Die Auswanderung: religion, culture, and migration among Old Colony Mennonites

Introduction Mennonites are a distinctive ethno-religious group who have repeatedly employed migration as a survival strategy. As a group, they have been persecuted for their religious beliefs and have sought out locations where their views and lifestyle would be tolerated. Their search for religious freedom resulted in numerous, often substantial, migrations throughout Europe, beginning soon after the group's emergence in the sixteenth century and continuing to the end of the twentieth. Large-scale migrations of Mennonites from Europe to North America began in the late seventeenth century when the first groups arrived in Pennsylvania, and continued into the twentieth century, when some 20,000 Mennonites fleeing the communist takeover in Russia moved to Canada (Epp 1962; Redekop 1989). Migrations of Mennonites from both Europe and North America to Latin America have occurred in the twentieth century, with Paraguay and Mexico hosting some of the first colonies (Krause 1952; Sawatzky 1971). One Mennonite group, the Old Colony, has been particularly mobile. This article examines the significance of the migration process to the Mennonite people, and focuses more specifically on the actions of the Old Colony, using their community in La Crete, Alberta, to illustrate the process at a more local and individual level (Figure 1). It argues that in contrast to the vast majority of migrations, which are ordinarily products of economic forces, movements undertaken by the Old Colony are most often made as efforts to preserve a distinctive lifestyle. It is a cultural interpretation of migration, using, whenever possible, the words of the people themselves to lend support to this argument. La Crete residents, both Old Colony and others, have suggested a number of explanations for the Old Colony's frequent movements. Land scarcity, a warmer climate, adventure, and family ties are just a few of the alternative reasons provided by local informants. One man, however, was adamant: "They went for religious reasons. Don't let them tell you otherwise" (Neudorf 1989). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Mennonite Migration in Historical Context Migration has historically played a significant role in the maintenance and perpetuation of Mennonite identity. It is a process which continues to the present time. Fretz (1944, 10), a Mennonite sociologist, asserts that Mennonites have had "no greater single cause for migration than the desire for religious freedom." This goal, he argues, has been the underlying factor in every major Mennonite migration. Fretz submits that there can be no doubt that "many Mennonites have migrated for reasons other than purely religious ones," and that although economic, political, and social factors may be influential in the decision-making process, these are overshadowed by, in his words, "the one fundamental motive -- religion" (Fretz 1944, 10). This argument is also made by other scholars who have studied Mennonite migration. Wiebe (1959, 220) declares that migrations for "conscience sake" have not ended, and that since the birth of the Anabaptist movement, "scarcely a decade has gone by" without some group moving to another country. "No cost is too dear and no pilgrimage too far," he maintains, for Mennonites to achieve their goals and live according to their traditions. Migrations in modern history, Fretz writes, are generally fragmentary in nature and lack organization, and may be triggered by various forces. One characteristic that has remained constant is that "people change localities in search of more favorable locations" (Fretz 1944, 9). Thus, Mennonites are not really so different from other North Americans, except that their movements are generally not quite so individualistic. The usual pattern for Mennonites is for a small number of families to settle in a new area, with the expectation that other Mennonites will follow. Fretz (ibid.) suggests that these movements are often "poorly planned, loosely organized, and sometimes composed of the economically and socially more unstable population of the home community. …