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felt no shame faced with the nudity of the Moors. I often asked why clothes were not provided for those Moors, saying that it was shameful to let them go around completely naked. Their response to me was that it would cost too much to clothe all the Blacks, and as the clothes would not be good quality, they would be torn in 3-4 weeks[219].

welche sich aber deren nackenden Mohren nicht schämen : ich fragte vielemahl warum sie dann diese Mohren nicht kleiden lassen, es wäre gar schandhafft sie nackend zu gehen lassen : sie ga-ben mir zur Antwort, wann wir alle diese schwartzen müßten kleiden lassen thätte es uns zu viel kosten, und wären in 3-4 Wochen wiedrum zerrissen, sie wären ja nicht so viel Werth.

Likewise, it surprised me very much when we saw that these Blacks were treated like animals, that they procreated as naturally as it happens in a herd, and the more little ones they had, the more the masters who owned them were pleased; they are treated in such a way as to remain natural, there are various methods for doing this, which I would not like to explain here, as it is completely contrary to human nature.

Wiedrum haben wir gesehen, allwo ich mich sehr verwunderte deren schwartzen Leute, weilen sie gehalten werden als wie das Viehe, und die Jungen deren Schwartzen nathürlich nachgezogen werden wie das junge Rinds-Viehe, wie mehr Jungen sie machen wie lieber es dem Herrn ist welcher sie hat ; auf unter-schiedliche Arten werden sie nathürlich gehalten welches ich hier nicht so genau will explizieren, weilen es gantz aus der menschlichen Natur ist.

Virginia is one of the largest of the 13 Colonies of North America, and it is still sparsely populated[220]. Germans are welcome there[221]. The English language is the most spoken language in North America, but in the German provinces German and English are spoken equally[222]; grievances must be made in English as the delegates at the Virginia Convention are Englishmen[223].

Virginia ist eine der grösten Profintzen in gantz Nord- America von den 13 Colonien und noch sehr wenig bewohnt. Alda seynd die deutschen Europäer sehr angenehm. Die engellische Sprache hat auch den Vorzug in Nord-America, in denen deutschen Profintzen redet alles Deutsch und Engellisch eines wie das andre, alle Klage müssen auf engellische Sprache vorgebracht werden, dieweil alle Landes-Räthe von der engellische Nation seyn.

In this region there are also many wild animals, each one more strange than the last; as for bears, here there are many of them, but they do not harm people,

In dieser Gegend befinden sich auch noch sehr viele wilden Thiere von allerley wunderbahrer Art, was Bären und der-gleichen anbelangt hat es sehr viele alda welche aber denen Einwohnern keinen Schaden thun.

[réclame]

weilen

https://gallica.bnf.fr/iiif/ark:/12148/btv1b10110846m/f69/pct:50,0,100,100/,700/0/native.jpg

Strasbourg, Médiathèque André Malraux, ms f 15, p. 137.

[agrandir]

Notes

219. Note the use of the first person singular here.

220. Virginia was the most populated region among the Thirteen Colonies. In 1780 there were around 540,000 inhabitants, more than in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and North Carolina (the whole population of the colonies totaled 2,800,000 inhabitants). Nevertheless, Flohr is right when he notes that Virginia is one of the largest of the colonies, as during the colonial era it stretched far to the west and northwest. Its theoretical surface area was therefore huge: before 1784 it included the future states of West Virginia, western Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and northwestern Illinois. Cf. Jacques Nicolas Bellin, Carte de la Virginie MariLand, tirée des meilleures cartes angloises, map, 1764 [reproduction en ligne - Gallica].

221. Even though, starting in 1562, Alsatians and Hessians settled in Port Royal in South Carolina in the wake of the French Huguenots who founded that colony, the colony was destroyed by the Spanish four years later. It is estimated that the first Germans to settle for the long-term on the American territory were the “Dutchmen” of Jamestown, Virginia, from 1607 on; the English confused them with the Dutch because they called themselves “Deutsch”. The Lutheran theologian Johannes Fleischer, originally from Breslau, was in Jamestown as early as 1607, as were two Hessians who were masters in glass art or 4 millers originally from Hamburg in 1608. Other Germans established the first tobacco plantation there in Cavalier County, and in 1653, winegrowers originally from Heidelberg introduced vineyards. In the Virginia valley, Scots and Germans were as numerous as the English. Many Germans from Pennsylvania settled in the Shenandoah Valley. The governor of the province, Spotswood, whose wife was a German lady from Hanover, encouraged the arrival of Germans: 12 German families settled in Virginia in 1714 thanks to Swiss Baron Christoph von Graffenried’s leading a veritable propaganda campaign in Europe to encourage transatlantic migration. Originally from Westphalia, these Germans had to work as blacksmiths. The town of Germanna was founded for them. 20 additional families arrived in Virginia in 1717 then 40 others between 1717 and 1720. Several towns were founded for the 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 those valleys were shown to be fertile, numerous Germans from Pennsylvania also migrated there. (Huebener, Theodore, The Germans in America, Philadelphia & New York, Chilton Company, 1962.)

222. The language question is often raised to evaluate the German populations’ degree of integration in the American colonies. In families German was spoken as well as English, the similarities between these two Germanic languages allowing people to be easily understood. In the middle of the century, Lutheran and Protestant pastors seem to have been preaching more and more in English. Even so, German identity did not weaken: English speakers increased in number in the late eighteenth century, but craftwork, writing in Deutsche Schrift in newspapers and books, decorative elements or architecture that connected the family to its German origins were preserved.

223. Landes Räthe here refers to the delegates of the Virginia Convention that began meeting in 1774 after the government broke up the House of Burgesses.