THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES CHAPTER I THE EARLIEST GERMANS IN THE ANGLO-AMERICAN Introductory-Cosmographers: Behaim, Mercator, Waldseemüller, etc.— First German in America: Tyrker in Leif Ericson's expedition to Wineland (eleventh century) - Germans in earliest settlements, Port Royal (1562), Jamestown (1607) - Peter Minuit, purchaser and governor of Manhattan Island (1626); founder of New Sweden (1638) — Jacob Leisler, governor of New York, defender of the people's cause, his martyr dom (1691), and services to the colonies Explorers, etc.: Lederer Hiens, Peter Fabian. IN the great struggle for the possession of the North American continent, it has been well said, the Latin nations sent officers without an army, the English, both officers and an army, the Germans, an army without officers.' The Latin nations, with distinguished leaders such as Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto, Champlain, Marquette, and La Salle, whether in quest of gold or of the fountain of youth, engaged in great voyages of discovery or grand schemes of empire. The English, with a clearer view of the future, knew that an empire could not be established otherwise than by colonization. Selecting the zone best adapted to the needs of the Teutonic stock, they invited other 1 F. Kapp, Die Deutschen im Staate New York, bis zum Anfang des XIX. Jahrhunderts, p. 3. New York: Steiger, 1867. branches of the same racial group to coöperate in the building of an empire. The Germans, not united in one nation at home, poured streams of people into the English territory. Without organization, compelled by the need of subsistence, or conditions intolerable at home, they appeared on the threshold of a new country, as in the days of Marius and Sulla, desiring land, not conquest. Their ancient kinsmen had beaten against the barriers of the Roman Empire until they had shattered them, and then rejuvenated all of Italy, Spain, and Gaul. Similarly in modern times a migration by the same stock took place to the land of promise called America, the very name con veying to the Teutonic mind a peculiar fascination, a romantic charm, later enhanced by the halo of freedom. This Völkerwanderung was not accompanied by the glory of war or the glamour of fame, but went on in quiet, incessantly and irresistibly, for more than two centuries, until to-day more than a quarter of the population of the United States is of German blood.) The great waves of German immigration making their way to the American colonies did not appear until the eighteenth century. Advance movements had heralded the way, the first permanent settlement by Germans having been made at Germantown, Pennsylvania, during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Long before this there appeared sporadic cases of German settlers, explorers, adventurers, and prominent individuals, serving under national flags, any but German, some of them at the very beginnings of the colonization of the United States. Their history will be the subject of the present chapter. A conspicuous example of prominent service under a foreign king is that of Martin Behaim. He served the king of Portugal, but was a native of Nuremberg, born in 1459, of an old patrician family of that city. Fiction has been active about his great name, using misinterpretations of Portuguese documents, or even spurious records, to maintain that Behaim saw Pernambuco and the coast of Brazil almost a decade before the first voyage of Columbus, and that he gave to Magellan information needed to urge him on to his voyage around South America. But even when deprived of this distinction, Behaim remains one of the most eminent men of his age, in the first rank among cosmographers and navigators of his time. He was a friend of Columbus, whom he probably met in Lisbon between 1480 and 1484. He was likewise acquainted with Magellan. During the period named he was in the employ of the king of Portugal, and, being appointed on a commission for the improvement of navigation, he became one of the inventors of the astrolabe. In the capacity of cosmographer, he accompanied the expedition of Diogo Cão, in 1484, to the west coast of Africa. After a voyage of discovery lasting nineteen months, he settled on the island of Fayal, one of the Azores, where he married the daughter of the stadtholder of the Flemish colony established there. In 1491-92 he visited Nuremberg, his native city, for the settlement of an estate. While there he fashioned a globe representing the earth as it was known to the foremost savants of that day. On leaving he presented this globe to his native city, and it is still preserved there as the most interesting relic of the cosmographic art antecedent to the discovery of America. The globe does not prove that Behaim was acquainted with the coast of Brazil, and his influence, therefore, upon the voyages of Columbus and Magellan could have been only such as to strengthen them in their theories and ambitions, not to direct them. Before returning to Fayal, Behaim was twice captured by pirates at sea, but his release was effected through friends and his distinguished reputation. He resided at Fayal until 1506, when he was again in Lisbon, where he died the same year. The Germans were not prominent as a seafaring people at the period of the discovery of America. The glory of the Hanseatic League had departed. Their location in the heart of Europe, with but a narrow strip of seacoast at the north, put them at a disadvantage in comparison with the English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Portuguese. But while they were not conspicuous as leaders in the great voyages of discovery, their scholarly instincts put them in the front rank as cosmographers and cartographers. The instance of Behaim, constructor of the Nuremberg globe and one of the inventors of the astrolabe, has just been given. Even greater is the name of Mercator (1512–94), the inventor of the Mercator system of projection, which, taking account of the curvature of the earth's surface, is an indispensable aid in nautical mapdrawing. Mercator was born in Flanders (Rupelmonde, Belgium), and was of German descent, his name before Latinization being Gerhard Kremer. On commission of Charles V, he manufactured a terrestrial and a celestial globe, which are said to have been superior to any made before that time. His principal work was his atlas (first edition, Duisburg, 1594), printed from copper plates prepared by his own hand. A number of other German names appear prominently among cartographers, earlier than Mercator, such as Schöner (globes, 1515 and 1520), Reisch (map, 1513), and the Low German Ruysch (Ptolemy of 1508, with newly discovered lands indicated). The "Globus Mundi" was published at Strassburg in 1509, |