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The German
Texans

By Jaime Calder

PHOTOS BY JAIME CALDER

From 1830 to 1880, over seven million Germans immigrated to the United States. Many settled along the Brazos and Colorado
Rivers and in the Texas Hill Country, dominating local culture in a way which would forever influence the Texan way of life.

“The ground is hilly and alter- academic and entrepreneurial pursuits Catholic farmers who worked hard and
nates with forest and natural were unbound by law. unwound in kind. The large dance halls
grass plains. Various kinds constructed by these groups became a
of trees. Climate like that of Sicily. The Ernst’s letter wasn’t an invitation – it focal point of community life, serving as
soil needs no fertilizer… Bees, birds and was a beacon. Schwartz had the letter meeting places, social clubs and music
butterflies the whole winter through. Wild printed in local papers, where it gained venues, sometimes all at the same time.
prey such as deer, bears, raccoons, wild widespread attention. For Germans
turkeys, geese, partridges in quantity. overwhelmed by years of overcrowding, Though many Jewish German immi-
Free hunting and fishing. Scarcely three crushing taxes and political turmoil, this grants arrived in the latter half of the
months’ work a year. No need for mon- new land called Texas presented an op- 1800s, this group had been a formida-
ey, free exercise of religion and the best portunity to make a fresh start. Within a ble presence in Texas for decades prior.
markets for all products at the Mexican few years, news of successes in towns like Merchant and Orthodox Jew Adolphus
harbors.” Kerrville, Giddings and New Braunfels Sterne contributed significantly to the
reached the “Old Country” and Texas’ tide Texas Revolution, smuggling guns in cof-
In February 1832, a 35-year-old German of immigrants grew. By 1850, over 35,000 fee barrels and serving as an interpreter.
immigrant named Friedrich Ernst wrote Germans were living in Texas. Sam Houston resided with Sterne and
a letter to his friend Schwartz about the his family for a period, at one point even
land he’d just purchased in Austin’s Col- The Germans of Texas were culturally receiving his baptism in the family home.
ony. Patriarch of the first German family diverse and settled in groups across the re- When the newly-Catholic Houston asked
to settle in Texas and founder of Industry, gion. Methodists clustered together in the Sterne to be his godfather, Sterne politely
Texas’ first German settlement, Ernst Llano valley and established themselves refused – not because of religious differ-
filled his letter with rhapsodic depictions as cattle ranchers and farmers, dotting ences, but because Houston’s baptism
of his new home. He described a place of the bucolic landscape with small, stee- conflicted with Yom Kippur.
endless bounty, where winter never fell, ple-capped churches. In the Pedernales
dangers were non-existent and religious, River valley were the so-called “dancing Along the north side of the Guadalupe
and drinking Germans” - Lutheran and River, academics, political dissenters and

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