German Palatines

The German Palatines were early 18th century emigrants from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire, including a minority from the Palatinate which gave its name to the entire group. Towards the end of the 17th century and into the 18th, the wealthy region was repeatedly invaded by French troops, which resulted in continuous military requisitions, widespread devastation and famine. The "Poor Palatines" were some 13,000 Germans who migrated to England between May and November 1709. Their arrival in England, and the inability of the British Government to integrate them, caused a highly politicized debate over the merits of immigration. The English tried to settle them in England, Ireland and the Colonies.

The Palatine settlements did not prove to be viable in the long term, except for those settled in County Limerick and County Wexford in Ireland and in the colony of New York in British North America. In Ireland, less than 200 families remained after the original settlement in 1709. Nevertheless, they maintained their distinctive culture until well into the nineteenth century and Palatine surnames are now diffused across the country. The largest concentration of descendants of Irish Palatine residents lives around Rathkeale, Co Limerick.

The English transported nearly 3,000 German Palatines in ten ships to New York in 1710. Many of them were first assigned to work camps along the Hudson River to work off their passage. Close to 850 families settled in the Hudson River Valley, primarily in what are now Germantown and Saugerties, New York. In 1723 100 heads of families from the work camps were the first Europeans to acquire land west of Little Falls, New York, in present-day Herkimer County on both the north and south sides along the Mohawk River. Later additional Palatine Germans settled along the Mohawk River for several miles, founding towns such as Palatine Bridge, and in the Schoharie Valley.

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