Chapter 2: Immigration

A Short History Of German Immigration

Why was there such a great mass of people wishing to quit their homeland? The answer lies in European politics, economics and class conflict. During the 1700s and 1800s a type of Feudalism existed in Prussia and other parts of Germany known as Inherited Serfdom. The landowners controlled the economy and ruled their estates with absolute authority. The peasants were dependent entirely on the nobles who controlled all aspect of their lives. Although Feudalism was officially abolished in the 1820’s, it took many more years for society to adjust to the new status of the peasant. Also, the French occupation created great hardship and destruction in Mecklenburg. Of the more than 2000 men who were conscripted from Mecklenburg to take part in Napoleon’s campaign against Russia, less than one hundred came home again. Thus, young men in those days had three basic choices; fight for the Nobility, starve on the farm, or go to America.  

The most useful immigration records we’ve used in our research include passenger lists from the Ports of Hamburg and New York, German civil records and US naturalization documents. The typical immigrant in our records was a Tagelöhner (day laborer) in his mid thirties with a wife and several children. These peasants were agricultural workers that did not live on the farm. They were cheap labor paid with little hard currency and the rest with products from the farm. An even cheaper form of labor was the child of Tagelöhner known as Hofgaenger who entered the fields after their confirmation (usually 14 years). Like the Tagelöhner, they did not live on the Hof (farm) and walked to work each day (gaenger = a walking person). Like the Tagelöhner they earned little money and the rest as Deputat paid by products of nature (Naturalien).

The Sanftleben Family Immigration

Although most German immigrants departed from Bremen, it appears almost all of the early immigrant families we’ve researched that were born in Mecklenburg & Pomerania, departed from the port of Hamburg, sometimes with a stop at Marseilles or La Have France, and arrived in the Port of New York. 

The Sanftleben family did not process through immigration at Ellis Island. There was no “processing” of immigrants at US ports before 1855. From colonial times on there was unrestricted immigration and each state regulated its own port. New York City tried to exclude criminals, paupers, and diseased aliens, but the regulation of this policy, which was in the hands of the police, failed. So basically, people just arrived, got off the ship, and blended into the city, or moved on to another part of the country. The very idea of processing (and controlling) immigration came about as a reaction to the great influx of immigrants in the mid 1800s—Germans, Poles, and of course, Irish Catholics fleeing the Famine. In the 1850s, the anti-Catholic “Know Nothing” party put great pressure on the government to control the influx of foreigners, and so, Castle Gardens at the Battery on the tip of Manhattan was turned into an immigrant processing station.

See the appendix for a more comprehensive view of what it was like to arrive in New York and process through Castle Garden. Immigrants were not processed through Ellis Island in until 1892. 

Migration from Alt-Gaarz

The migration of the Sanftleben family petty much matches what historians know about the conditions in Mecklenburg in the mid and late 1800s. Until the early 1820’s, tenant farmers and day workers were, by custom and law, bound to the land and had limited rights. Also about this time, harsh economic conditions and a growing social movement to eliminate the harsh treatment of the peasant classes also freed them from their ancient ties to the land. As a result, movement of people seeking work in other parishes in Germany and emigration to the US, South America and Australia gradually increased throughout the mid and late 1800’s. It was not unusual for villages to lose a large portion of their population in a short time. 

About 1868 virtually all the family of Friederike Kobernuss-Sanftleben left Alt-Gaarz where they had lived for over 100 years. They settled in the villages of Kogel, Gruessow and Gross Babelien which are not far from Alt-Gaarz. Friederike remained in Alt-Gaarz with her husband Friederich Sanftleben and their six children. Friederike’s mother Marie Fischer- Kobernuss probably came to live with the Sanftleben family after 1875 when Marie’s husband Heinrich died. 

Friederike’s brothers Carl and Friederich and a first cousin Karl Kobernuss immigrated to Buffalo and Oak Park Illinois in 1869, 1871 and  1873. It is almost certain Friedericke was in contact with her family in Buffalo and Oak Park during the intervening eight years. As was the custom, her brothers probably arranged for, or assisted in, the immigration of their mother, sister and the rest Sanftleben family. 

The eight members of the Sanftleben-Kobernuss family left Hamburg October 30 1881 aboard the vessel Bohemia and arrived in New York on 16 November. Most early German immigrants looking for farmland traveled inland from New York on the Hudson River or the Erie Canal to Buffalo. After the Civil War, the rail system to the Mid-West was greatly expanded so it’s likely the family traveled by train to Chicago. Carl Kobernuss built a home in Oak Park at 647 Woodbine in 1885 and the Sanftleben family purchased a home at 643 Woodbine sometime after that. Marie Kobernuss lived with her daughter’s family until her death in 1906. 

It’s possible the Sanftleben family at one time may have also lived at 637 or 641 Woodbine. The property records of these addresses are readily available in the Cook County courthouse and could provide valuable information on the history of these families. 

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