USA > South Carolina > History of the German settlements and of the Lutheran church in North and South Carolina : from the earliest period of the colonization of the Dutch, German, and Swiss settlers to the close of the first half of the present century > Part 2
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and the horn ; at that time even the Atlantic slope of our country afforded them ample opportunities and advantages to follow the bent of their inclina- tions; their wonderful narratives composed many of the winter-evening tales that were then pub- lished for the amusement and instruction of many a European family.
Another, and a very useful and valuable, class of colonists were the redemptioners, who came to America to escape the poverty and starvation that stared them in the face in their native country ; bread for themselves, their wives, and their little ones, was all they asked and expected from the fruitful soil of their adopted country ; too poor to pay their passage-money across the ocean, the father, and sometimes the mother also, were sold by the captain of the ship, as soon as the vessel arrived in port, and thus several years' labor of these poor emigrants were required to pay the ex- pense of their passage to America. These settlers had a hard life of it; however, with strict economy and by honest industry they became qualified for future independence, which they had learned to appreciate well by a previous state of servitude. Others of the same class were aided by European philanthropists to settle themselves in the various colonies in America, having a debt of gratitude ever resting upon them and their children, for the kindness extended to them by their benefactors in the Fatherland.
Political refugees also found an asylum and a home in this country ; some of these came from
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Scotland, who had espoused the cause of the Pre- tender, Charles Edward, and were persecuted by the reigning house of Hanover in Great Britain ; others came from Ireland, after the rebellion ; and some again emigrated from other countries for the same reasons ; many came from all parts of Ger- many, in order to escape the demands of their country upon them for military service ; whilst not a few from all lands came to settle in America, having been fugitives from justice, and "left their country for their country's good."
Thus these early settlers came from every na- tion in Europe ; they spoke every language of that country ; they were possessed of every shade of idea; they differed in their manners, customs, and habits. In this way was America peopled; and these were the parents of that hardy and indomi- table race which eventually broke the rule and power of the English crown in the colonies of America, during the bloody period of the Revo- lutionary War.
Section 2. The religious persecutions in Europe, as another effective cause of emigration to America.
What would finally have become of America with its heterogeneous mass of inhabitants, with- out the intermixture of a people possessed of an earnest and active Christianity, as "the salt of the earth," or "the leaven for the whole lump," is a fruitful subject for the pen of the speculative phi- losopher ; happily, however, Providence furnished
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this precious leaven at the commencement of the colonization of America, by employing the fires of bloody persecutions in various parts of the Old World, and thus again was "the wrath of man made to praise God," whilst "the remainder of wrath He did restrain." We are familiar with the history of the Puritans of England, who sought and found a home on the barren rocks and shores of Plymouth, Massachusetts; but the story of the persecuted Huguenots of France, who settled themselves in the Carolinas; of the Non-conform- ists of Scotland ; of the German Palatines (Pfalzer) from the Rhine; of the Salzburgers from the Al- pine districts of Austria, is as yet but imperfectly known, and but partially understood.
It was religious persecution which caused a very large number of European inhabitants to emigrate, and to seek an asylum in America, and, in so doing, they sought not wealth nor fortune, but simply, "freedom to worship God;" here they found the asylum they sought; no hand of political or eccle- siastical power has ever materially disturbed the votaries of any religious tenet or worship in the enjoyment of this inalienable right. These noble colonists erected many a Plymouth monument of religious liberty on our Southern shores, and under circumstances much more interesting than those which attended the crossing of the noted Mayflower from Old to New England.
A cloud of persecution overshadowed the Prot- estant Christian on the continent of Europe, more fierce and unrelenting than that which ever op-
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pressed the Puritans in their native country. The Church of Rome, which had long been schooled in the doctrine of "death to heretics," which had led a John Huss and a Jerome of Prague to a martyr's death, which had endeavored to exter- minate with fire and sword the pious Piedmontese in their peaceful valleys and mountain fastnesses of Italy, which had inaugurated the horrors of St. Bartholomew's night, continued its savage orgies against the devoted Huguenots of France, by the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when France lost 750,000 of its most useful and indus- trious citizens, many of whom located themselves permanently in America.
The name "Huguenot" was a term of derision applied by the Romish Church to those Protestant Christians who had early embraced the doctrines of the Reformation, and is said to have originated from a certain locality near the city of Tours, where the first French Protestants usually assem- bled themselves for public worship.
Under the reign of Henry II, of France, the Huguenots increased rapidly, which so alarmed the Romanists, that they organized themselves into a party with the intention of exterminating all traces of Protestantism in the realm; yet in this they were not successful. Thus matters were con- tinued during the short reign of Francis II, a young and imbecile prince; when at last his bro- ther, Charles IX, surnamed the Bloody, ascended the throne. A civil war now broke out between the Romanists and Protestants, in which the
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former were in the main successful. Charles IX, instigated by his wicked mother, Catharine de' Medicis, introduced the awful horrors of St. Bar- tholomew's night, August 24th, 1572, when Ad- miral Coligni and thousands of his fellow-Protest- ants met with a treacherous and bloody death. "The massacre was continued in the city and throughout the kingdom for a week, and it is com- puted that from eighty to one hundred thousand were slain in France. The annals of the world are filled with narratives of crime and woe, but the massacre of St. Bartholomew stands, perhaps, without a parallel."
During the reign of Henry IV, the Protestants were treated with marked favor, and in 1598 he proclaimed an edict at the city of Nantes, granting to the Protestants the right of religious liberty. This celebrated Edict of Nantes continued in force for eighty-seven years, until the reign of Louis XIV, when, in 1685, it was revoked, and now again were the fires of persecution lighted anew, and the Huguenots, feeling themselves no longer secure in their own native land, and dreading a repetition of the horrors of former years, resolved to leave a country over which such a hostile gov- ernment had unlimited sway. They fled to Swit- zerland, Germany, Holland, England, and Amer- ica, and thus was France depopulated of thou- sands of her most useful, industrious, and wealthy citizens, who carried with them not only their religion, but likewise some of the finer and most useful arts of France. In America the Huguenots
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located themselves principally in the provinces of North and South Carolina, where we meet with their honored descendants at the present day.
The Non-conformists or Dissenters were those Calvinistic Christians in Scotland, who were un- willing to be connected with the established Church of England, and were persecuted on account of their religious faith. Some of these fled directly to America, others at first located themselves in the northern part of Ireland, and from thence they and their descendants removed to this country, hence they are called Scotch-Irish. They came flocking in large numbers to America, and their descend- ants may be traced in the bosom of the various branches of the Presbyterian Church in this country.
We must now turn our attention to our German forefathers. Soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Louis XIV, king of France, not content with persecuting his own subjects, spread desolation into Germany. The country named Alsace, formerly a French province, located along the banks of the beautiful Rhine; the Palatinate, a country no longer known in the geography of Europe, but known well in its history, these were the fields of bloody carnage for the grand and cruel Louis, who threatened the utter extermina- tion not only of the strong men, who might oppose him in battle, but of the aged fathers, as well as of the helpless females and innocent children, whose only crime was, in his view, the sin of Protestant- ism. The persecution of the German Palatines
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(Pfalzer) was occasioned by the war of the Spanish Succession, to which brief allusion is made in Dr. Hazelius' American Lutheran Church, page 23, an account of which shall be given in the next section of this history.
Another valuable accession of German settlers, who were driven to this country by the cruelties of religious intolerance, were the pious Salzburgers from the regions of the Noric Alps, in Upper Austria, and who were persecuted on account of their religion by Leopold, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg. 1135620
Of these German colonists, who settled them- selves in Ebenezer, Georgia, twenty-six miles northwest of Savannah, Bancroft, the historian, writes thus: "They were indeed a noble army of martyrs going forth in the strength of God, and triumphing in the faith of the Gospel under the severest hardships and the most rigorous persecu- tions. They were marshalled under no banners save that of the cross, and were preceded by no leaders save their spiritual teachers and the great Captain of their salvation." Sympathy had been so greatly enlisted in their behalf throughout all Protestant Europe, that their journey from the in- terior of Austria to the seaboard was like a con- stant ovation; the cities and towns, through which they passed, vied with each other to do them honor and bid them God-speed.
They travelled on foot, passing through Augs- burg and Halle, until they reached Frankfort-on- the-Main, where they embarked in a vessel, and
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were soon floating on the bosom of the beautiful Rhine. "And as they passed," says Bancroft, " between the castled crags, the vineyards, and the white-walled towns that adorn its banks, their conversation, amid hymns and psalms, is of justi- fication and sanctification."
It is not necessary to give an extended history of the Salzburgers, inasmuch as they were not set- tlers of North and South Carolina, though near neighbors to their brethren in those two provinces, and exerting great influence over them. However, should the reader desire to know more of their history, he is referred to "Strobel's History of the Salzburgers," or to " Urlsperger's Nachrichten der ersten Niederlassung der Salzburger Emigranten in Georgien," and "Das Americanische Ackerwerk Gottes," in five large quarto volumes of some 1200 pages each.
It will not be uninteresting to state, that though · these Salzburg emigrants were Germans at the time of their departure from Austria, they are, nevertheless, the descendants of those noble Val- lenses of Piedmont, Italy, who had fled from the persecutions of the Dukes of Savoy, following the mountain crags of the Alps until they arrived at a place of comparative safety in Austria, where for awhile they could worship their God unmo- Jested by Papal intolerance. There they soon em- braced the Lutheran faith, and educated their children in the pure doctrines and principles of the Reformation ; and it is only to be regretted that such an able historian as Bancroft should,
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with "Urlsperger's Nachrichten" before him, al- though written in the German language, make all these Salzburgers Moravians, which error is, of course, copied by nearly all the minor historians who have written text-books for our common schools. Even Moravians smile at this Bancroftian error in history and geography, as no Moravians had ever a habitation in that portion of Austria where once the Salzburgers resided.
Section 3. The War of the Spanish Succession.
War is always the occasion of great upheavals in society ; the anxiety, the feeling of insecurity, the ravages of a brutal soldiery passing through the country of a people whom they regard as their enemies, has the effect of dislodging many a peace- ful citizen from his native home. In addition to that, the persecutions which generally follow the unsuccessful party after the conflict is over, makes many a one a fugitive from the land he once loved, to seek an asylum in some undisturbed country, where he may enjoy both the fruits of his labor and his religion unmolested.
Among the many wars which afflicted Europe during the period of American colonization, the War of the Spanish Succession stands prominent in history, as being the chief instrument in send- ing numerous settlers to the English colonies on this side of the Atlantic; and, inasmuch as the English government was also drawn into the vortex of this strife, the British queen, Anne, made large
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provision for the welfare of those Germans who were made unfortunate and homeless exiles from their native land by the effects of this useless war. Extensive grants of land were made for the bene- fit of these German Palatines in New York, North and South Carolina, by the benevolent Queen Anne, of which more shall be said in this history at the proper place.
Charles II, king of Spain, departed this life November 1st, 1700, without having been blessed with any heir in his own immediate family as a successor to his throne. He was the last scion of that branch of the Hapsburg family which bore the rule in Spain for nearly two hundred years. In Austria the house of Hapsburg has been the occupant of the throne from A.D. 1273 to the present day, a period of about six hundred years ; and on account of it's distant relationship with the ruling family of Spain, one of the sons of Leopold I, king of Austria, was the natural successor to the vacant throne.
This matter would have been thus adjudged by all Europe without any difficulty, had not Louis XIV, king of France, by intrigue and persuasion, induced Charles, shortly before his decease, to make a will, in which he nominated Philip, a grandson of Louis, to be his successor to the Spanish throne. This involved the question of the Spanish succes- sion in a difficulty, which agitated all Europe at the commencement of the eighteenth century, as it became a question of state policy which threat- ened to disarrange the system of equilibrium of
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power in Europe. Should the Bourbon family become possessed of the thrones of France and Spain, a power would then have been established which could and would overawe all the kingdoms and minor states of Europe, to the destruction of their independence and, perhaps, of their religion. Hence it was that all the powers of Europe became interested in the proper settlement of this vexa- tious affair of state.
The vacant throne of Spain presented a most tempting object of desire to the two claimants, for at that time Spain was in the enjoyment of the zenith of her wealth and glory ; her rule extended over the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the larger portion of America-a handsome legacy indeed, of wealth, power, and regal glory for the fortunate successor of the deceased Charles. What a blessing it would have been for Europe for a court of law to have decided this matter, as is done in all other cases of disputed inheritance; or, if resort must have been had to a conflict of arms, the persons immediately interested to have fought it out among themselves, without dragging their unfortunate subjects and neighbors into the bloody strife.
In this manner originated this dreadful conflict, known in history as the " War of the Spanish Suc- cession," which raged so fiercely in Europe for a period of thirteen years.
Leopold I, Emperor of Austria, had two sons, Joseph I, heir-apparent to his father's throne, and Archduke Charles, whom his father expected to
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wear the crown of Spain, as the legitimate suc- cessor of his kinsman, Charles II. The King of France, Louis XIV, had no son living, but his two grandsons became the object of his care and solici- tude. Louis, the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XV, was heir-apparent to the throne of France, and Philip, Duke of Anjou, afterwards Philip V of Spain, was the person named in Charles's will as his successor.
The French king enlisted France, Spain, and the Electorates of Bavaria and Cologne on his side; whilst the Emperor of Austria induced the German States, the Netherlands, and England to declare themselves in favor of the house of Haps- burg. Denmark permitted herself to be subsidized by England, and arrayed herself also on the side of the allies against France. The countries, which felt the direful effects of the war most severely, were Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, as all of these countries became the theatre for the bloody strife.
The war had lasted several years, when Leopold, Emperor of Austria, died, A.D. 1705, and his eldest son, Joseph I, ascended the imperial throne as his successor, but without producing any change in the progress of the war, which was waged on both sides as fiercely as ever, and in which the allied Austrian powers were in the main successful, and Louis XIV would soon have been so humbled as to withdraw his claim to the Spanish throne; how- ever, the new Emperor of Austria, Joseph I, died in the year 1711, leaving no issue, when his brother,
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the Archduke Charles, succeeded to the vacant throne. This event so materially affected the question in dispute, that it promised a speedy re- turn of peace.
The derangement of the State system of Europe of equilibrium of power was now more to be dreaded in the Hapsburg family, by uniting the crowns of Austria and Spain, as in the Bourbon family reigning in France ; consequently, England and some of the other European States were pre- pared for terms of settlement; and Charles of Aus- tria could have been no longer so anxious for the throne of Spain, since he had come into possession of the crowns of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia.
A change of administration in England inter- rupted for a season the settlement of the difficulty ; however, all matters were finally adjusted at the Congress of Utrecht and Rastadt, A.D. 1713 and 1714, when it was agreed that Philip V, Duke of Anjou, and grandson of Louis XIV, should suc- ceed to the Spanish throne, with the proviso that France and Spain shall be, and forever remain, separate kingdoms; that the crowns of these two kingdoms shall never descend upon one head, in order that the equilibrium of State power in Eu- rope should in no wise be disturbed ; and thus has the Bourbon family, until recently, occupied the throne of Spain, except for the short time when Napoleon I disturbed the peace of all Europe at the commencement of the present century.
It is not necessary to give an account of the battles that were fought during this war, or to
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name the generals who became conspicuous in the strife, or to enumerate the principles, rights, privi- leges, towns, and fortresses which each nation se- cured or lost at the peace of Utrecht and Rastadt; our purposes will be served by turning our atten- tion to Germany, and notice the dire effects of this cruel war upon its peaceful inhabitants.
In order to gain his end, and the sooner to se- cure his coveted prize, Louis XIV carried his war into all Germany, except Bavaria and Cologne, which countries belonged to his allies; besides, being a bigoted Romanist, and the inhabitants of Germany being nearly all Protestants, he had a twofold motive in carrying fire and sword, desola- tion and ruin, wherever he sent his army among our German forefathers, who were residing so peacefully and prosperously in those countries bordering on the beautiful Rhine, insomuch that a proverb arose among them, "We dread the French, as well as the Turks, as enemies of our holy religion."
The peaceful inhabitants of the Palatinate, plun- dered of all their earthly possessions, were driven in midwinter as exiles from their native land to seek an asylum in some safe and friendly country. They beheld their comfortable cottages and once amply-filled barns and storehouses smouldering in the flames behind them, whilst they and their helpless wives and children, ruined in worldly prosperity, naked, feeble, and in a starving condi- tion, were wending their weary way over vast fields of snow and ice, leaving their bloody foot-
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prints in the frozen snow, seeking shelter and finding none. Numbers perished by the way, others dragged along their feeble bodies until at last they found safety in the Netherlands, and from thence they journeyed into England. This is no overdrawn picture. Says a distinguished writer :* "The ravages of Louis XIV in the beau- tiful valleys of the Rhine, were more fierce and cruel than even Mahometans could have had the heart to perpetrate. Private dwellings were razed to the ground, fields laid waste, cities burnt, churches demolished, and the fruits of industry wantonly and ruthlessly destroyed. But three days of grace were allowed to the wretched in- habitants to flee their country, and in a short time, the historian tells us, 'the roads were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children, flying from their homes. Many died of cold and hunger; but enough survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and shopkeepers.'"
The cruel-hearted Louis exhibited no mercy to his own French-Protestant subjects at the revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes, but persecuted them with fire and sword, and drove them from his realm, though their loss would be greatly felt in France; would he then be less lenient to those foreigners whom he regarded both as his political enemies as well as his spiritual foes, inasmuch as
Rev. Dr. Thornwell.
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they were believers in the principles of the Refor- mation ? Thus were these inhabitants of the Palatinate continually harassed by the French army, until they were safely landed in England. The good Queen Anne had invited them to her realın, and thither they flocked by thousands, where they were kindly treated and hospitably entertained.
It occurred to the benevolent Queen, that she could better provide for these poor Palatines by inducing them to become settlers in her American colonies, where all classes of useful citizens were greatly needed. Accordingly, some were settled in the Province of New York; others again were brought over by De Graffenreid and Mitchell to Newberne, North Carolina; and some found a home in various portions of the colony of South Carolina, principally in Charleston and along the banks of the Congaree, Saluda, and Broad Rivers; whilst others can be traced to have settled in Orangeburg District, and some along the Savan- nah River, occupying some of the most fertile valleys of that Province.
Thus they became at length happily, and, to all appearances, safely located. Every possible ar- rangement was made by the Queen to provide not only comfortable homes for these unfortunate refugees, but likewise extensive grants of land for churches, pastorates, glebes, and schools for the education of their children.
When these persecuted German Protestants journeyed to America, they brought with them
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their Bibles, hymn-books, catechisms, and other religious books for edification and instruction ; and, what was still better, they brought with them the pearl of great price, their religion, their piety, and their habits of devotion, and thus they be- came, in a great measure, the salt of the earth to all around them where they were located.
Whilst it is true that the War of the Spanish Succession left its dire effects upon the face of the lovely countries along the Rhine, and that the peaceful inhabitants, who were innocent in bring- ing it about, were nevertheless the principal suf- ferers, whilst wicked and designing men were the agents of this dreadful scourge; yet God, for wise purposes, permitted them to afflict and humble his people; America stood in need of pious, industri- ous, and useful settlers, who might otherwise never have departed from their comfortable and happy homes in the Fatherland, but who now came flocking to the New World in great numbers, to build up Christ's kingdom in a rising and future prosperous country. Time, progress, and indus- try-the powerful healers of all national troubles- would eventually rectify the devastations, and re- build the ruins which war had made in the Palat- inate, whilst America became blessed in her policy of being the asylum for the oppressed of all na- tions.
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