Flohr’s remarks concerning the number of Germans and German-speakers he met in North America are hardly surprising. 100,000 Germans were probably living in America during the colonial era (110,000 German and Swiss natives, the two origins were not differentiated in the statistics until 1820). 50,000 other German-speaking migrants probably joined them between 1780 and 1820. Even if English was spoken more than German, a third of the population of Pennsylvania in 1790, or 141,000 individuals, was of German descent. At the beginning of the American Republic, a total of 227,000 American citizens were of German descent, which amounted to 10% of the population; 94% of the names on the naturalization lists in the eighteenth century were those of Germans. An overwhelming majority of these migrants and descendants of German migrants spoke dialects from the southwest of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire: Flohr thought he heard the German of his native country everywhere in America. This is not an exaggerated statement, as a good number of those who spoke that language were originally from Palatinate, the Bishoprics of Worms, Speyer, Mainz, or Trier, Alsace, Hanau, Nassau as well as the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt.

The Anglo-Saxons turned the crossing of the Mayflower into a founding myth. This vessel carried 102 immigrants, the Pilgrims, who landed at Cape Cod in 1620. For the Germans, the equivalent of this landmark crossing took place in 1683, when the first 33 German-speaking emigrants travelled to America aboard the Concord. Thirteen Quaker and Mennonite families originally from Krefeld (near Dusseldorf) and Kriegsheim (near Worms) landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 6, 1683. The story of the birth of a baby during the crossing, which lifted the burden of sadness caused by the death of one of them, comforted the Christians who wished to practice their faith far from the established Churches with the hope of building a new world on the other side of the Atlantic, under the watchful eye of God. These 33 Germans were not, however, the first German-speakers to have tried their luck in America. In 1562, the Spanish destroyed Port Royal in South Carolina, built by French Huguenots with Alsatians and Hessians among them. Afterwards the first Germans to definitely settle on the east coast of America were the “Deutschmen” of Jamestown who had been in Virginia since 1607. The English confused them with the Dutchmen because they asked to be called “Deutsch”. Before Pennsylvania, Virginia had therefore been therefore populated with Germans, since several Germans could be found living there as early as 1607, among them a certain Johannes Fleischer, a Lutheran pastor originally from Breslau, two Hessians who were masters of glass work, and also four carpenters from Hamburg. Other Germans settled in the colony to develop tobacco cultivation, and then in 1653, wine-growers originally from Heidelberg introduced vineyards in the colony. Prince Edler von Buchen emigrated from Pomerania with 54 families and settled in New Amsterdam, just like Heinrich von Elswich, a merchant from Lübeck, as well as Jacob Leister, who was born in Frankfurt and who arrived in 1660; he became rich thanks to trading with the Indians and by marrying into the Dutch aristocracy; he later would become governor of New York.

Even if German-speaking colonists settled in the American colonies sporadically in the first two-thirds of the seventeenth century, German emigration to these new settlement lands only picked up after 1683. William Penn — the English Quaker who received the lands that would later bear his name from the King of England as repayment for a debt owed to his father — played a decisive role in attracting German migrants to Pennsylvania. a strong propaganda campaign using brochures that sang the praises of the New World, firstly for religious freedom, caught the attention of western German Pietists who came together to form a “Frankfurt Company” which sought to buy thousands of acres of virgin land in Pennsylvania. But they did not, however, physically settle there. Only their agent, jurist Franz Daniel Pastorius, arrived in Pennsylvania in August 1683 and organized the convoy of the first 13 German families who settled in the colony in October of the same year. The newly-arrived Germans in Pennsylvania settled in a Philadelphia neighborhood six miles from the center of town that they named “Deutschstadt”, or Germantown. In 1689, Germantown became a city in its own right, with Pastorius as its mayor.

The first German migrants were members of Protestant sects seeking more freedom of conscience and religion, like the Labadists who settled in Maryland; the largest portion of the German-speaking population in the eighteenth century was made up of Protestants or Lutherans. The head of the Pennsylvania Lutherans was an important figure: the most famous of them was Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, who had been educated in Göttingen, and who had the Church of Sion, the largest church in Philadelphia, built and consecrated in 1769. This massive immigration of members of churches established in principalities of the Holy Roman Empire shows that the causes of emigration evolved as a great wave of German migration, mainly from the Palatinate, developed from 1707-1708. The abuses committed by Louis XIV’s armies combined with the hardships of the winter of 1709 made the propaganda used to attract migrants to the new colonies very effective. The new migrants were poor, rural families. They would have voluntarily emigrated to Prussia if the plague had not struck the area. 3,000 Palatines tried their luck and left for New York from 1710 on. 773 passengers died of fever during the crossing and one of the ships of the convoy was damaged off the coast of Long Island. 600 families landed in North and South Carolina, drawn there by the propaganda brochures that promised them free land. Palatines awaiting departure for America already numbered 6,000 in London in 1709, and it is estimated that in the 1710s there were 30,000 of them who passed through Rotterdam or London, leading the novelist, journalist and trader Daniel Defoe to give them the nickname “Poor Palatines”. This stream of Palatines reached a climax in the middle of the century: between 1749 and 1754, a large wave of German migration hit Philadelphia: 37,000 Germans arrived, an average of 6,000 each autumn, in a city whose capacity was at best estimated to be 17,000 inhabitants in 1756.

Germantown remained the center of the social and cultural life for the Germans who often passed through before settling in neighboring counties or colonies. New Jersey was developed by Germans, notably in the “German Valley”. Johann Peter Rockefeller, for example, the ancestor of the dynasty of industrialists and bankers, settled there in 1733. Starting in 1729, western Maryland was populated by Germans from Pennsylvania who were drawn by the favorable conditions heralded by Lord Baltimore in 1732 (a very low rent, rent exemptions for land for the first three years). Frederick Town was founded by about one hundred Palatine families in 1745 and was led by Thomas Schley, the mayor, pastor, and magistrate of the new city. Migration of German-speakers within the American colonies was organized around Pennsylvania as well: in 1728 the Palatines from New York traveled inland to escape difficult living conditions and settled in Pennsylvania as well.

Books, almanacs, and newspapers were printed in German, often with an enthusiasm that resisted the passage of time. Johann Christoph Sauer, a Dunker who arrived in Pennsylvania between 1719-1720, started publishing a newspaper in 1739, Der Hoch Deutsche Pennsylvanische Geschichtsschreiber (known later by the name Germantauner Zeitung), that was printed in German Gothic characters imported from Frankfurt. He also had a Bible printed in German. Around 1750, Philadelphia boasted close to 200 publications in German. Benjamin Franklin tried to start a German newspaper in Philadelphia, but his periodical did not gain a large enough readership, as it was so full of errors and was unreadable for the Germans who preferred the Gothic characters used by Sauer. Five newspapers were successfully printed in German up to the Revolution. For that matter another printer, Henry Miller, boasted of being the first to print the Declaration of Independence in German typography on July 5, 1776.

Although certain pastors began preaching in English in the 1740s and 1750s, the descendants of German settlers continued to use German in church, even if they were able to mumble a bit in English when needed. Looking for stability, the newcomers chose to settle primarily in villages or valleys already populated by Germans. The uncontested domination of the German language in certain towns or valleys did not encourage the Germans and their descendants to open their community to the outside and move into the English-speaking world, which raised the question of their loyalty, notably during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). The Germans only managed to add English words or verbs into their lexicon that were “germanized” and sometimes transcribed phonetically, which led to misunderstandings while forging a hybrid language little by little, proof of a German-American creolization. In a letter addressed to a fellow printer in 1750, Benjamin Franklin complained of the linguistic power struggle in which English was in an unfavorable position against German in certain colonies, and of seeing settlers of other origins forced to move away in order to leave an environment where too much German was spoken. According to him, a more evenly divided mix of German-speakers and English-speakers should be encouraged. Christopher Sauer, the printer from Philadelphia, acknowledged his responsibility for the slow pace at which the Germans adapted to English, as he published numerous books and periodicals in German, even though in 1752 he made sure to publish a Anleitung zur Englischen Sprache vor die Teutsche Neuankommende (“Introduction to the English language for German New Comers”). Families remained bilingual for quite some time, despite the often rapid anglicization of their last names (Jäger became Hunter, Schmidt was rapidly transformed into Smith), which optimistically anticipated their mastery of the English language. In 1789, the doctor and politician Benjamin Rush drew up an assessment of the linguistic situation that differed only slightly from the one left by Franklin forty years earlier: the descendants of German colonists continued to communicate in German, even if those who lived in the bigger cities or who dealt in commerce had a satisfactory command of English. Massive German immigration in America led to the birth of a new German-American culture: Germans integrated in the English-speaking world with their sense of business and their know-how, but in church, and in their taverns and bookstores they continued to use the mother tongue, to see each other as fellow countrymen, and to cultivate exclusive social links.

German settlers were considered as assets for the development of certain American economic sectors, for example glasswork. As early as 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, and until the end of the colonial period, Germans were renowned for their know-how. In 1784, Maryland was proud to welcome 300 Germans originally from Bremen who practiced manual and skilled craftsmen professions. Notably, they opened the glass-manufacturing factory in Fleecy Dale. Alexander Spotswood, the governor of Virginia whose wife was a German originally from Hanover, encouraged the arrival of Germans: 12 German families from Westphalia, recruited by the Swiss baron Christoph von Graffenried, settled in Virginia in 1714 as iron workers. The town of Germanna was founded for them: it welcomed 20 additional families in 1717 then 40 others between 1717 and 1720. Several towns were founded in Virginia by Germans: New Mecklenburg in 1726, Staufferstadt (later called Strasbourg) by Jacob Stauffer in 1728, Harpers Ferry at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers by Robert Harper in 1734. Once these valleys proved to be fertile, numerous Germans from Pennsylvania also migrated to these territories to contribute to their cultivation. Some German communities were still small in numbers before the 1730s, but they were already very active in sectors such as leather, tobacco, shipyards, and international commerce. Companies from Bremen and Hamburg established offices in cities like Baltimore.

The presence of German settlers often meant economic dynamism. But this population with an industrious reputation also distinguished itself for its lack of interest in public affairs. Pastor Mühlenberg compared them to busy bees in a hurry to return to their hives. While debates about taxation and the American Colonies’ representation in the British parliament began, the Germans remained in the background of the political turmoil. Even in Germantown there had been a fine of $4 since the time of Pastorius for the far too many who refused to join the town council, even though their position in the town should have driven them to do so. This lack of interest in politics showed through even in Flohr’s account. He was delighted to find German communities in America at each stage of his route, but did not actually make inquiries about their political opinions or verify beforehand that they did indeed support the same cause as him. Many Protestant sects (Mennonites, Dunkers, Quakers) refused to bear arms for religious reasons and purchased their exemption from military duty by paying a tax, similar to the threefold tax in North Carolina. However, a significant number of Germans remained Loyalists: a letter from John Adams to Thomas McKean, Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice, states that a third of the population of that very German-speaking colony were Loyalists. In Georgia as well, two-fifths of the Germans were Loyalists, and ardent patriots like John Adam Treutlen, the first governor of Georgia, had to deploy a large amount of energy so that the colony would shift to the insurgents' side. In the more commercial colonies, the Germans who were unhappy about English taxes (the Stamp Act required that they pay double for stamped paper) supported the American cause, but the hierarchy of Lutheran and Protestant churches was forced to become involved to appeal to the Germans in New York and North Carolina who were still shy to resist English despotism. a 40-page pamphlet was published to that end in Philadelphia in 1775. In addition to Pastor Peter Mühlenberg of Virginia, other German-speakers who were also ardent patriots were distinguished by their courage and determination during the War of Independence. Such was the case for baker Christopher Ludwig, a former sailor and soldier of the Prussian army who spoke only German; his English-speaking abilities were as small as his devotion to the American cause was great. He enrolled in the militia at age 55. Tall and unshakeable, he impressed his contemporaries by taking part in the committee for gunpowder and ammunition, and in several revolutionary groups. In May 1777, Congress named him superintendent and chief baker of the entire continental army. The army asked him to produce 100 pounds of bread for 100 pounds of flour, but he managed to deliver 135 by making 6,000 loaves a day, commanding the admiration of General Washington who saw him as a close friend.

As for the military, the Germans were enlisted on both sides: a regiment of Germans from Pennsylvania and Maryland was raised by Congress starting in 1776, and Rochambeau’s expeditionary forces that landed in 1780 also had German-speaking regiments, among them Flohr’s regiment, the Royal Deux-Ponts. On the other side, the English enlisted German mercenaries who, recruited by money-hungry princes, bore the name of “Hessians” although not all of them were from Hesse-Kassel. At the battle of Yorktown, orders were given in German on both sides provoking some confusion. In 1781, the Hessians deserted or were captured, and often fraternized with the Germans enrolled in the continental army. Sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania or Frederick Town, Maryland, they received a warm welcome from the local farmers and they improved their knowledge in the fields of commerce, agriculture, or education. The baker Ludwig, himself from Hesse, had optimistic hopes about their future integration.

At the end of the War of Independence, 17,300 German soldiers enlisted in the two rival armies returned to Germany. The losses amounted to 7,500 dead and missing, which leads historians to believe that 5,000 German-speakers must have remained in America, without taking into account those who returned later, like Flohr who chose to return to America to work as a pastor, probably between 1793 and 1799, the date when his presence was established in the Wythville parish in West Virginia.