Many of the settlers of the Batesville region claimedtheir country of origin as "Hannover". How this state came into existence,its relationship with Great Britain, and its demise under Prussian Germanytells us much about the economic and political history of the settlersof the Batesville region. Hannover's ties with Britain as well asits Saxon origins help to explain why much of this north German heritagehas been so easily assimilated-and forgotten-in Anglo-American culture.
HISTORY OF HANNOVER TO 1866
Over the years, the Saxon rulers of northern Germany expandedtheir domains and eventually these were divided. Upper Saxony tothe southeast became known as the Kingdom of Saxony, while Lower Saxony(where most of southeastern Indiana's Saxon ancestors originated) was primarilya part of the hereditary lands controlled by the ancient Guelph (Welfen)royal family.
During the 13th century these lands became divided amongseveral branches of the Guelph family. By 1634, due to the failureof heirs among these branches, these lands were merged into the two Duchiesof Brunswick (Braunschweig) and Lueneburg. In 1705 they were unitedunder George Louis whose father, Ernest August, had been made an Electorof the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. These two duchies became knownas the Electorate of Hannover. Hannover was the name of the cityfrom which they ruled.
George Louis was the son of Ernest August of Hannoverand Electress Sophia, the granddaughter of King James I of England. In 1701, England's Parliament, by the Act of Succession, provided thatupon the death of Queen Anne, if she had no children, the crown of GreatBritain should pass to Electress Sophia or her descendants. In 1714Anne died, and Sophia's son, George Louis of Hannover also became KingGeorge I of Great Britain.
These Hannoverian kings included King George III againstwhom Americans fought the American revolution. The ancient Saxonpeoples were united under one crown, but Anglo-Saxon had become Englishand the Hannoverian Kings of England spoke German.
In the 1800s, Hannover became a pawn in European politicsbetween England, France, and the rising power of Prussia-Brandenburg withits center in Berlin. In the settlement of the "War of the SecondCoalition" in 1803, Napoleon sought to destroy the power of the ecclesiasticalstates. Most of the Catholic Bishopric of Muenster was given to Prussia.
However, the area around Damme which had also been underthe Bishop of Muenster was attached to the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. The area around Osnabrueck (including Engter & Venne), in which powerhad constitutionally alternated between a Catholic bishop and a Protestantprince since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, was now incorporated intoHannover.
Napoleon invaded Hannover later in 1803, gave it to Prussiain 1805, took it back in 1806, and incorporated the western half of Hannover,including Osnabrueck and Heiligenfelde as well as all of Oldenburg, intothe French Empire until 1813. In the aftermath of the War of 1812,the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Kingdom of Hannover were restoredand some modest reforms were made by ruling families to appease Napoleonicsentiments.
My own ancestors, the Dreyer family of Engter, like manyfarmers in Hannover, received their emancipation from a form of serfdomor villeinage called "Leib-Eigenthum" (literally "bodily ownership"). Their emancipation was granted by King George IV of Great Britain &Hannover in the year 1825. (Previously the Catholic bishop at Osnabrueckhad been "the owner" of the Dreyers.) As a result of this action, farmerDreyer was allowed to purchase over a 30 year period the land to whichhe had previously been bound.
The royal ties of Hannover to Britain were finally dissolvedin the year 1837 with the arrival of Queen Victoria on the British throne. Hannoverian succession would not allow a woman to be ruler, and so theties were broken. The first act of the new King of Hannover, ErnestAugust, was to abolish the parliamentary constitution. His new constitution,made the legislature entirely consultative with no control over the executive. Crown lands were once again regarded as the private property of the king.
This beginning of "the Victorian era" was, of course,the same year that Huntersville Church, Penntown, and Oldenburg were founded.
IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA
By this time the German immigration to the Midwest hadbegun in large numbers. The reasons were many, but they were moreeconomic than political, although the repressive measures in Hannover andthe failure of the Revolutions of 1848 to provide a unified and more democraticGermany were contributory factors.
Many peasants of northern Germany migrated because theywere landless. By law, land passed only to the eldest, or duringsome periods, only to the youngest son. The others received a modestpayment from the one who inherited the land, and had to work as tenantson their brother's or someone else's land. This practice was continuedby will by many German immigrants in this country, but here the opportunityto buy land was much greater.
Many immigrated because of the potato famine which affectedGermany as well as Ireland. The potatoes turned black with rot inthe fields. Others left because of the impact of the industrial revolutionin England which destroyed the cottage linen-making industry around Osnabrueck.(There probably had been a similar impact of the industrial revolutionon the woolen-making cottage industry in Yorkshire, England, which mayhave caused the Sunman family to leave a few decades earlier.) Other familiessimply saw new opportunity in America.
Immigration between 1842 and 1854 was particularly heavy. Many entered at the Port of Baltimore, crossed the Alleghenies, and flatboateddown the Ohio River. Others came up the Mississippi through New Orleans. Many families stopped for several years in Cincinnati before moving tosoutheastern Indiana.
Then came the American Civil War, and much of the immigrationto this area stopped. Hermann Bruns of Sunman, born at Wachendorfin Hannover, fought for the North. His first cousin, Henry Severs,born at sea off Charleston, South Carolina, fought for the South. They visited each other after the war and became friends.
THE RISE OF PRUSSIA AND
UNIFICATION OF GERMANY
In 1866, Prussia, under Otto von Bismarck, conquered Hannoverin a major move to unify Germany which had been but a loose confederationof numerous separate kingdoms and principalities. Oldenburg and Hannoverwere both incorporated into the North German Confederation and in 1871were made part of the German Reich.
My great-grandfather, Hermann Dreyer of Engter, was oneof the very last immigrants to travel under a Hannoverian passport. By the time he arrived in America, his country had been swallowed up asa part of Prussia, and those that remained, including his younger brotherWilhelm, were pressed into Prussian military service.
Following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71, Prussiaannexed Alsace-Lorraine as well as most of the south German states intothe German Reich. Peace reigned in Europe until 1914. However,the balance of power established in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia andre-established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been upset by a unitedGermany. Eventually war again engulfed Europe in 1914. AfterWorld War I came the Versailles Peace Treaty, the Great Inflation in Germany,the Great Depression, and the rise of Hitler and World War 11.
Many of the immigrants' German cousins died in the twoWorld Wars. The Ripley County names of Lampe, Henneke, Meyer, Cordes,Freuchtenicht, Neddermann, Segelke (Selke), Bose, Schroeder, Kahmeyer,Einhaus, and Kasendick all appear on the War Memorial to German dead inthe churchyard at Heiligenfelde from which many of these families originated.
THE IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA
Nevertheless, unification of Germany in 1871 initiallybrought pride to many Germans in both Germany and America. Germanwas still spoken in Ripley County churches into the 1900s, although ithad begun to die out with the immigrants. Catherine Ratheiser Brunsof Sunman recalled that as a girl she would attend a German service atthe Evangelical Protestant Church at Penntown with her parents, but thenshe would run down the street to attend the English service at the PenntownBaptist Church which she could understand.
My great-grandfathers Hermann Bruns and Hermann Dreyerboth returned to Germany to visit around 1906-07. Letters from Germanywere written to the Rohls family in Sunman until 1908 and to the Dreyerfamily until 1910. Some correspondence even resumed after World WarI with a letter from the Gerkin -family in Melchiorshausen near Syke toLois Schweers in Ripley County as late as 1928.
YEARS OF AMNESIA
However, with World War I, most communication ceased forever. German was no longer taught in schools. Most churches stopped anypreaching in German. Sauerkraut was renamed "victory cabbage" andGermantown, Indiana, became Pershing Post Office.
After the war, an entire history of the contribution ofRipley County citizens to the war effort was written by Minnie Wycoff. Many of those sacrifices, both here and abroad, were made by Americansof German descent. Most of the original immigrants had also diedby the time of the war. The focus was now completely on America. Germany was in shambles, and with few exceptions the roots were lost orforgotten in the 20s and 30s.
With weakened German influence, German cultural and socialcenters faded under prohibition. In the 20s, the Ku Klux Klan emphasized"100% Americanism". The Klan was not unknown in these parts, andits bigotry was frequently directed against immigrants and the CatholicChurch although some members were the sons of immigrants themselves. The Klan may have hurt those communities in which it was active more thanthe targets of its attack.
In the 30s came the rise of Hitler, and with World WarII our amnesia about specific German origins nearly became complete.
The last chapter in this history will examine how we canrelate to our immigrant past by rediscovering our origins overseas, re-establishingcontacts with those communities, and identifying the immigrant cultureand preserving its history.