Walter Allen Knittle

Who were the Palatines and what major impact did they have on American history? Most Americans have never heard the word, but a search of your family tree and a dip into your gene pool could surprise you. The Palatines were some of the earliest refugees to be resettled in this country. At Queen Anne’s motherly insistence, the Archbishop of Canterbury begged the English colonies around the world to take in some of these families that had overrun London in the early 1700s. In the future United States, the Carolinas, upstate New York and Pennsylvania took in a great number of these people, adding a strand of fierce and defiant attachment to liberty to our collective DNA. This independent streak was woven into the very fabric of our country, no doubt adding weight on the side of the scale in favor of the revolution against England’s heavy-handed colonial rule some two generations later. This stubbornness is perhaps best personified by one of the best-known Palatines, John Peter Zenger, champion of freedom of the press.

But back to the book. Multiple reprints and references prove this work to be critical to our understanding of American history. If author Walter Allen Knittle left nothing else in his lifetime, this alone would be a wonderful legacy. Of particular interest to me was a list of passengers, when they came, ships and ports where they came from, and details regarding their families. If you need to graze through it, due to his extensive research and scrupulous cataloging of references, you can be forgiven. The original pioneers, the progenitors who went from France to the Rhine River Valley and later out to the far corners of the earth, collected fellow travelers and family along the way, changing the course of history along with many of their surnames. In the early 1700s though, crowds gathered for recreation outside of London to marvel at both the poverty and the industriousness of the Palatines who sought refuge there.

The book skips around a bit, but this is probably necessary due to the many connections to world events and politicians of their day, their dilemmas and responses to a humanitarian crisis that was brought about by war. The invasion and destruction of settlements of a peaceful people whose existence irked a tyrannical king changed the course of future world history. The Palatines were settled on the American frontier lands and played an important part in saving British and American global trade along with the British Royal Navy and the American Navy. Supply of tar to seal the ships and make them seaworthy had been cut off from England by competitors, threatening commerce and self-defense. Pine pitch, Pinus rigida, growing in abundance in the New York colony, was absolutely critical to the manufacture of sailing ships. The Palatines were set to work in the pine bush processing this valuable commodity. Our history would certainly be very different if all ships were taken out of the story. If you want to look into a corner of history that will take you to a new place that intersects with other great historical events, take a look at this interesting book with the scholarly title.… (més)