Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America...: Volume III: 1736

• Introduction
• Chapter
• University of Georgia Press
• pp. xv-xxiv
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THE first two volumes of these Detailed Reports tell how the first group of Georgia Salzburgers gathered in the South German city of Augsburg in August of 1733, established a Lutheran congregation, and journeyed to Georgia, first on foot and then by boat down the Rhine to Rotterdam and thence by ship to Dover and across the Atlantic to Charleston and, finally, to Savannah, where they landed on March 12, 1734. Settling some twenty miles northwest of Savannah at a spot they named Ebenezer, the Salzburgers reported initial satisfaction before confronting the hardships of disease, isolation, and barren soil. Encouraged by optimistic reports from Ebenezer, a second group of religious exiles from Salzburg departed from Augsburg via the same route as the first, except for a spectacular sojourn in London, and arrived at Ebenezer in January, 1735.

The secular affairs of the first group, or transport as it was called, had been entrusted to Baron Philipp Georg Friedrich von Reck, a charming and enthusiastic, but totally inexperienced, young commissary of twenty-three years. Spiritual affairs were entrusted to Johann Martin Boltzius, a teacher at the Orphanage School of the Francke Foundation in Halle, who, together with his assistant and colleague Israel Christian Gronau, was ordained at Wernigerode on their way to join their congregation at Rotterdam. Von Reck left Georgia soon after Ebenezer was settled and returned to Europe with utopian descriptions of the Georgia paradise,¹ to which he intended to return for good.

Upon von Reck’s departure, Boltzius was required, or enabled, to assume secular as well as spiritual authority; and it is uncertain whether he really welcomed or resented this burden, because he himself does not seem to have been clear on this point. In his conscious mind he detested such distraction; for he was a true Halle Pietist at heart and only wished to do his Christian duty, bring souls to Jesus, and keep his own house in order. But, because souls cannot live without bodies, at least not in this life, he was committed to look out for his flock’s physical welfare too; and his statements and actions make it difficult to ascertain whether he assumed his secular role reluctantly, or whether it was the Old Adam who inspired his strenuous and successful efforts to preserve his worldly authority.

After Boltzius had ruled his little theocracy wisely and well for more than half a year, it was joined by the second transport under the commissary Jean Vat, a citizen of Biel in Switzerland, who expected to take charge of all secular affairs in Ebenezer. Friction was bound to occur, yet Boltzius seems to have shown great restraint and even to have defended Vat at first from the accusations of some of his transport and of a fellow-passenger named Andreas Gottfried Dietzius, who accused him of misappropriating benefactions given to the Salzburgers in London.² During the first half of 1735 Boltzius had nothing to say about Vat and his conduct; yet by 24 September he confided that Vat hated him and was mistreating the Salzburgers.³

This volume of the Detailed Reports relates the continued rivalry between the spiritual and secular leader. This took a new turn upon the arrival of a third transport, again under the conduct of von Reck: for the two commissaries naturally collided at once and thus enabled Boltzius to play one off against the other. We see how Boltzius spoke kindly, even if sometimes condescendingly, of von Reck while speaking more and more openly and mordantly of Vat. For the benefit of those who have not read the introduction to Volume II of the Detailed Reports, it should be mentioned that those passages in the present volume set off by brackets were deleted by Samuel Urlsperger, the senior minister of the Lutheran Church in Augsburg and spiritual father of the Georgia Salzburgers, in his edition of the Detailed Reports,⁴ which he published in order to edify his public and dispose them to support the exiles in Georgia.

To appreciate the in-fighting between the three leaders at Ebenezer, one should also read Boltzius’ Secret Diary, in which he recorded those observations and conclusions he found too intimate to appear in the official reports.⁵ Fortunately, we now have not only Urlsperger’s expurgated edition, the only source known to previous Georgia historians, but also the deleted portions of Boltzius’ original reports, which have been restored to this translation, and also his Secret Diary. These sources are further supplemented by von Reck’s journal, in which he described his activities in Ebenezer and his journey to St. Simons Island.⁶ Incidentally, the deleted sections of Volume I of the Detailed Reports, which were inaccessible when the volume appeared, have now been made available in a University of Maryland master’s thesis by William Holton Brown,⁷ who has carefully transcribed Boltzius’ original and unexpurgated entries. An English translation, which is appended to the present volume, furnishes a valuable supplement to Volume I of these Reports.

Whereas the Detailed Reports stress Boltzius’ disagreements with the two commissaries, it scarcely reveals his larger struggle with Oglethorpe, the founder and governor of the colony.⁸ The Secret Diary, on the other hand, tells how Boltzius soon realized that Ebenezer had been badly located and that the settlement was doomed to failure unless it were removed to a more fertile and accessible area. Oglethorpe opposed the removal because it would admit a mistake and because it would remove the Salzburgers from the place where they were of most military value. Luckily, Boltzius was astute enough to see through all Oglethorpe’s specious arguments and to stand his ground, whereupon Oglethorpe backed down and agreed to the removal to the Red Bluff, some five miles away, albeit with a few face-saving gestures such as having the new town retain the name of the old and thus give the appearance of continuity. In reading these reports, one must therefore observe the shifting use of the name Ebenezer. The name first designated the old settlement, while the new settlement was called Red Bluff or New Ebenezer; but it was gradually applied to the new town, and the first settlement became known as Old Ebenezer.

Arriving with the second transport, Vat found Ebenezer in a deplorable condition. Many of the original settlers were dead, most of the survivors were sick and in rags, and the land had not yet been cultivated or even surveyed and distributed. Being a pragmatist rather than Pietist, he could not endorse Boltzius’ preachments that God was chastising His children for their own good and that all these tribulations were part of His divine plan. Although Boltzius says little about his efforts, Vat seems to have started right in to improve the situation despite a serious infection of his eyes; and his clear and factual reports to the Lord Trustees were probably a decisive factor in their eventual approval of Boltzius’ request to move the settlement,⁹ even if, according to Boltzius, Vat later sided with Oglethorpe against the removal.¹⁰

The strife between Vat and Boltzius was the fault of the Trustees, who had failed to define their respective authority. Vat had been allowed to believe himself in charge of all physical matters, while Boltzius considered himself still wholly responsible for the first transport. When Vat gave orders to the first Salzburgers, they continued to consult Boltzius before complying; and thus Vat felt his authority undermined. By January of 1736, when the present volume begins, the breach was complete, as we see by Boltzius’ complaint of the 14th of the month to Thomas Causton, the mayor of Savannah. Boltzius’ complaints indicate that Vat was a scapegoat for Oglethorpe, who let the poor Swiss transmit his disagreeable orders. For example, the “amazing and unheard of” guard duty, against which Boltzius protested on 2 March, was certainly the brain-child of the warrior Oglethorpe, rather than of the civilian Vat, whose lack of military experience caused him to delegate the command of the guard to the old schoolmaster Christopher Ortmann, who had once been in military service. Since the odious order of 22 February was written in English, it can hardly have been composed by Vat.

Oglethorpe, rather than Vat, would have seen the value of the military review of 2 March as a means of impressing and intimidating the Indians; and it may well have been such a display of readiness that dissuaded the Indians from attacking Ebenezer despite its exposed position. Vat’s insistence upon storing so many supplies at Ebenezer instead of distributing them to the people was probably at the command, or at least at the advice, of Oglethorpe, who wished to prepare his colony for possible siege by the Spaniards. Such a reason would also explain Vat’s refusal to distribute gunpowder for shooting squirrels for soup, since the gunpowder was there for shooting Spaniards, not squirrels.

As the deleted parts of Volume I of the Reports have revealed, Boltzius had never had a high regard for von Reck, whom he considered worldly and frivolous; yet, after a year of smoldering friction with Vat, he looked forward to von Reck’s return and promised his parishioners much good from the very godly young nobleman. Von Reck arrived in Ebenezer on 7 February; and already by the 25th of that month Boltzius was praising his Christian disposition and attitude toward the congregation in contrast to that of the cruel Mr. Vat, who was opposing him in everything. The squabbles between the mature Swiss commoner and the hotblooded young Hanoverian nobleman neutralized their power, which then fell by default to Boltzius; and, as a result, Boltzius soon arrogated Vat’s authority as distributor of provisions.¹¹

With Vat out of the way, Boltzius was able to devote more attention to von Reck, whom he held responsible for the sad lot of the third transport. From the beginning he had objected to von Reck’s readiness to accept any and everybody into his transport, not only in Regensburg, Frankfurt, and London, but even in Charleston and Savannah; for these people were not Salzburgers or even religious exiles. Christ, the converted Jew, seems to have been the only serious Christian among those picked up along the way; and it is apparent that the others had only economic reasons for going to Georgia. Boltzius often distinguished between true Salzburgers (including the “Austrians”, or Protestant exiles from Upper Austria) and the irreligious late-comers.

Oglethorpe had wished the third transport to settle on St. Simons Island, where he was building the fort and town of Frederica as a bastion against the Spaniards in Florida; but the Salzburgers insisted upon joining their co-religionists in Ebenezer. Assuming that they would honor his request to go to Frederica, Oglethorpe had loaded their supplies accordingly, with the result that they all went to Frederica instead of to Savannah. Thomas Causton, the mayor of Savannah, did the best he could with what he had in the storehouse there; yet the third transport never received their due. Boltzius blamed von Reck for the lack of provisions, but he also confided that it was Oglethorpe’s way of punishing the third transport for refusing to accede to his wish.¹² As late as 16 April, Henry Newman, the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, seems to have thought that von Reck was going to take his people to Frederica,¹³ a fact which may account for his having been permitted to pick up such a motley group on the way.

As Boltzius mentions in his entry for 25 February, Vat first enjoyed the confidence of both Causton and Oglethorpe; but von Reck seems to have annoyed Oglethorpe greatly, as Boltzius reports on 14 June. Also, von Reck had won the enmity of many of his transport when he proved unable to fulfil his promises of all this and heaven too, as we see in the case of Ossenecker, Rieser, and Ernst.¹⁴ It was, therefore, not difficult for Boltzius to put the entire blame on von Reck, as he did by 19 June, and to divest him of his last shred of authority by 5 August. By 13 August Boltzius’ victory was complete.

It is easy to see why both Vat and Boltzius took offense at the exuberant and charming, but utterly incompetent, young baron. Boltzius objected to his worldliness; yet the first example of his worldliness seems trivial enough to us. At Vat’s departure on 15 July, von Reck gave him a noisy farewell (whether out of courtesy or malicious joy, we cannot say) by firing some salvos and blowing on a bugle. This was not his first offense, for two and a half years earlier he had celebrated the Hanoverian envoy’s departure from Rotterdam in the same way, as Boltzius reported in his subsequently deleted entry for 4 December I 733.

More serious was von Reck’s apparent land-hunger, for which he was willing, consciously or unconsciously, to exploit his transport.¹⁵ As the impecunious scion of an old family, he craved to carve out an estate in Georgia appropriate to his noble birth; and, for this purpose, he brought with him a charter for five hundred acres of land.¹⁶ In order to validate a land-grant in Georgia, the recipient had to cultivate a certain portion of the land within a given time, and this required much labor. This may help explain von Reck’s missionary zeal in trying to procure religious exiles for Georgia, including not only legitimate Lutheran exiles expelled from Salzburg and Upper Austria, but even Moravians and Waldensians. Fortunately for the Trustees, they learned of his proselytizing efforts among the Moravians in time to prevent him from making any commitments, such as he made to Ossenecker, Rieser, Ernst, and others.¹⁷

Despite his similar methods, von Reck should not be confused with the usual run of Seelenfänger, or “soul-catchers,” who were then enlisting indentured laborers for the New World on a commission basis; because he himself was thoroughly convinced of the advantages of emigrating to America, as is proved by his determination to do so. Von Reck’s inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisy can be attributed to his youth and to a lack of introspection, as well as to faults inherent in young men born to the privileged orders. Even his thrashing of the Salzburger woman on 6 August would have been normal behavior in Central Europe at the time, where no nobleman would brook such effrontery on the part of a peasant woman. We should also remember that nerves were very frayed by then in Ebenezer and that the proud young nobleman had been definitively displaced by the commoner Boltzius on the very day before. In any case, it is refreshing to see how quickly the oppressed emigrants from Central Europe asserted their newly acquired rights of freeborn Englishmen.

That von Reck’s failure was due to his immaturity is indicated by his later life. After returning from the Georgia debacle, he married a wellborn heiress ten years older than himself and entered first the Hanoverian and then the Danish civil service, in which he held positions of trust and responsibility to an advanced age. His younger brother Ernst Ludwig, who accompanied him to Georgia but is never named in the Reports, was only seventeen years of age and was, as Boltzius comments on 15 August, too shy to cause much trouble. He too survived the Georgia ordeal and returned home safely, where he attained the rank of captain in the Hanoverian army. These two young noblemen prove the German adage that barons do not emigrate (Baronen wandern nicht aus) .

In observing Boltzius’ victory over Vat and von Reck, one might consider him either a sanctimonious hypocrite or an astute diplomat; for he often contradicted himself when expedience demanded it. On 11 February he claimed credit for not letting the third transport settle at Frederica, but on 19 June he blamed von Reck for not letting them do so. On 7 June he stated that he would not approve of sending laborers to Frederica, and on 12 June he even said he would rather renounce his position as minister; yet by 23 June he was no longer opposed, provided, of course, that it was the will of God (as it turned out to be by 21 July. In this regard we should remember that Boltzius had the great advantage of being sole interpreter of the Lord’s will.) Boltzius could also retract what he had previously written, for example in his letter of 9 October. But, instead of attributing these about-faces to inconsistency or lack of character, it is fairer to attribute them to an open mind, which was not too proud to change as the situation changed. For example, Boltzius was opposed to letting individual Salzburgers go to Frederica, and he agreed only with the proviso that it would be a large group accompanied by one of the pastors. Besides that, the economic situation had meanwhile worsened at Ebenezer and there was danger of actual starvation.

Boltzius did show credulity toward anyone who feigned deep religious faith. To escape his Moravian masters in Savannah, the indentured carpenter Volmar needed only to complain of their heretical views in order to make Boltzius accept him in Ebenezer, from which he promptly ran away. Boltzius’ pious parishioners frequently invited him into their huts to help them with their religious scruples; then, after listening attentively and appreciatively to his solution, they would only incidentally mention their lack of medicines or other supplies.

As an orthodox minister, Boltzius had little understanding for those who differed from him in dogma. This explains his fear of the Moravians in Savannah, who were then called Herrnhuters after Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf’s estate in Saxony, where they had lived before coming to Georgia under the guidance of August Gottlieb Spangenberg.¹⁸ Although these Herrnhuters claimed to be Lutherans in good standing, the orthodox Lutheran clergy considered them the worst kind of dissenters and innovators. Above all, Boltzius detested “natural honesty” or “bourgeois respectability,” which so often deluded a man into thinking himself sanctified and sure of salvation even though he had never acknowledged his utter depravity and crawled like a poor little worm into the wounds of Jesus.¹⁹

Boltzius’ unquestioning faith also led him into many contradictions. When the Schweigers lost their baby on 27 September, it was divine punishment for their sins; but, when the righteous Steiners lost both their babies on 20 July, Boltzius thanked God for letting them participate so soon in His glory. The same was true of Rott’s death, which Boltzius recognized as divine punishment,²⁰ whereas similar deaths of godly people in Ebenezer were a blessed release from this vale of tears.

In view of the constant backbiting, jealousy, and gossip with which Boltzius had to contend, he can be pardoned for his almost paranoic fear of spies, enemies, accusers, and calumniators, which we see in his entry for 26 June. Since slander might well have alienated the benefactors in Europe, the Salzburgers’ reputation was a matter not only of pride but of survival itself. The amazing thing is that Boltzius’ Leibnitzian optimism survived all his physical hardships and spiritual tribulations. Never did he question the omniscence or omnipotence of his loving Father; and typical was his reminder to his congregation on 7 March that “it is a precious benefit from God when He leads His children not according to their own but to His will.” It is to be remembered, however, that much of the sermonizing in his reports was aimed at his mentors back at Halle, who were to see that he had profited from their theological instruction.

Although we might question Boltzius’ motivation in undermining the authority of the two commissaries, time was to vindicate him. In championing the removal from Old Ebenezer, he not only renounced his comfortable parsonage and well cultivated garden there but also risked losing the favor of Oglethorpe and even of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which provided his stipend. When conditions had become unbearable at Ebenezer, he had an opportunity to accept an invitation from certain Lutherans in Philadelphia to come and organize a Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania,²¹ which was then the El Dorado of all emigrating Germans. Instead, Boltzius remained and toiled for more than thirty more years among his affectionate and appreciative congregation, who never doubted his love and sincerity.

Despite Boltzius’ pious platitudes and theological ramblings, he was, or at least became, a keen observer of the social, economic, and political scene; and we are indebted to him for many interesting, and sometimes unique, descriptions of the flora, fauna, Indians, slaves, and settlers of early Georgia. He also gives good pictures of the early efforts in agriculture and animal husbandry and vivid descriptions of the prevalent diseases such as scurvy and malaria. Very interesting are his comments on the value of private enterprise in developing a new country, for example in entries from 29 to 31 May.

This volume begins with a foreword by Urlsperger, which introduced the edition of 1739. The reader interested primarily in the Georgia Salzburgers in 1736 might well skip over this foreword, which tells little about the Salzburgers in that year and merely anticipates Boltzius’ later diary. Because the diary for 1736 was so discouraging, Urlsperger had delayed its publication until he could give some favorable news, such as the letter dated 21 January 1738, which reassured the reader that conditions were already much better than those described in the diary he was about to read.

Urlsperger’s edition includes a long appendix containing von Reck’s journal of his journey to and from Georgia, together with a description of Georgia and the Indians there; two German translations of letters from Jonathan Belcher, governor of Massachusetts, and Benjamin Coleman, a clergyman of that colony; and. numerous letters from the pastors and congregation at Ebenezer. This appendix has been deleted for want of space, and because it adds little to our knowledge of the Georgia Salzburgers. The most pertinent part of von Reck’s journal has already been published,²² and the letters from Massachusetts do not concern the Georgia Salzburgers. Although numerous and often long, the letters from Ebenezer give little factual information that is not better covered in the diary; and therefore it has been decided that the publication of the remaining diary has a priority over that of this extensive appendix.

In the following translation, citations from the Luther Bible, when recognized, have been made to conform to the King James version, unless the wording of the latter would not fit the context. References to Biblical passages are explained in the notes only if they help clarify the context. We should remember, of course, that most of Boltzius’ readers would have recognized all the references at once. The notes to the diary have been kept to a minimum by identifying all persons in the index. In consulting the index, the reader should note certain irregularities in spelling. Consonants are sometimes geminated, so that we find Kiefer—Kieffer, Schweighofer—Schweighoffer, Arnd—Arndt, and Schmid—Schmidt. Dialect variations sometimes come through as in the case of Grüning—Grining, Reck—Röck, and Gschwandl—Geschwandel.

As in the previous volume, we again wish to thank the authorities of the University and State Library of Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle, DDR, for supplying microfilms of Boltzius’ diary, from which Urlsperger’s deletions have been restored to this translation. We also wish to thank the American Philosophical Society for subsidizing necessary research and the General Research Board of the University of Maryland for defraying filming and typing costs. Above all we wish to express our appreciation to the Wormsloe Foundation and especially its patroness, the late Mrs. Elfrida De Renne Barrow. To her this volume is gratefully dedicated.

1..  See An Extract of the Journals of Mr. Commissary von Reck . . . (London, 1734). An echo of von Reck’s enthusiasm can be heard in a pitifully optimistic letter from a certain John Henry Labhart (Johann Heinrich Lebhart?) of St. Gall, who took his reports all too seriously. See George F. Jones, ed., Henry Newman’s Salzburger Letter-books (Wormsloe Foundation Publications No. 8. Athens, Ga., 1966). Hereafter cited as Newman Letterbooks.

2..  See George F. Jones, ed., Detailed Reports . . . Edited by Samuel Urlsperger (Wormsloe Foundation Publications No. 10. Athens, Ga., 1969).

3..  Ibid., 156-61 et passim.

4..  Samuel Urlsperger, ed., Ausführliche Nachricht von den Saltzburgischen Emigranten . . . (Halle, 1735 ff.). Cited hereafter as Ausführliche Nachricht.

5..  George F. Jones, ed., “The Secret Diary of Pastor Johann Martin Boltzius,” in Georgia Historical Quarterly, LIII (1969), 78-110. Cited hereafter as Secret Diary.

6..  An obviously expurgated edition of this journal appears in the Ausführliche Nachricht (2nd continuation, Halle, 1739), 803-76. The chapter concerning Ebenezer and Frederica has appeared as George F. Jones, ed., “Von Reck’s Second Report from Georgia,” in William and Mary Quarterly, XXII (1965), 319-33. Cited hereafter as Reck’s Report.

7..  William Holton Brown, “The Diary of the Pastors who Accompanied the First Transport of Salzburgers to Georgia, 1733-1734” (M.A. thesis, University of Maryland, 1970).

8..  An exception is seen in his entry for 19 June, by which time he was in practical rebellion, as the Secret Diary shows. See entry for 12 June also.

9..  See his letter in Newman Letterbooks, 578-83.

10..  See entry for 23 June.

11..  See entries for 25 March and 14 April.

12..  See entry for 19 June and 14 April, also Secret Diary, 95.

13..  Newman Letterbooks, 188

14..  See entries for 17 and 20 June and 7 and 28 Dec.

15..  See entry for 12 June, also Secret Diary, 104-105.

16..  A German translation of this charter, which was granted on Oct. 13, 1735, appears in the Ausführliche Nachricht, 2nd Continuation, 809-14.

17..  See Newman’s letter of Dec. 3, 1734 to von Reck (Newman Letterbooks, 145-47).

18..  See Adelaide L. Fries, Moravians in Georgia (Winston-Salem, 1905).

19..  See note 59.

20..  See entries for 13 May, 1 June, and 1 Aug.

21..  See entry for 3 May, also Detailed Reports, II, 186.

22..  See note 6, above.