(from German Deutsch, or Deitsch, "German"),
17th- and 18th-century German settlers in Pennsylvania and
their descendants. They now live largely in Lehigh, Berks, Lebanon,
Lancaster, and York counties. Some groups still speak a German
dialect, known as Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania German
(Pennsylfawnish Deitsch), and much larger numbers retain
such elements of their traditional culture as a special cookery
(e.g., shoofly pie, a pie of molasses and dough crumbs)
and distinctive decorative motifs, including geometric hex signs
painted on barns and floral patterns stenciled on furniture
and housewares. Most Pennsylvania Dutch are thoroughly assimilated
and live lives scarcely different from the life of other Americans.
Some groups, notably the Amish, however, wear plain, old-style
garb, drive horse-drawn buggies, and live according to relatively
strict religious principles.
The liberal and tolerant principles of William Penn's government
in colonial Pennsylvania attracted a large flow of immigrants
from the Rhine country of Germany. The immigration began with
the Mennonite Francis Daniel Pastorius, who came to Pennsylvania
with some German Quakers in 1683 and founded Germantown, the
pioneer German settlement. The early German settlers were for
the most part members of the smaller sects who came and settled
as groups--Mennonites, Amish, Dunkers, or German Baptists, Schwenckfelders,
and Moravians. After 1727 the immigrants were mostly members
of the larger Lutheran and Reformed churches. Their farming
skills made their region of settlement a rich agricultural area.
By the time of the American Revolution they numbered about 100,000,
more than a third of Pennsylvania's population.
