Bringing Germans to Texas: The Adelsverein (Aug 18, 2024 - Part 1)
by Scott Sosebee
This week’s selection will be a two-part series. Part One will run this week, and Part Two will appear next week
If you have spent any time in Central Texas you quickly learn that the cities and towns, the streets, and many of the people’s names are decidedly German. It is the so-called “German Belt” of Texas, and while people of German descent live all over our state, the heaviest concentration is in this region that spreads roughly from the vicinity of Austin, Colorado, and Lavaca counties west through the “Hill Country” between San Antonio and Austin, and on through Mason, Kimble, and Menard counties to almost San Angelo. Those areas were the home of the traditional German settlements of the mid to late nineteenth century, and today German food, culture, and folkways continue in the region.
The movement of German migrants to Texas, and the placement of their settlements in Central Texas, was not happenstance but rather by design. It was the work of a group of German nobles and merchants who formed the Adelsverein near the city of Mainz in an effort to establish a German presence in North America that would allow those same nobles and merchants to recoup profits and prestige lost by years of turmoil and chaos in Europe. Eventually, the initial aspirations of the Adelsverein or “Society of Noblemen” would fail and the company would collapse, but their efforts would plant a significant German influence in Texas.
Texas had become in independent republic in 1836 after achieving independence from Mexico, but just beginning a new nation did not guarantee that it would be a successful one. For one thing, Texas was—literally—bankrupt. It had few tangible assets, few resources from which to raise revenue, and limited governmental and private infrastructure from which to devise a stable economy. While wealth did exist, it was limited and not widely dispersed. What Texas did have in abundance was land, and in the mid nineteenth century available land for cultivation and settlement could attract numerous migrants and overcome—or at least hide—serious economic deficiencies. Thus, Texas was very open to land grant and settlement schemes.
German newspapers widely publicized the availability of Texas lands for settlement and grants. They depicted Texas as a bountiful land overflowing with fertile soil, abundant resources, and great opportunity. They also stressed its almost isolation, a place where settlers could be free from many social and political constraints. Such a portrayal attracted the attention of German nobles who had seen their fortunes reversed in the upheaval that had gripped German states from the Napoleonic years through the 1830s. Many of those had lost not only lands and capital, but had seen their political power and influence lessen as well. In their minds, Texas might be a place in which they could settle German families, gain a foothold on largely unsettled and, perhaps, ungoverned territory, and thus establish a “new” Germany in North America, a place where they could capture their past prestige and power.
The nobles organized the Adelsverein in April 1842 to advance their aspirations. The newly organized company sent two agents, Count Joseph of Boos-Waldeck, who was the half-brother of England’s Queen Victoria, and Victor August to negotiate with Texas officials as well as choose an appropriate site for their venture. The two Germans met with Texas President Sam Houston, who the Texas Congress had authorized to make land grants to prospective contractors who would then bring migrants to populate the tracts. Houston offered the Germans a large swath west of Austin, an area that was still mostly populated and under the control of the Comanche. The Germans, somewhat indignantly, refused Houston’s offer, and then set out to find something more suitable. Eventually, they purchased about 4500 acres in Fayette County, which they named “Nassau Farm” in honor of Duke Adolph of Nassau, the “patron” of the Adelsverein. The intention was that this would be the headquarters of the group in Texas as well as a “way station” for settlers on their way to the intended settlement, lands they had yet to buy.
The Germans quickly began to experience difficulties in Texas. Foremost, while the two agents continued to tout Texas as a land of milk and honey, they also reported that large-scale settlement of German families in Texas would cost much more than the company had intended to invest. When the officials of the Adelsverein refused to raise their financial commitment, the two agents quit the project and the company to return to their former lives. The nobles involved pressed forward. They reorganized as a stock company in June 1843, appropriated $80,000 more in capital, and began to concentrate in finding and securing lands for settlement in Texas. That endeavor brought on their biggest mistake.
The German company, as a foreign entity in an unfamiliar land, felt the need to hire Texas agents to help. Unfortunately, they chose poorly. They hired two men, Alexander Bourgeois and Henry Francis Fisher whose only passion for the project was to line their own pockets. The men directed the company to purchase two land grants that they claimed to have secure titles for, but in reality the expiration dates on the grants had passed. The Adelsverein wasted tens of thousands of dollars onworthless lands. As if that was not bad enough, the company, amazingly, hired the same two men to supply and transport the settlers soon to arrive in Texas. Fisher and Bourgeois took the Germans money, and then pocketed most of it for themselves. When the German migrants arrived, they found that they were stuck and foundering in a strange land with no expectation of a final destination.
As bad as conditions appeared to be for the Germans and the Adelsverein, it was about to get much worse before it got any better.
Next week’s column will continue the fate of German migration to Texas and the restoration of some stability by Prince Karl of Solms-Braunfels.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.