreas Deiß emigrated with his wife and two children and Johann Adam Eifler with his wife Anna Maria (née Schneider) and seven children, the oldest of whom was 12 years old. The emigration date of Johann Melchior Goehring is also not mentioned in the sources, he died in 1904 at the age of 79. Jacob Schafbuch died in 1893 at the age of 78 on his farm in Murenga in what is now the state of Iowa, and Christian Schäfbuck died in 1896 at the age of 82 in New York/Buffalo. It is also not known for these two when they emigrated to the United States.