Preface

And that which history gives not to the eye,

The faded coloring of time’s tapestry,

Let fancy, with her dreamed-tipped brush,

supply.

Whittier

Americans tracing their genealogy further and further into the past must, except for Native Americans, ultimately uncover some ship’s passenger list containing the names of that first generation of ancestors to set foot in the New World. In the author’s case, it was the ship Pallas, arriving in Philadelphia on November 25, 1763. The passenger records in the Pennsylvania Archives contain facsimiles of the signatures of those who could write, and these include David Jansohn, penned in flourishing German script.

A parenthetical comment attached to the manifest concludes with, “196 ½ Whole Freights. 65 Persons. Benjamin & Samuel Shoemaker.”

The Shoemakers appear on many such manifests. They were in the business of importing indentured servants from Germany and Switzerland and selling them – somewhat like slaves – to local buyers. In this way, I learned of the humble beginnings of my branch of the Johnson family.

There are many extant diaries, journals, newspaper stories, and other bits of information regarding this newly flourishing business of selling people. These documents contain much drama, much pathos, much tragedy, and much adventure. These were real people who lived in an exciting era. However, to bring action into those times so long ago, so that we can relive the lives of those who sold themselves into bonded servitude in order, ultimately, to participate in the American dream required the melding of many stories into one held together with light, fictional glue.

The assimilation of the Palatines into American culture was the beginning of multicultural America. These were the original boat people. All the problems, arguments and emotions that now go into the assimilation of Hispanic and Asian people and the long overdue assimilation of African Americans and Native Americans into the melting pot were first encountered and puzzled over with the Germans. These were people of the same color and religion as the English colonists, yet, even so, men such as Benjamin Franklin worried about their future political power while lesser people laughed at their strange speech and labeled them dumb Dutchmen.

German authorities called the hired agents of the people merchants soul stealers. The German word for such men was Neulander. The ordeal of the immigrants they recruited was long and grueling. Many schemes and frauds victimized them, yet most managed to survive in a new, strange, and foreign world. A few retain the uniqueness of their religion and culture to the present time, but most, by the second generation, weathered the trials of the metamorphosis into Americans. This is their story.

Olin Glynn Johnson,

Woodlands, Texas

February, 2001