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(More customer reviews)This is a beautifully presented story of the first Polish settlements in the United States. The first settlers came from Upper Silesia, a part of Poland that was at that time part of the Prussian Empire. This excellent story flows here from the author's personal research from historical sources and personal interviews on site in the Hill Country of Texas.
This is a fascinating story and he details the story of US and world events form the Silesian Polish perspective from the 1830s and 1840s. Great boatloads of Silesians shipped to Texas to escape the famine and poverty imposed by the feudalism still prevailing in 19th century Prussia and eastern Europe. This was exacerbated by the huge loss of the potato crop in a drought.
These Silesians migrated to Texas to establish anew life. This story covers their story in every fascinating detail introducing us to the key people, places and events in Texas history. This story fills in a lot of common gaps in the connections related to the US Civil War and European events of distress.
This story tells how the Polish language and culture were planted in Texas, and later the upper Midwest in areas like Wisconsin and Illinois. In the Texas Hill Country towns Americans and Germans learned Polish as they lived among the majority Poles in certain towns. Tidbits of the likewise intriguing story of German Catholic settlers is intertwined here.
Ethnic Germans from various parts of the Prussian Empire had settled in Texas the early 1800s, and continued to immigrate through the 19th century. There were connection and similarities between the Poles and Prussians who found themselves together in Texas counties as a result of their separate migrations. Germans had been well established in the eastern colonies before the American Revolution, especially in Pennsylvania.
Many of the Poles arriving as a whole community from 1854-56 had lived in a German political and legal situation for a long time, and their leaders spoke German to various degrees, and felt an affinity for the German speakers they met upon arrival in Galveston and along their trek to counties west.
This study from a key Texas scholar in history will be an entertaining and informative read to most action and adventure fans. But this is a true story and many will find a personal connection in their own family history in this story of migration, resettlement, the rich mix of cultures along with the picture of a tenacious social and cultural life and ethnic identity moving in partnership with Americanization of a prominent ethnic community.
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