The German-American Tricentennial: A Closer Look

Abstract

Every time one lifts the lid to take a look at the past, one should be prepared to find something that one did not know was there. This is much more enjoyable and adventurous than assuming in advance that everything worth finding has already been found and that past accounts remain standard except possibly for some minor revisions and addi tions.This year, when we celebrate the arrival of Francis Daniel Pastorius in Pennsylvania on August 20, 1683, and the arrival of the Crefeld settlers nearly seven weeks later, on October 6 (OS), we can be assured of hearing much repeated history, with some nice embroidery and variations on a set of familiar themes. And this can be quite pleasant, with much that is new for the young and much that is reassuring and rememorative for those who have heard it before.If this is all that happens, then these celebrations will have satisfied one very human trait, complacency, at the expense of two other very human traits, curiosity and skepticism. It is restful to have the reas surance that what one has learned about the past remams standard and accepted knowledge, on which one need merely fill in the details. But some people are restless; they insist on rocking the boat, much to the indignation of those who want ordy a smooth voyage to a familiar port. They do not want to be taken off course to a strange landfall with all the disquietudes of the unknown and unpredictable.Personally, it would be to my interest this year to carry on in the course traditionally laid down, for on my shoulders has fallen the task of editing the essential parts of the great unpublished manuscript of Francis Daniel Pastorius' The Beehive, and seeing to it that at least the verse and the autobiographical and historical parts of it be finally published in a responsible fashion. I shall pass over the vicissitudes that have intervened through the years to cause the loss of the bulk of the transcriptions made and to postpone publication again and again. The Beehive, of course, is far from being an unknown quantity. Since the

Annual Bibliography of German-Americana: Articles, Books, Selected Media, and Dissertations

“…Die Abendschule: 146,409 A c c u ltu r a tio n a n d E th n ic ity : 5 , 12, 17,36,27,65,66,80,91,92,93,100,112,118,125,153,165,166,176,177,180,184,188,189,196,198,206,208,225,226,227,229,230,247,248,255,405,379,401,409,414…”