ROOTS & BRANCHES

Long before I volunteered to do a webinar titled “Pennsylvania German Enslavers: Initiating a Re-Examination” for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania last month, I knew that Joseph Hiester, my “first cousin, six times removed” who was a congressman and later governor of Pennsylvania, was an enslaver.

Some years ago I had come across a copy of the 1800 Pennsylvania Septennial Census for Berks County, in which the several dozen then-remaining enslaved people were listed. One of them was Dina, a woman held by Hiester and the only enslaved person shown in the city of Reading that year.

As I did more research for the lecture, I found that Dina and man named Pero were both registered by Hiester as required by the 1780 gradual manumission law to remain enslaved for life.

During the presentation’s question-and-answer session, Pamela McDonald, stated she was interested in the topic after learning her DNA registers as 10% German, which was a surprise to her. “When you found the listing for ‘mulatto’ enslaved workers (meaning biracial), do we know who their fathers might have been?”

This resonated with me given that Hiester also registered two mulattoes for 28-year terms of enslavement in the early 1800s. This registration was only available to individuals born to enslaved mothers.

While there are other potential explanations—that the mother was biracial herself or that there was an enslaved male in the household—it’s not impossible to believe that Hiester himself might have been the father. Research needs to be done to see if there are descendants of these folks available for DNA comparisons with the Hiesters!

Joseph Hiester does not appear to have held enslaved persons in his later years, and there are no such references in his estate papers.

But this leads to one of the questions I asked in the presentation. Hiester’s father was a 1732 immigrant from the Countship of Wittgenstein, in which the peasant class were little more than serfs.

Which circles me back to the “why” of Pennsylvania Germans as enslavers, although I knew no answer would be forthcoming at this this time. Was the answer to “why” as simple as racism or merely “following the money?” Or is it helpful to explore what appears to be the enigma that some Pennsylvania Germans decided some humans in America were worthy of an even lesser status than the serfdom they had in Europe?

In the final analysis, just as we have taken the advice of extending our research past direct-line ancestors and even collateral ones to look at the context of “friends, associates, and neighbors” (the so-called FAN Club), there’s every reason to research the enslaved of Pennsylvania German households to determine more about these families.

More research to do!