The German Settlements in Central Texas

German immigration to Texas in the mid-1800s was largely the result of a combination of sticks and carrots.

Robert Plocheck

Lange’s Mill was built in 1849 as Germans began settling in Gillespie County.

The main stick was conditions in Germany during the early- to mid-1800s. At the close of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the treaty signed at the Congress of Vienna divided Napoleon's conquered lands among the victors: Prussia, Austria and Russia. It also set up the German Confederation, a loosely-knit group of independent states governed by the Bundestag, an assembly similar to Congress, but with much less voice in each state's government. Each state had its own laws and collected its own taxes. Only a few of the smaller states had constitutions, and even in those, the people had almost no voice in the government.

German inheritance laws also fueled emigration. In some jurisdictions, land was divided among all heirs, fragmenting it until, in some cases, a unit was not sufficient to sustain a family. In other areas, the land went to one heir, who was obligated to buy out the others. Those not inheriting found it increasingly difficult to make a living.

Glowing Praise Lures Germans to Texas

The major carrot encouraging German immigration to Texas was a widely circulated letter written to a friend back home in 1832 by an early German immigrant, Friedrich Ernst. In the letter Ernst gave an eloquent and glowing description of life in the Mexican territory. Ernst wrote of his settlement on Mill Creek in Austin's Colony in present-day Austin County. Ernst described Texas as a land of mountains and valleys, woods and meadows cut through with brooks. Soil was fertile, winters mild, and the prices of goods were low. He listed the wild fruits and nuts hanging from the trees just waiting to be picked: peaches, mulberries, plums, persimmons, walnuts. He enumerated the wild game that could be found -- deer, bears, wild turkeys, geese, partridges -- and the meadows spangled with wildflowers were described in prose that would do justice to an advertising copywriter. And he added a final sales pitch: "Scarcely three months work a year. No need for money, free exercise of religion and the best markets for all products at the Mexican harbors." Ernst's German friend gave the letter to a newspaper, and it was published, feeding a growing fascination with Texas throughout Germany.

Approaching the 1840s, German citizens were growing increasingly agitated. Espionage was common. Police surveillance was ordered of hundreds of Germans whose views differed from those in power. The press was gagged; literary output was censored. Besides dissatisfaction with government, the German people felt pressures from overpopulation. It was obvious that serious troubles were brewing. In 1844, the harvests were poor and the economy was falling. Hunger and unemployment were widespread.

Out of this caldron of unrest emerged the Adelsverein, an association of German noblemen organized "for the purpose of purchasing land in the free State of Texas" and settling German immigrants there. The group first met on April 20, 1842, at Biebrich on Rhine, and Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels was appointed commissioner general.

Prince Carl's Mistakes

Prince Carl purchased land on Matagorda Bay in 1843 to use as a staging area for gathering supplies in preparation for the journey inland to their permanent new homes. For obvious reasons, he named it Carlshafen (sometimes spelled Karlshaven), meaning Carl's Harbor. The name was changed to Indianola in 1849.

The Adelsverein's first land purchase for settlement purposes was rights to the Fisher-Miller grant, more than 3 million acres of land on the southern banks of the Colorado River between the Llano and San Saba rivers about 100 miles west of Austin. Henry Francis Fisher, Burchard Miller and Joseph Baker had received the grant from the Republic of Texas on June 7, 1842, and it had been renewed on Sept. 1, 1843. The three would-be empresarios proposed to settle 1,000 German, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian families on the huge tract by March 1, 1845. The number was increased to 6,000 families and single men, and the time limit was extended by one year when the contract was renewed. But the enterprise was too ambitious, the project took too long, and the three men could not meet the terms of the contract. When Prince Carl, in the name of the Adelsverein, bought the rights to the Fisher-Miller grant in 1844, he did not know that almost half the tract was unsuitable for farming because the San Saba mountain ridge runs through it. Or that it was occupied by Indians who might resist white settlers' building cabins and planting crops on their hunting grounds.

The first immigrants arrived at Carlshafen in November and December 1844. They found that although Prince Carl had built a warehouse for supplies and equipment, he had not provided housing. As the prince desperately scrambled to find adequate land for their permanent homes, the would-be settlers waited on the Gulf Coast in tents and hastily assembled wooden sheds. Prince Carl finally purchased 1,300 acres of land on the Guadalupe River on March 14, 1845, with the first group of immigrants arriving on March 21. This first Adelsverein settlement was named New Braunfels.

Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels was a German gentleman, suited by education and experience to court life and the drawing room. Taming the prairies of Texas was completely foreign to his lifestyle and abilities, as was handling the finances of the fledgling settlement. The Adelsverein's contract with the settlers provided they would be looked after by the organization during the journey to their new homeland and up until their first harvest. These outlays, plus the money spent for land in the Fisher-Miller grant, quickly drained the Adelsverein's financial resources. Prince Carl left after a month, not even waiting for his successor to arrive.

John Meusebach Takes Charge

The new commissioner general, Baron Ottfried Hans Freiherr von Meusebach, arrived in New Braunfels in 1845. He found business affairs in a total mess, with the Adelsverein's credit exhausted, and another 4,000 immigrants expected. But Meusebach's education and experience were suited to the task at hand. He had studied mining engineering and forestry, political science and finance, jurisprudence and state economy. He read five languages and spoke English fluently. He had served as assessor and mayor of the German towns of Anclam and Potsdam and, for two years sat on the German Supreme Court of Justice.

Second, Meusebach was a man of action. He started by asking the Adelsverein committee in Germany for more money to retire the existing debt and to prepare to support the second wave of settlers expected in the fall of 1845. But little help was forthcoming. Undaunted, Meusebach found well-watered, timbered, arable land about 80 miles northwest of New Braunfels on the banks of the Pedernales River. He bought a 10,000-acre tract, which he ordered laid out in 10-acre lots. The new settlement, Fredericksburg, was named in honor of Prince Frederick of Prussia, a member of the Adelsverein committee.

Tensions between Mexico and the United States brought tragedy to Carlshafen. Preparing for possible hostilities, the United States required civilian haulers to move troops and materiel toward the border beginning in early 1846, and the German immigrants were left in Carlshafen without transportation. The winter was rainy and cold, perfect conditions for rampant disease. About 1,000 would-be settlers died during the wait, and hundreds more succumbed on the trip to their new home. Scurvy, caused by a lack of Vitamin C and common on sailing ships where fresh fruits or vegetables were not available, was blamed by some reports. But there are additional references to fever, which is not a symptom of scurvy, and a mention of cholera. Possibly the epidemic was a combination of several diseases. Whatever the causes, cost in human life and suffering was high among the families trying to reach New Braunfels and Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg was first occupied on May 8, 1846, by about 120 settlers after a two-week trip from New Braunfels. Sixteen ox-drawn wagons, protected from possible Indian attack by mounted guards, carried the newcomers.

Meusebach, who renounced his German title to become simply John O. Meusebach, turned his attention to the troublesome Fisher-Miller grant. Realizing that no one could live there under the constant threat of Indian hostilities, he requested a meeting with the Comanche chiefs. Meusebach first met with several lesser chiefs on Feb. 11, 1847, in present-day Mason, about 40 miles northwest of Fredericksburg. Meusebach was joined by Indian Agent Robert S. Neighbors and an Indian interpreter. A council with the head chiefs, including Buffalo Hump, Santana and Old Owl, followed on March 1-2, at the old San Sabá presidio near present-day Menard, where a treaty was worked out, effectively opening the lands of the Fisher-Miller grant to settlement. A rarity in Texas history, the treaty was honored by both sides in the following years.

Several small colonies were established in this newly opened territory, among them Castell, Leiningen, Meerholz and Bettina. Castell is the only one still in existence today.

The Bettina Experiment

Bettina was the dream of the Society of Forty, an organization of 40 educated professionals and craftsmen formed at Darmstadt, Germany, in 1847. They planned a community based on communistic principles to serve as an example of the ideal state. They agreed to share equally in cultivating crops and all other chores. Those who came to Texas to found Bettina, named for author Bettina von Armin, included two physicians, an engineer, two architects, seven lawyers, five foresters, two mechanics, two carpenters, a butcher, a blacksmith, a lieutenant of artillery, a ship's carpenter, a brewer, a miller, an innkeeper, a theologian, a maker of musical instruments, an agriculturist and a botanist.

Few spoke English; few had ever earned a living. Despite the agreement to share chores equally, the professionals wanted to direct all the work and expected the craftsmen and mechanics to carry it out, which the craftsmen and mechanics resented. Some Bettina residents hunted all day. Others had long philosophical discussions, while still others were quarreling about work assignments. Less and less work got done. By the summer of 1848, the disenchanted idealists began drifting away, mostly to San Antonio, Austin and New Braunfels, where they took up work better suited to their training. Less than a year after it was established, Bettina was abandoned.

The German settlements tended to remain independent and self-contained, rather than integrating with the area around them. There were several reasons: Most were settled by colonizers, who made sure each colony contained every type of craftsman essential to the development and maintenance of the community. There was no reason for the residents to go outside their own settlements for any services. The Germans were further isolated from other Anglo-American colonists by differences in language and customs and by their being non-slaveholders in a slave-holding state.

And Others Followed

Another surge of immigration into Texas was created by the Revolution of 1848, an abortive attempt to unify the German government. Leaders of the liberal movement, the so-called "Forty-Eighters," came to Texas because of persecution at home for their roles in the revolution.

Germans moved not only to the larger Central Texas German enclaves, but they also established communities all along a wide corridor leading from the Gulf Coast to Central Texas, as well as in other areas of the state. By 1900, Texas was home to almost 200,000 ethnic Germans, which was more than 6 percent of the total population. Germans have made valued contributions to Texas culture, particularly in the fields of history, literature, the natural sciences, food, architecture, music and art.

— Written by Mary G. Ramos and first published in the 1990-1992 Texas Almanac.