This was, therefore, far
from a pauper invasion. It included every class, even broken-down
members of the nobility. The majority were, naturally, peasants and
artisans, but there were multitudes of small merchants and farmers.
And the political refugees included many men of substantial property
and of notable intellectual attainments.[27]
Bremen was the favorite port of departure for these German emigrants
to America. Havre, Hamburg, and Antwerp were popular, and even London.
During the great rush every ship was overcrowded and none was over
sanitary. Steerage passengers were promiscuously crowded together and
furnished their own food; and the ship's crew, the captain, the agents
who negotiated the voyage, and the sharks who awaited their arrival in
America, all had a share in preying upon the inexperience of the
immigrants. Arrived in America, these Germans were not content to
settle, like dregs, in the cities on the seacoast. They were land
lovers, and westward they started at once, usually in companies,
sometimes as whole communities, by way of the Erie Canal and the Great
Lakes, and later by the new railway lines, into Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Iowa, where their
instinct for the soil taught them to select the most fertile spots.
Soon their log cabins and their ample barns and flourishing stock
bespoke their success.
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