Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-11-06

| MENT IN virginia. by hermann
Schuricht. Volume 1. 16s pages, octave.
Theo. Kroh & Sons, Printers. Balti-
more, Md. 1898
We do wish that our people were more
appreciative Of, and would do more to
encourage and stimulate. studies and in
vestigations akin to those made by the
author of this publication. He is not the
least worthy of those Virginia German
settlers, who have contributed so much
to the material progress Of their adopted
State. A gallant Confederate officer,
serving in Company d, Fourteenth Vir-
ginia Cavalry, and with Won Borcke, he
is author of an essay on German educa-
tional efforts in America, published at
Leipzig in 1884 under the title "Geschite
der Deutschen Schulbestrebungen in
America" and edited the German paper
Der SUDDEN, published at Richmond in 1891.
He resides now on his farm in Louisa
county, Va.
This volume contains an Introductory
chapter on 1.-The Participation of Ger
mans in the Discovery Of America" and
covers thereafter in ten chapters the pc
riod from the Colonial time to the end Of
the eighteenth century. A second volume
will. we presume, cover the nineteenth
century period. While much of his mat
ter Of the earliest Colonial period is not
history, in the modern scientific sense.
but rather speculation, and while we no
tice some minor inaccuracies-the author
having misapprehended. and sometimes,
we think, been misled by the German APP
pearance Of family names well known to
have been English for generations before
their settlement IN Virginia-this work is
one for which the student Of Virginia his
tory will be grateful, and 1t should be
widely read. Typographical errors are
rather numerous, and of character JUS
tifying the inference that the compositors
were Germans unacquainted with the
English language. Too little attention
has been heretofore paid TO the German
element in our civilization, and we hope
that this work, and one Of somewhat
similar character, upon which we have
heard that General John f. Roller, of
Harrisonburg, is engaged may enable us
to better understand and appreciate the
extent TO which we are indebted TO II in
our growth as a Colony and as a State
We have fancy that when the Baptists
of this State come to look carefully into
the true history of their beginnings in
Virginia, which they have never tho
roughly DONE they will find a much great
er German element and influence therein
than they now conceive To a German
artist, Nicolaus Locker, is attributed the
original portrait Of Pocahontas, still pre-
served in Norfolk, Eng. Johannes Leder-
err was the first explorer of the Allegheny
mountains. Jacob Reubsaamen, who
married into a prominent Virginia family
and resided in Manchester, erected in Vir-
gina, at the beginning of the Revolu-
tionary war; the first powder-mill in
America. Many of us have not before had
our attention called to the fact that an
edition OF the Laws of Virginia were
printed in the German language in 1885,
by order OF the State Legislature
The following extracts are from Mr..
Schuricht's comments on the influence
and effects of slavery in Virginia:
There certainly would have been ten
fold more commerce and manufacture in
Virginia and the other Southern States If
there had been intelligent, industrious,
for their work and spending their money
for the necessaries and luxuries Of life.
But for slavery Virginia would be to-
day, as II was in $780, the most populous
State Of the Union, as we'll as the most
wealthy and influential. Slavery still had
another disastrous effect--it has a ten
dency 10 degrade free labor and to rem
der the free laborer worthless. The habit
of giving preference TO slave labor has
operated to the prejudice Of free labor 1t
has caused the population OF little means
to grow up in idleness. to think labor de-
grading, to be incapable Of earnest regu-
lar work, and 1t kept away immigration
Of white workingmen because they dis
liked to be looked down upon and treated
as negroes. The German settlers, whose !
number was much larger than is general
ly conceded, were with very few excep-
tons opposed TO slavery. 80 Convicts |
and a great many indentured white ser
wants, Irish and Scotch prisoners Of war,
were sent over from England in and az
ter the year 162l-but after a generation
or two all these elements became blended |
into a homogeneous mass OF Cavaliers |
aristocratic because they had an inferior |
race beneath them - . II is proven by |
facts that the German farmers In the VAL |
ley and the Alleghanies. with few excep- |
TONS owned no slaves. 80 The number |
OF negroes has always been smaller there |
than in other parts Of the State. Accord |
Ing 10 statistical reports In 1871. the negro |
population In the Allegheny District |
amounted to only 7 per cent. In the VAL |