Germans in the Americas

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

As soon as Europeans began exploring and colonizing the so-called New World, Germans were there. Germans came to the Americas as conquistadors, settlers, refugees, missionaries, and merchants. The German colony in Venezuela was disastrously short-lived, but Germans came to play a significant role in the colonization of North America through the settlement of Pennsylvania. This course introduces students to the varieties of German presence in the Americas from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Topics may include the colonization and conquest of South America, German interactions with Indigenous communities, German missionaries to the enslaved peoples in the Caribbean, the role of German immigrants in early anti-slavery and pacifist movements, and the origin and afterlife of the language called Pennsylvania Dutch. This course will be taught in English.