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The Conquest of the American Continent. Grant Madison
Читать онлайн.Название The Conquest of the American Continent
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066396244
Автор произведения Grant Madison
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The next most important racial element was the Germans. In fact, it was the only non-British element of importance in the colonies. At the time of the Revolution the Germans numbered about a quarter of a million and by 1790 they have been computed to have been about 9 per cent of the total population of the colonies. They settled in the districts of Pennsylvania immediately west of Philadelphia around York and Lancaster, where they are to be found today. They were a peaceful and industrious people, and have to some extent retained their language and customs down to the present time. A very few of them joined their neighbors, the Ulster Scots, in the migration to the Southwest. They were not particularly loyal to the American cause during the Revolution nor in the preceding French Wars, and their presence in the colonies excited much hostility. They were refugees, who had fled down the Rhine from Alsace and the Palatinate to escape the French when Louis XIV invaded and devastated their country. With them were many refugees from German-speaking Switzerland together with Hussites from Moravia. While there were some Lutherans and Calvinists among them, most of the "Pennsylvania Dutch," as they were called by the English colonists, belonged to small and obscure sects. Dunkards, Schwankenfelders, Amish, and Mennonites still maintain their special religious communities. Their language is Alemannish and this German dialect is still spoken in Alsace and Switzerland. In addition to their colonies in Pennsylvania, there was a small settlement of Moravian Brothers in the western part of North Carolina.
Maryland was originally settled under a charter to Lord Baltimore as a refuge for English Catholics, but from the beginning these latter were very few in number and by 1690 were so thoroughly outnumbered that they were deprived of the franchise.
Virginia, the most important of the colonies next to New England, if the latter be taken as a whole, was pure English in the tidewater district, that is, as far west as Richmond. Beyond were many Ulster Scots, who, it must be remembered, were very largely English.
North Carolina was much the same, except that the Ulster Scots were relatively more numerous.
South Carolina had an English planter aristocracy and was much purer English and had less Ulster Scotch than her northern neighbor. It had also a considerable French Huguenot element, by far the largest and most influential in the colonies. These Huguenots, while not very numerous, were nearly all men of culture and social standing and played a large part in the development of the country.
Georgia was substantially of the same racial complexion as South Carolina.
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