Latin Settlement

A Latin settlement (German: Lateinische Kolonie) is a community founded by German immigrants to the United States in the 1840s. Most of these were in Texas, but there were "Latin Settlements" in other states as well. These German intellectuals, so-called freethinkers and "Latinists" (German "Freidenker" and "Lateiner"), founded these communities in order to devote themselves to German literature, philosophy, science, classical music, and the Latin language.

As a consequence of their political struggle in the German states during the revolutions of 1848, many professors and students saw no other option but to emigrate to North America in order to avoid being arrested and prosecuted or to implement their political ideal of a "free German nation" in the fairly new state of Texas in the United States, which at the time was still a growing nation itself, or both: "Ubi libertas, ibi patria", Latin for "Where there is freedom, there is my homeland, my country". These refugees of the post-1848 era later came to be called "Forty-Eighters", in the tradition of earlier political refugees being called "Dreißiger", which is German for "Thirtiers".

From as early as 1832-1833 onwards, German intellectuals had been emigrating to North America. Since many of them went to North America organized in groups and with the support of emigration organizations such as the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft (i.e. the Emigration Association of Gießen) or the "Mainzer Adelsverein" (i.e. the Association of Noblemen of Mainz), most of them settled down in self-contained communities, which were called "Latin Settlements."

These settlements, however, were not destined to survive for very long. The settlers were young adventurers or classically educated intellectuals, so-called "Latinists" or "Latin Ones" (German "Lateiner"), sometimes both, but by no means farmers. It is therefore no wonder that most of them went to bigger cities like San Antonio or Houston after the Civil War and the phenomenon of "Latin Settlements" gradually disappeared.

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