T he importance of foreign-born immigrants and their children for the settlement of the Great Plains has been largely overlooked by historians of the frontier and of the trans-Mississippi West. While an extensive literature exists treating Indian history and Indian-white relationships, white populations have usually been treated as homogeneous. In such a classic study as Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains, ethnic groups of European origin are scarcely mentioned. More recent interpretations of the region note differences between Indians, Chicanos, Orientals, and blacks, but fail to distinguish European ethnic groups, such as Norwegians, Germans, and Czechs from each other or from the native-born populations. 1 Analysis of census data for the nineteenth century, however, reveals that the foreign-born and their children often constituted a majority of the frontier population of the Great Plains states. In 1870, when the fringe of settlement moved onto the eastern reaches of the Great Plains, 25 percent of the 123,000 persons in the newly created state of Nebraska were foreign-born. Together with the second generation, they accounted for 54 percent of all inhabitants, excluding Indians. Even as late as 1900, immigrants and natives of foreign parentage formed 47 percent of the state's
Cannibals - mountebanks - charlatans - pious and whining hypocrites - necromancers - pseudo-Christians - mystery mongers. These are among the epithets which Thomas Jefferson applied to the clergy of the Protestant denominations and of the Roman Catholic Church as well. It was they who “perverted” the principles of Jesus “into an engine for enslaving mankind”; it was the Christian “priesthood” who had turned organized religion into a “mere contrivance to filch wealth and power” for themselves; they were the ones who throughout history had persecuted rational men for refusing to swallow “their impious heresies.”
In April, 1917, shortly after Brazil broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Brazilians of German origin or descent were victims of numerous, destructive riots. Although death and personal injury were minimal, property damage was enormous as hundreds of residences, business houses, factories, and warehouses were damaged or destroyed by mobs gone out of control. Porto Alegre was the scene of the worst riots, but disturbances occurred almost simultaneously in Sao Paulo, Pelotas, and other cities of the South, where large numbers of German Brazilians lived. Six months later, following Brazil's declaration of war against the German Empire, another series of riots resulted in more destruction in the German districts of Rio de Janeiro, Petropolis, Curitiba, and elsewhere.L ike most riots, these outbursts of violence may be attributed to immediate causes. In this case, intergroup tension was intensified by genuine dismay and anger over Germany's having torpedoed Brazilian merchant vessels, by virulent anti-German propaganda, and by the rhetorical excesses of pro-Ally politicians. But that is like saying that World War I itself was caused in 1914 by the Serbian nationalist who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The anti-German riots in Brazil are better understood within a larger context of ethnic history: The behavior of the dominant Luso-Brazilians (persons of Portuguese language and culture) and the minority Teuto-Brazilians (as the Germans were often called) may be best interpreted if examined historically in terms of ethnic group relations, perceptions, and images.Ĝ ermans were among the earliest and most numerous of non-Portuguese Europeans to settle in Brazil. Beginning in the 1820s, a small stream of Germans entered the country, largely as a consequence of vigorous recruitment efforts sponsored by the Brazilian government. The number of German immigrants seldom exceeded two thousand in a single year. Yet after nearly a century they had multiplied and pros-
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