Christian Friedrich Diercks settled at Industry on Mill Creek in present Austin County in 1831. For reasons that are not quite clear, he changed his name to Friedrich Ernst upon reaching North America. Under the new name, he is generally regarded as the “Father of German immigration to Texas,” and this by virtue of a glowing letter he wrote back to family and friends in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, the North German state from whence he emigrated with his family in 1829.
In the letter, Ernst spoke of Texas, which was still part of Mexico at the time, as a veritable paradise where livestock could roam free year-round, where wild game was abundant, where the soil was fertile, where the streams flowed clear, and where land, lots of it, could be had for the asking. The letter caused a sensation and inspired many who were contemplating emigrating to the US to choose Texas over the lower Missouri River country, the main destination of German emigrants at the time.
The letter also caught the attention of one Detlef Thomas Friedrich Jordt, who hailed from a patrician family of means with business and family connections in North Germany and Denmark. The letter inspired Jordt to travel to Texas and see for himself if what Ernst had written in the letter were true. He spent most of 1833 in Texas where he stayed with Ernst on Mill Creek. He then returned to Germany where, under the assumed name Detlef Dunt, published a book about his observations of Texas.
The book basically confirmed (with a few caveats) Ernst’ glowing depictions and thus had the effect of amplifying the reach of his letter, the text of which is reproduced verbatim in the opening pages of the book. Reise nach Texas in 1833 [Journey to Texas in 1833] also counts as the first book published in Germany about Texas by someone who was actually here. It is delightful little book that combines insights about the climate and physical geography, the social and political circumstances of Texas, the institution of Negro slavery — a stain — and the suitability of Texas as a destination for German immigration. For those Germans who did decide to make Texas their new home and community, he also offered many practical suggestions in regard to the clothes to wear, the tools to bring and those to leave behind, and so forth and so on.
This book was originally translated by Anders Saustrup. Anders, a native of Denmark, fell in love with a Texas girl who happened to end up penniless on a broken down bicycle in his village in Denmark after the war. His family took her in. He followed her to Texas where they eventually married and started a family. Once in Texas Anders became fascinated with the compelling story of German immigration to Texas, which no doubt was bolstered by the fact that his wife hailed from a very prominent Texas German clan, the Trenckmann clan, and also by the fact that he was fluent in German. His fluency helped him to quickly devour most of the vast and woefully underutilized trove of primary source material — mostly written in German and untranslated — that lay languishing on the shelves of various archives across the state. He also developed an interest in the natural history of Texas and as an autodidact mastered the Latin and common names of hundreds, if not thousands, of native Texas plants.
At the time of his death in 2012, Anders had become one of the most knowledgeable scholars of Texas German history and literature in the state. He also served as my mento for my first book, Nassau Plantation. We spent many hours together in carious libraries and archives exploring all the primary source material available on the subject of Texas Germans. Although Anders had a contract with the University of Texas Press for the book, he never finished the project. At the time of his death, he had completed the translation, but the notes were missing from his papers, and his introductory essay was incomplete and unusable.
I approached UT Press, which had done my Friedrichsburg book, and asked if the press were still interested. It was, and so I undertook the completion. I felt a debt of gratitude to Anders for mentoring me along with my first book, Nassau Plantation, and I felt if I could get his excellent translation into print, that would go a long way toward repaying the debt. In the meantime, I had met a Norwegian scholar, Geir Bentzen, who was also interested in Texas German history and fluent in German. I invited Geir to be a partner in the project. Detlef Dunt also had roots in Denmark and Geir was able to unearth and translate valuable online resources in Denmark that had been unavailable even to Anders. We had a fruitful partnership and his contributions were invaluable.
To my great surprise, the initial run of 1,000 hardcopies sold out in a couple of weeks and the book has continued to sell in the paperback reissue ever since.
March 2025
jamesckearney.com 