When the Mennonites (and Quakers) immigrated to the United States, it was because they were facing heavy persecution in Germany. The Pennsylvania Dutch would follow later on. In the United States, they didn’t completely get beyond that discrimination, and there were other issues that came up. The United States also had immigrants from Germany, but the Mennonites differentiated themselves in a few ways that would bring some blow back.
First, they opposed the Revolutionary War. They opposed slavery. They opposed public education, and they supported the separation of church and state. They also disproved of religious revivalism. So they stuck out, and were seen as others, at least in part, which caused some discrimination.
But for the most part, when they initially immigrated here, the first immigrants, they found safe haven, especially in William Penn’s colony, Pennsylvania. There is a great article titled, Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Seed of a Nation. It was produced by a Quaker scholar, so there’s a slight bias there, but it really gives a great overview of what William Penn did, and how it effected the Quakers.
So we can kind of separate the history of the Mennonites and Quakers into two sections. Pre-Penn and post-Penn. Before they settled in Pennsylvania, the Mennonites had also settled in the Massachusetts area. Also there were the Puritans, and they had no tolerance for others. One of the most famous people punished by the Puritans was Anne Hutchinson who was exiled from the area. Hutchinson was even a Puritan, but she was at the center of the Free Grace Controversy, disagreed with the established view, and was booted.
This discrimination went for anyone who wasn’t among the established Puritan view. This included the Mennonites/Quakers there. This discrimination really peaked in the 1660s, where Quakers were actually having their ears cropped because they were determined to spread their message. In 1654, Massachusetts even banned Quakers from the colony under the penalty of death. Two notable individuals, referred to as the Boston martyrs, were William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, who were executed in 1656
This changed in 1689 with the Toleration Act. At that time, congregations such as the Mennonites and Quakers were able to built their own churches and publicly worship. There was still some persecution that was recorded, which came in part with financial penalties. But if they didn’t challenge Puritan authority, they were usually fine.
There were a couple other communities of Mennonites and Quakers as well. In places like New York, Delaware, the Carolinas and New Jersey, there was enough religious and ethnic diversity that no one group really had an all out control. So there was a bit more acceptance. In Virginia, Anglicans ruled and non-Anglicans were discriminated against. The Mennonite and Quakers were among the dissenters there, and the Anglicans didn’t like it. So they would be arrested, at times mobs would attack them especially during prayer meetings where there would also be beatings. John A Ragosta has an excellent book on the subject, Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia’s Religious Dissenters Helped Win the American Revolution and Secured Religious Liberty. He details some of the persecution, but also shows how the continued fight by groups like the Quakers really had a massive impact for the rest of the nation.
Then enters William Penn and Pennsylvania. But just a quick note. Not all places were like Massachusetts or Virginia. For instance, there was refuge in Rhode Island, and some Quakers even served as governors. But Penn really provided something on a grander scale. The Mennonite and Quakers were very involved in the the new government, and were often in positions of power, at least in the early 1700s, when it became clear to them that being involved was getting in to confrontation with their religious beliefs. There was a lot of religious freedom, where the Mennonites, Amish, Quakers, etc all were quite tolerated and fine. We also see a period where they begin to withdraw into themselves. There is less missionary type of work, and a focus on internal work.
There would be some more discrimination in the 1800s though. So a bit of background, the Mennonites were the first religious group to raise an objection to slavery in the United States. That was in 1683 according to J.G. Melton in his, “The Encyclopedia of American Religions.” There opposition to slavery would also be very influential on the Quakers.
This was followed in 1688 with a pamphlet attributed to the Mennonite Quakers which again spoke out against slavery. So they had a long history of speaking out against slavery, and there was blow back. Seth B. Hinshaw in “The Carolina Quaker Experience 1665-1985: An Interpretation,” details some of the persecutions that they faced in North Carolina during the Civil War. The Conservative authorities saw their views as radical, and by the end of the war, there were very few Quakers and Mennonites in North Carolina.
Now, none of this discrimination was unusual in the sense that it wasn’t specifically pointed towards the Mennonites. It was part of the general discrimination that was faced by “others.” The Mennonite were a bit more outspoken though, and that did have an impact.
As a note, I talk about both the Mennonites and Quakers together. They are not the same and I don’t mean to portray them as such. But they both have the same roots, and often settled together, so their experiences are often very similar.
