Shenandoah Germans

Due to both economic reasons and Anabaptist objections to slavery, the German settlers in the Central Shenandoah Valley owned fewer slaves than average for white Virginians and white Southerners, and consequently the area has historically had a smaller African-American population than many other regions of the South. During the 1840s, 11% of Rockingham County's population were enslaved people; by comparison, 57% of the four adjacent counties to the east of the Blue Ridge Mountains were enslaved people.[1] However, all white residents of the Shenandoah Valley were economically connected to slavery. White-owned farms in the Shenandoah Valley typically owned none, one, or several enslaved people. Large plantations employing many enslaved people also existed in the Shenandoah Valley. According to the National Park Service, the culture of the Shenandoah Valley was "part of a system of race-based slavery" and white residents of the Valley "used racism, violence, and fear to maintain it." Major Isaac Hite Jr., the grandson of the early German pioneer Jost Hite, became the owner of 15 enslaved people when he married Nelly Madison in 1783. Nelly's father James Madison Sr. gifted the couple the slaves as a wedding present. Isaac and Nelly lived together on the Belle Grove Plantation, owning 103 slaves by the 1810 census. Enslaved labor at Belle Grove Plantation was used for farming, as well as for a blacksmith shop, gristmill, sawmill, distillery, lime kiln, and quarry.[8]

According to the historian Nancy Sorrells, the "lower number of slaves in the Shenandoah Valley before the Civil War has fostered the idea that slavery there was different or more benevolent", a claim she regards as false. According to Sorrells, 1 in 5 residents of Augusta County was a slave in 1861. Sorrells presented a program called "Slavery and its Aftermath in the Upper Valley" at the Augusta County Historical Society in 2015 explaining that "while there were some differences, slavery in the Valley was no less horrific or entwined in the culture than in any other slave society."[9]

The Pennsylvania German settlers of Shenandoah brought with them many staples of Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine, such as sauerkraut, apple butter, cabbage served with hot sauce, souse, ponhoss (scrapple), buckwheat pancakes, knödel, rivvels and ham bone pot pie. The staple grains were wheat, spelt, and barley. In lieu of bear garlic used in Germany, ramps were substituted.[2][11]

In 1809, Joseph Funk (a Mennonite of Bernese Swiss descent) and other descendants of the German Anabaptists who had been persecuted during the European wars of religion settled in what is now known as Singers Glen. Funk was a well known music teacher and composer, and thanks largely to him, Singers Glen is sometimes considered the birthplace of gospel music in the American South.[12]

The Joseph Funk House and Singers Glen Historic District are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[13]

The German-American population of the Shenandoah Valley is overwhelmingly Christian and predominantly Protestant in particular, mostly the Anabaptists. While the Mennonites and the Brethren have been the most prominent German Protestant denominations, smaller German denominations have existed such as the Lutherans and the Reformed. A minority of German Christians in Shenandoah have been non-Protestant, most notably the German Catholics.

There has never been a very large Amish population in the Shenandoah Valley, however a small community exists in Stuarts Draft. The Beachy Amish Mennonite community in Stuarts Draft has attracted press attention due to a high-profile 2012 kidnapping case involving a Beachy Amish-Mennonite minister from the community. Kenneth L. Miller, a Beachy Amish minister, was accused of aiding a woman to violate custody orders by fleeing to Nicaragua, where the woman and her daughter were hosted by missionaries of the sect. The woman, Lisa A. Miller (no relation to Kenneth Miller), renounced her lesbianism and had been blocking her ex-partner of many years from any contact with their daughter. Kenneth Miller was found guilty and sentenced to 27 months in prison for abetting an international parental kidnapping.[14][15][16]

The first Mennonite settlers arrived in the Shenandoah Valley in 1728. These settlers established three main areas of early inhabitation. The first settlement was Massanutten, a Mennonite colony near Luray in what is today Page County. During the Seven Years' War, these settlements were nearly destroyed by Native Americans. Many of the Mennonites returned to Pennsylvania. However, after the danger subsided, Mennonites began to resettle in Shenandoah in Augusta and Rockingham counties. The second area of settlement was the Opequon colony in Frederick County. The third area of settlement, known as the Shenandoah colony, extended south from Strasburg along the western slope of the Massanutten Mountain. Over time, these three colonies expanded in size and number until they grew together to become one large German tract. By the time of the American Revolution, the Mennonite community had become firmly planted in the Shenandoah Valley.[17]

The Mennonite, sharing common religious beliefs and common German and Swiss ethnic origins, were bonded together by both religion and ethnicity. For many years, the German language was an important cultural bond among the Mennonites. During the 18th century and much of the 19th century, German was commonly spoken in the Mennonite community and often used for the liturgies of Mennonite church services. John Weaver (1818-1877), John Geil (1799-1890), any many other Mennonite ministers exclusively used German during services. The last Mennonite minister to preach in German was Daniel Showalter (1802-1889) of Rockingham County. However, visiting Pennsylvania Dutch ministers would occasionally give German language sermons to older Mennonite congregation members. The last people to retain the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect were the Old Order Mennonite community in Rockingham County. While Old Order Mennonites exclusively use the English language today, some older Mennonites still spoke German at home until the 1940s and 1950s.[17]

While historically almost all Mennonites were white people of Germanic ancestry, the Mennonite community has become more diverse in recent years. Due to Mennonite activities to resettle refugees, the Shenandoah Valley has become home to a large community of Hispanic and Latino Mennonites many of whom hail from Central America, Mexico, and elsewhere.[18][1]

The Dunker movement originated in Germany in the early 1700s. They were commonly known as the German Baptist Brethren. By 1908, they had officially changed their name to the Church of the Brethren. The Brethren first settled in southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, before moving to both Western Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley. Pacifists, the Brethren refused to serve for either the north or the south during the Civil War. They supported abolitionism, temperance, and teetotalism. In accordance with their belief in simplicity, a cappella hymns were sung with no musical accompaniment and churches were built without stained glass windows, crosses, or steeples. In Brethren congregations, men and women were segregated to separate sections of the church.[19]

Beginning in the 1950s, the Bridgewater Church of the Brethren took a leading role in the modern settlement of refugees in the Shenandoah Valley. The first modern refugees were a Dutch Indonesian family the Brethren helped resettle in 1957.[1]

The small number of German Jews who have settled in the Shenandoah Valley have constructed two houses of worship: the Temple House of Israel, a Reform synagogue in Staunton; and the Beth El Congregation, a Reform synagogue in Harrisonburg. Many were German-speaking Jews from Bohemia. These Jews from Germany and Bohemia maintained a strong German identity and were highly active in German-American fraternal organizations, particularly in Harrisonburg.[20] A number of Pennsylvania Dutch Jews migrated to the Shenandoah Valley, travelling along the same route of migration as other Pennsylvania Dutch people.[21]