For many Americans, the early 1960s was a time of growing optimism and great progress. World War II was slowly fading into oblivion, the number of poor Americans was declining, life expectancy was increasing and modern medicine was winning the battle against hitherto deadly diseases. National income and wage earners’ benefits were rising, making it possible to buy new consumer goods, from cars, air-cooling machines and transistors to the latest technical achievement – the television set. Weather satellites, jet planes and other innovations raised people’s hopes that President John Kennedy’s words that the first man would walk on the moon at the end of the decade would come true. The Cold War might have unnerved Americans, but in the years before the Vietnam War, before Martin Luther King was assassinated, before the whole Watergate affair was blown out of proportion, the mood in America was one of optimism.
But at a crossroads in Winesburg County, Ohio, 31-year-old Elizabeth Miller wasn’t so sure. She had written a few essays on church history and contemporary life, but she was uncomfortable with a development that others considered progressive. She was often asked, “Do you mind having electricity or your own car?” She replied, “Christ would not have lived the homeless and poor life that he did if he had not felt the need for his followers to live a modest life.”
But in a society that emphasised abundance, it was hard to explain why her Amish family wanted nothing more than the bare essentials for survival. Everything that was modern raised many almost uncomfortable questions for her. She knew that many people were pressurising parents like her to enrol their children in state colleges where they would “play basketball, go to dances and have fun” instead of greasing their hands with work on the farm. But she also knew that the orthodox fathers and mothers of young Amish people would rather go to prison than send their children to such institutions.
On the other hand, Elizabeth Miller’s reflections on life in the 1960s also reflected general American values. She denounced “godless communism” and made donations to the Red Cross and to a foundation raising money for a polio vaccine. But her kind of patriotism was different from that of those who “believed in fighting for their country with guns and bombs in their hands”. She knew that others looked down on pacifist Amish who refused to take up arms. She had been to many trials where Amish were sent to prison by draft boards.
Half a century later, the community in which Miller lived had changed a little, although she still clung to the old values as much as she could in the midst of a super-modern society. Surprisingly, on average, only one in seven Amish children left the community when they grew up, despite the attraction of the different way of life they could observe in their environment. Thus, the Amish still drive around in antique black carriages as they did hundreds of years ago, they do not have a refrigerator and therefore refrigerate their food with blocks of ice, they do not use the Internet, they dress old-fashioned and they curse the television.
Adult men should still be required to wear a beard, but not a moustache, as this is considered to be characteristic of soldiers and as such contrary to their peaceful orientation. Their houses are still painted white and have red roofs, men work in the fields in black trousers and white shirts, and black hats and straw hats are still worn by teenagers.
Of course, they make their own law. For example, if a car crashes into their black carriage, they choose one of their own to restore the justice that the foreign driver has violated. The latter, in turn, dictates that car horns must be smashed so that the driver knows that the Amish are not to be trifled with. Local lawyers thus have their hands full when it comes to defending the Amish in the courts for such and such procedures. “The Amish are no longer immune to crime, be it drugs, sexual offences, theft or burglary,” says one of their lawyers. Indeed, drug traffickers have discovered that the black carriages of the Amish are almost ideal for transporting drugs, as they do not arouse any suspicion. Many an Amish man has been bribed into secretly growing cannabis in his fields.
Elizabeth Miller would be horrified if she knew what is happening among the Amish today. But the community does not allow it. Those who interfere too much with their way of life are persecuted, and the field of anyone found with cannabis often burns down. The community also punishes adultery, sex with prostitutes or fights between neighbours. A very mild punishment is when they break the carriage of someone who has broken their laws with an axe. Of course, maintaining order among the members of the community is not cheap and each house has to contribute its share of the money.
Children learn about their way of life from a young age. They have their own school classrooms within the settlement. German is compulsory, although they speak a kind of German dialect mixed with English and Swiss dialect. Until the end of their schooling at 16, the children have to live a neat life, after which they are allowed to do almost anything. They go on picnics and day trips to the “sinful” world. During this time they are supposed to decide whether they want to live and stay in the community or leave it. Those who stay have to obey strict rules. Women must wear their hair in a braid or ponytail and hide it under a hat in public. Jewellery and cosmetics are forbidden, and buttons and zippers and belts are a sign of ostentation, so they are replaced by some kind of pegs, rings and braces. Individual church communities are made up of 40 families and are headed by an elected leader with assistants. Every two weeks they all gather in one of the houses to pray, separated by gender.
This way of life naturally stirs the imagination of Americans. What’s more, it attracts crowds of tourists and explorers who see the Amish as both nostalgic conservatism and icons of the post-modern conservation movement. The Amish claim to be neither. They are not timeless figures frozen in the past, nor posters for political activists. Yet they prefer to be described as a community that takes Christian teaching seriously and values humility, simplicity and obedience to doctrine.
Baptised adults only
Their history is clear and steeped in history, from their beginnings in 1693 in Switzerland and the southern reaches of the Rhine River to their emigration to North America and settlement in 30 American states and the province of Ontario. The Amish are the spiritual successors of the Protestant Anabaptist Reform Movement and Elizabeth Miller’s faith has roots deep in 16th century Europe. Soon after 1500, Europe had to face a series of political and economic problems. Population was growing, food was becoming scarce and peasants were becoming poorer. Nevertheless, the Church was still a strong unifying force.
But as it began to interfere more and more in politics and to control it, it lost moral authority with the people. It was Martin Luther who proposed revolutionary changes to some of the basic teachings of Christianity. Among other things, he argued that every Christian can save his soul by individual faith and not just by church rituals. This, in turn, directly undermined the meaning and authority of the church.
His teachings spread rapidly throughout the German-speaking lands and some church leaders began to introduce them in their parishes. One of these important reformers was Huldrych Zwingli, a priest in Zurich. He was successful, although some feared that the Zurich City Council would stand in the way of his reforms, saying that the reforms would threaten their privileges. This happened, Zwingli began to make concessions and the radical reformers were disappointed. Moreover, since the church automatically baptised every new-born child, they were all automatically included in the Christian church.
The radicals were convinced otherwise. For them, the church was a community of Christians who voluntarily committed themselves to imitate Christ. Baptism as a sign of belonging to the church was to be reserved only for those old enough to understand the path they were embarking on. The Zurich City Council demanded that all baptize their children, but on 21 January 1525 the adult radicals baptized each other. Since they had all already been baptised as children, they had now been baptised twice (Latin: anabaptismus). The Anabaptists, as they were now called, argued that the first baptism was meaningless. Zwingli accused them of breaking the unity of the church and of being politically subversive. They were thrown into prison and began to be driven out of the city.
In the meantime, their numbers increased, especially in the countryside, and within a few years they could be found throughout Switzerland, southern Germany, Tyrol and Moravia. The Anabaptists were opposed by both the Catholic and Protestant churches and were imprisoned, tortured, burned, beheaded and sold as slaves on galleys. Swiss towns employed special “Anabaptist hunters” to find suspicious townspeople. They met secretly, in forests and in small groups. This period of almost a hundred years left deep traces on their movement. Even after they settled in North America, their descendants told stories of those who suffered during that time.
By 1530, the Anabaptist movement had already spread from the Rhine Valley to northern Germany and then immediately to the Netherlands. In 1534, they even took power in Münster, but this religious revolt was soon crushed by a united Catholic and Protestant force. In the Netherlands, Menno Simons tried to revive the movement, and the Anabaptists were called Mennonites. Although physical violence against them has decreased over the years, pressure has increased, especially from the Swiss city authorities, for the Anabaptists to leave certain cantons. So Jakob Ammann moved to Alsace and soon a thousand more Anabaptists followed.
After arriving in a new land, Jakob Ammann clung to the conviction that the movement needed to renew itself spiritually and, above all, to separate itself from the harmful influences of the outside world. Above all, he was committed to the idea that people should go to confession not just once a year, but twice. More frequent attendance at church services would increase discipline among the faithful. The Anabaptists who remained in Switzerland, and especially their leader Hans Reit, resisted these innovations. Ammann was convinced that this meant weakening the movement and proposed a joint meeting with the most important representatives of both movements to iron out the differences.
Two movements emerged; a larger movement led by Hans Reit and a smaller reformist movement of Ammann-ish led by Jakob Ammann – later called the Amish. The two structures did not reach a compromise in 1693 and their quarrels were not only talked about in Switzerland, but also in northern Germany and the Netherlands. Letters and accusations were passed back and forth, one to the exclusion of the other.
Over the years, the rifts between the two streams have deepened, no matter where groups of Amish could be found. Fewer were found in Switzerland, many in Alsace and the Rhine valley, and a significant number later settled in northern Germany and also in the Netherlands. Wherever they settled, they retained their Swiss-German dialect. The first Mennonite family, the Lensen family, had already settled in Pennsylvania ten years before the division between Mennonites and Amish took place. Pennsylvania thus became the first homeland in America for almost all Mennonites, and later also for the Amish.
In 1681, William Penn, an Englishman who was a member of the Quakers, a religious minority persecuted in both England and Europe, received royal permission to establish a colony in America. Pennsylvania was a colony in which religious toleration was written in capital letters. Lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians and other religious minorities also settled here. It is not clear when the first Amish left Europe for America. In 1737, the Charming Nancy left a European port and sailed for Pennsylvania with 21 Amish families on board. Within three decades, 100 families were in the New World. What is less well known is that in 1781, at the urging of the Austrian Emperor, 20 Amish families also settled in Galicia and later a few families in western Ukraine.
The Amish who settled in North America before the American Revolution were only a small part of the 80,000-strong German-speaking community of Europeans, mostly Lutherans and Reformed, with a few Catholics, who were then seeking happiness in the New World. The English-speaking settlers referred to them all together as the Pennsylvania Dutch. They also settled in the nearby states of Maryland and Virginia. In 1736, the Detzweiler and Sieber families were the first of 500 Amish families to set foot on American soil and settle in what became known as Berks County.
In America, the Amish avoided only one place. Back in Europe, they were told by their religious leaders that Salem, Massachusetts, was the devil’s town, where they had no business being. For in 1692, outrageous things happened here. First, a few girls began to have strange visions, then the hysteria spread to the whole of Salem and ended in a witch-hunt. From the beginning, the town was governed by a strict Puritanism brought by settlers from England. They denied all authority, considered themselves to be God’s chosen people and all other people and races to be inferior degenerates of the devil. Indians in particular were supposed to be part of this group.
The fact that one in ten settlers lost their lives fighting Indians was proof to fanatical preachers like Samuel Parris and Cotton Matther that anyone who sympathised with the natives was possessed by the devil. They were convinced that the girls were possessed by the devil because of the Indians’ satanic rituals and saw all this as proof that the devil had taken up residence throughout Salem. And so the witch-hunt began.
The first victim, Bridget Bishop, was brought to a rocky platform from where everyone could see what was happening. She walked up the ladder, legs shaking, until a noose was put around her neck. She pleaded in vain that she was innocent. They slid a chair under her feet and within three minutes her body stopped twitching. But this was only the beginning of a witch-hunt that would change Salem for ever.
There have been pogroms, witch-hunts and lynchings all over the world since people can remember, but rarely has an event been as thoroughly researched as the events in Salem that turned its honest inhabitants into cold-blooded killers. It all started in January 1692, when 11-year-old Abigail Williams began to behave strangely. She would utter unintelligible words, writhe on the floor as if in pain or hide behind furniture. Soon her cousin Betty Parris began to imitate her behaviour, and then some other girls.
So her uncle Samuel Parris, who was not only the leader of a strict Puritan community but also a sworn enemy of the devil, decided to take action. He quickly guessed what was behind the girls’ strange behaviour; they were possessed by the devil himself. He was also convinced that the devil had helpers – most likely Indians or witches who had bewitched the girls. He interrogated them until they accused three women, already considered outcasts from the community, of their behaviour; a well-known beggar, an old woman chained to a bed, and an Indian slave, Tituba. The women were arrested and the arrests were then extended to surrounding communities.
More than 200 people from 25 villages and towns were accused of witchcraft; the youngest was 4 years old and the oldest 80. Historians cite various causes; superstition, paranoia about Indian attacks, family disputes, quarrels over land, a smallpox epidemic, bad harvests and so on.
But the Puritan judges also contributed a lot to ensuring that the witnesses said what the judges wanted to hear. Confessions were obtained by torture, and evidence was only available to the accusers. Nineteen people were accused of witchcraft and hanged, and 150 ended up in prison. The most horrific death was that of Giles Crey, an 80-year-old farmer. Because she refused to accuse others, heavy stones were heaped on her so long that she suffocated.
But the long processes and intimidation have had a devastating impact on the economy. A large number of farmers were imprisoned or fled in panic, leaving fields uncultivated, sawmills closed for wood and commerce non-existent. Then the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. The Governor, Sir Walter Phips , consulted the English authorities and stopped the proceedings. Early in 1693, the hysteria was suddenly over as quickly as it had appeared. Although 40 years passed between these events and the first Amish families setting foot on American soil, the testimonies were still alive and many people still believed that witches had settled in Salem. It was not until 100 years later that some Amish families settled near Salem.
While some saw North America as a land where a new life could be started and went there voluntarily, others did not cross the Atlantic of their own free will. In 1750, when Ludwig Riehl was just eight years old and playing in the harbour, someone lured him onto a ship preparing to leave and would not let him ashore. The boy was too late and, as the ship was leaving the harbour for America, he realised that the captain in Philadelphia was planning to sell him. An Amish family in Pennsylvania then paid the captain for his transport and compensation, and Ludwig had to work for them until he was 21.
This Amish family must have been infected by the smell of profit and money and treated him badly, so he left them as soon as he turned 21, settled among other Amish in Chester County, joined their church and got married. Although the Amish community in Chester County was not large, it played an important role as it was on the route that Amish families took west from Philadelphia into the wilderness or to follow “the Great Wagon Road” that led to Virginia and North Carolina. Here, the newly arrived Amish were given shelter and useful information.
The Amish were well organised and not in a bad financial situation, so they started buying land. Unlike the Mennonites, who bought overgrown and uncultivated land, they preferred to buy land that was at least partially cleared of bushes and trees and suitable for later cultivation. They sold it later for a reasonable price. But the desire for a better life was not the only reason for moving to America. Above all, the Amish wanted to pray in peace and to live as they believed God’s law required them to live. But, at least initially, regular religious service was hampered by their scattered settlements, inaccessibility and lack of spiritual leaders. They did not have a bishop of their own until one Jacob Hertzler came to America and settled in Northkill in 1749. Religious life flourished only when priests began to come to America in greater numbers and Amish deacons living in America were ordained.
Slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania only in the 1780s, but there is no record of any Amish family owning slaves. To them, man was a free being, and they rejected the use of violence and weapons. However, they sometimes hosted immigrants on their estates who did not have the money to pay their way across the Atlantic and therefore travelled on credit. They paid for their passage by taking a job with a farmer, and they were obliged to work for them for a certain number of years.
As border dwellers, the Amish have often been the victims of local conflicts. In Pennsylvania, the interests of the French and English empires crossed. In 1754, the Seven Years’ French and Indian War began. The Indians joined the French in attacking white settlements in English territory. The border settlements of the Amish could not escape the fighting. Generations later, their tradition still tells of an attack on the Hochstetler family in 1757.
The family lived in an Amish settlement in Northkill, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. On the 19th of September 1757, Jacob Jr. opened the door to see why their dog was barking. A group of Shawnee and Delaware Indians surrounded the house and shot him in the leg. The wounded boy and his two brothers, Christian and Joseph, took up their hunting rifles to defend the family, but Jacob’s father forbade them to shoot and ordered them to put down their weapons. Instead, they all hid in the cellar under the house. But the Indians set fire to the house. The family tried in vain to escape through the cellar door. They became prisoners of the Indians. Jacob the younger, his mother and sister died, and Jacob’s father and sons Joseph and Christian were taken by the Indians to the French fortress of Presque on Lake Erie, where they were separated.
The following spring, the Indians allowed Father Jacob to go hunting alone, and he took the opportunity to escape. In fifteen days he managed to reach the English fortress of Shamokin. Four years later, his two sons were still in Indian captivity, so Jacob appealed to a military commander in Pennsylvania for help in freeing his sons. They were freed in 1763, but only after a prisoner exchange and the signing of a peace treaty.
But the peace between the Indians and the French was short-lived, as the outbreak of the American Revolution had a profound impact on the Amish communities. Many Americans living in coastal towns felt that the English tax system and their trade policies were unfair. Even planters in the South found it unbearable. Perhaps only a fifth of the population in the thirteen American English colonies was loyal to London. To them, the patriots of Boston and Philadelphia were rebels against the legal rulers who should be hanged. For the Amish and some other Christian communities, the political choice offered by the Patriots was insufficient. They preferred peaceful neutrality. Jesus demanded that Christians live in love with all, and this made any military action impermissible for them.
The Amish therefore did not support either side in their efforts to control the colonies. Neither side agreed with their neutrality, even though the Amish were taught to be obedient to authority in all matters that did not go against their conscience. So to whom should they pay taxes, since both sides claimed they had a right to them?
In 1775, the rebels organised special committees to force people to join the defence militia and demanded that they not buy English products. In 1777, the Amish were among those Pennsylvanians who refused to swear allegiance to the revolutionary government. As a result, they lost their right to vote and were double-taxed the following year.
By September 1977, their farms were already buoyed. This was a severe blow to the generation of Amish who had withdrawn from Europe to escape its militarisation. The war certainly had a negative impact on all the peaceful religious communities, although some young men liked the rattle of the drums and the thunder of the cannons so much that they left their communities and never returned to them.
The Amish, along with the Quakers and Mennonites, have become socially and politically marginalised. Some even migrated to Canada, convinced that they would be more politically and civilly stable under the English king. Even more so, the War of Independence had an impact on Amish identity. How American will their church be now? Will independence mean that they will have to abandon their faith, for which their ancestors suffered so much? After a century of settlement in America, their future was no more certain than it was in 1693.
Studies have shown that no family was able to keep all its members in the church at that time, because it was a very turbulent time. Less than 50% of the family members continued the traditional Amish life, so that by 1800 there were no more than about 1000 Amish in America.
The communities that remained in Europe had other problems to face. The French Revolution had transformed them from second-class citizens into equal citizens, which also meant that they now had the same obligations to the authorities as the rest of the world, which meant that they had to serve in the army. It did not help them to send petitions to Paris explaining that their religion forbade them to bear arms. Napoleon needed soldiers for his conquest plans.
The new world has therefore become a reality for many. Its glitter did not fade even after Napoleon’s fall. In 1825, Johannes and Barbara Güngerich set off from Kutzenhausen in Lower Alsace for America.
“We set sail from Le Havre, France, on 8 May. We had good weather for four days, but then we were hit by a storm that lasted for five days. The ship was lifted more on one side than the other and we had to tie down anything that might break and hold our plates in our hands while we ate. During the storm on 16 May, my wife gave life to a little girl, we called her Barbara, and her birthplace was in the middle of the sea. She is a healthy and strong child and everything went well, so that mother and child remained healthy throughout the journey.
It took us 48 days to get to New Orleans by boat. There were 70 passengers on board and nothing happened to anyone. We arrived in New Orleans on Friday evening and the next day we told the clerk what we were carrying. The same day, after this conversation, we travelled by river boat to Badarusch (Baton Rouge), 40 hours away. On Sunday, the axle that drove the hatches broke and the boat began to sink. The sailors tied her to the river bank and she stayed there with us.
Within two weeks, many passengers fell ill and died. As soon as I could, I sent my wife and family overland to where we still live today. I stayed alone until I managed to get my things off the ship. I bought 250 acres of land and started to cultivate it. We like it very much in America.”
The record here shows that the Amish settled not only in Pennsylvania, but also elsewhere, along with the great wave of emigrants that began to pour into America between 1820 and 1860. At that time, five million Europeans arrived in America, and three-quarters of them spoke German. This, of course, weakened the Amish community that remained in Europe, but those who left took with them church letters that proved their integrity and made it easier for them to integrate into the Amish communities living there.
Civil war
Over the years, around 3000 Amish came to America, many not even landing in Philadelphia but in New York, from where they then went on to Ohio, Indiana, Ontario, Canada and even Missouri. In New Orleans, a small community remained and settled. Thus Pennsylvania, with only four communities, was no longer the only centre of the Amish, as another one was formed in Illinois, which had eight communities.
This dispersion has resulted in a number of problems. Like the Anabaptists, the Amish practised adult baptism. Children and minors were therefore not yet members of the church, nor under its discipline. Nevertheless, church leaders decided to discipline those members of the community who allowed youth too much freedom. Thus, a church letter from Illinois urged parents not to allow youth to dress in strange clothes and sleep together without “shame and fear.” If this happens, parents will not take it away scot-free.
In April 1861, the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, signalled the beginning of the Civil War. Most of the Amish lived in the Northern states and many were sympathetic to the ruling Republican Party. They were opponents of slavery, although they did not actively participate in the abolitionist movement. Although some young Amish joined the Northern army, the vast majority refused to do so, even when conscripted. The legislation allowed them to avoid conscription or find someone to join the army in their place, for a fee of $3000. For the religious leaders of the Amish, however, the war, with its “bloodshed and fighting, was a divine warning that the faithful must live more simply and obediently”.
The first half of the 19th century was a time of material and social abundance, despite all the difficulties. Perhaps this “abundance has made the Amish forget what God expects of them”, church leaders have warned time and again. Their prosperity was largely rooted in their beliefs and practices; simplicity, community and mutual help. But prosperity also brought them to a crossroads, where one path led to greater integration into American society, and the other to a kind of critical aloofness. The church was also aware of this duality – and divided.
In the third quarter of the 19th century, the Amish religious communities, which were nominally united in 1850, were permanently divided, and the events of those years are still visible today. Those who resisted the modernisation of life and progress in general managed to preserve the integrity of the former religion, which can still be recognised today. Those who chose the path of integration and material prosperity, however, slowly drowned in the much larger American society.
The first problems occurred in northern Indiana, where the community had lived since 1840. Some Elkhart County Amish were less conservative than others in LaGrange County, and so the unified community there split into two separate streams. The former wore slightly more fashionable clothing, attended public schools, and accepted public office. The others from LaGrange County were traditionalists and considered such behaviour a rotten compromise that undermined the Christian values of simplicity, humility and shared decision-making in all matters.
The clashes in northern Indiana resulted in an immediate split. All claimed to be Amish and hoped that the other side would see the error of its ways. But the seeds of discord were sown. Not even a joint meeting of all the religious leaders of the Amish from all over America in June 1862 was able to bridge the differences. The conservatives came to be called “Old Order Amish”, and the more modern strain, which was mentally linked to the Mennonites, “Amish-Mennonites”. Several religious communities chose the more modern Amish-Mennonite path and their communities settled all over the continent.
As the 20th century approached, the Amish-Mennonites intensified their cooperation with the Mennonites. Men and women of both groups participated in joint Sunday meetings. Gradually, however, the two groups merged. The Amish-Mennonites, in effect, drowned in the Mennonites.
The Old Order Amish were a distinct minority, representing only a third of all Amish at the end of the 19th century. They worshipped in private houses, dressed in the traditional modest manner and numbered no more than 6300, yet they still established a community here or there, which shows their resilience. Hard work in the fields was the norm for men, women cooked, ironed and mended. The men wore unkempt beards, but not moustaches, which reminded them of soldiers. They adopted modern farming methods but still used old tools. All the time, they were careful to preserve their community as much as possible in the midst of the abundance that surrounded them. Throughout the 19th century, they still travelled in open carriages, as closed ones were considered an unnecessary luxury.
As much as they wanted to be separate from world society, it sometimes came to them unannounced. The economic crisis that began in 1893 and lasted four full years affected them as much as their neighbours. In the first year alone, 500 American banks closed their doors and 16 000 businesses failed. Then the Amish, who were only farmers, were hit by drought. It was not until 1910 to 1914, by far the best years for the farmers, that financial relief, but also new worries, came. The Amish rejected cars because they were seen as weakening family ties and limiting the time the Amish could spend at home. But they had to admit that cars were sometimes useful. What about telephones? They could use them, but they were not allowed in the home. They felt that they could be useful in times of need, but that being so easily accessible could be detrimental to privacy.
America’s entry into World War I surprised everyone, but most of all the American people, who had been assured by President Woodrow Wilson that America would be neutral. When the US entered the war, the US administration launched a massive public campaign to win public approval for the move. In doing so, it systematically used churches and church newspapers to achieve its goal.
The first test for young Amish came with military conscription. Congress passed a recruitment decree, which also vaguely promised special treatment for those who object to bearing arms on religious grounds. When young Amish arrived at military training centres, no one really knew what to do with them. The officers hoped that the young men would soon put their doubts behind them, and in some cases, under pressure, they did. As a rule, however, this tactic of the officers was not successful.
In October 1918, farmer Rudy Yoder was drafted into the army. When he arrived at the camp, he began to explain to everyone that his conscientious objection did not allow him to carry a weapon and perform military service, but under pressure and threats, he just started wearing a military uniform. A few weeks later, he was sent with others to a military firing range for rifle training. He resisted and refused to wear the uniform and take part in military activities. The officers took him from the camp to a field where there were supposedly three fresh graves. They waved guns and claimed that if he did not put on his uniform the next day, he would be in the fourth. After a sleepless night, Yoder turned up at the training ground the next morning in civilian clothes. Although the officers continued to threaten him, they did not carry out their threat.
Other Amish did no better in the army. They all claimed conscientious objection. Some were beaten, others insulted, others had their beards forcibly cut off, and others were “baptised” by being dunked in military latrines, in accordance with their way of baptising adults. Members of the Amish community also suffered, as some officials branded them as pro-German because they spoke a German dialect, refused to serve in the army, refused to buy American war bonds and allegedly wanted Germany to win the war. But so did the Mennonites. In any case, the War Department controlled both the Amish and the Mennonites throughout the war.
But the end of the war in 1918 did not end the disagreements between the Amish and the US authorities. The post-war period brought with it demands for more education and compulsory schooling. The Amish, however, never opposed education and participated in the public elementary school system. However, they considered secondary schools to be too impractical and to undermine their way of life, especially by demanding competition and by encouraging individual values.
Different US countries had different rules on the age of compulsory schooling. This led to arrests and fines. Parents usually relented afterwards. Some even decided to move from America to Mexico, but the unstable political situation in Mexico meant that this attempt failed after a few years. The disputes and the petitions to Washington then dragged on for almost twenty years. In 1937, however, the Amish in Pennsylvania began to seriously consider leaving the public school system. Two private elementary schools were established, and a number of families moved to Lancaster County so that their children could attend.
The great economic crisis of the 1930s hit Amish communities very hard. The most painful consequence was the non-establishment of new communities. While some went to the cities to earn money and thus distanced themselves from their communities, others were convinced that the hard times required them to lead a more spiritual life. Helping the most deprived members together and sharing their already meagre resources with others became much more common and almost a way of life. In 1933, American farm incomes had fallen by more than 60 per cent and President Franklin Roosevelt knew he had to act fast. One measure was to give subsidies to farmers who decided to reduce their arable land. The result of such a decision would have been a smaller supply of foodstuffs on the market, which would have raised prices and brought more income to farmers.
The Amish were shocked to hear that some people in the cities were going hungry because of the lack of food. “We think it’s cruel to get money in a way that causes hunger among people. It’s not right that we are getting money that we don’t deserve.” Most Amish refused these subsidies. The Amish also did not participate in the 1935 Social Security programme, which provided a state pension to anyone who was self-employed – and almost all Amish were in this category. Serving the poor, the orphans and the elderly was, they believed, the task of the church communities, not the state.
Old times
As the economic depression began to subside and better times were dawning, World War II broke out in Europe. Conscripted Amish and others who exercised conscientious objection were now treated differently by the authorities than in World War I. Instead of being sent to military camps or imprisoned, they were often sent to geographically isolated centres where they did various jobs for the US government and its agencies. They worked in national parks, psychiatric hospitals or on expropriation farms, and they also built roads or served as firefighters. They were supervised by civilian, not military, authorities.
But the war was over and the Americans were free to go back to their own lives. People had more time and more money, and tourism began to flourish. So the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce put up a poster inviting Americans to visit. The poster showed a black chariot in the middle of an idyllic landscape, with people in strange costumes marching behind them. Nowhere did it say they were Amish, but in Pennsylvania everyone knew who they were. A post-war tourist poster portrayed the Amish as a people who knew no change. But Amish communities knew this was not true.
Life for Americans began to change immediately after the war. Televisions appeared, highways were built, suburbs grew and people started spending money differently. The Amish were suspicious of these new developments and this bothered some officials. So in 1946, the Ministry of Agriculture publicly urged them to give up using horses to work in the fields and to buy tractors, as this would increase production. Their way of working in the fields was outdated and if they did not start using machinery, they would go out of business.
But the Amish were convinced that automation would destroy the need to work together. No one would need a neighbour anymore, and communities would crumble. Tractors were a lot like cars, and those who worked the fields with them might soon have cars of their own. But sometimes the pressure of development was just too much for some Amish. In 1952, the government decided to build an atomic power station in Ohio, near an Amish settlement in Pike County. Plans called for a three-fold increase in population, road building and land prices. Of course, the Amish knew that the roads would become too dangerous for their carriages, that they would no longer be able to buy new fields because of the higher prices, and that the wider area around the atomic plant would become a heavily guarded military area.
Within a year they had moved away, mostly to Ontario, Canada, mainly because there was no conscription system there, which had become relevant again in America with the Korean War. The escalation of the Cold War convinced the US Congress in 1948 that the country needed a large army to defend itself at home, even in peacetime, and the presence of its troops in West Germany and Japan.
Those who now claim conscientious objection had to work for two years under a special state programme in public hospitals or non-profit humanitarian organisations. Although such arrangements were better than those in World War II, many Amish felt lost. Separated from their communities, dressed differently and sometimes horrified by the lives of others, they became depressed. Unaccustomed to alcohol, they got drunk and, to the disgust of others, caused disorder. Many did not return to their communities after two years, and if they did, they felt lost there too. According to some data, only half of the recruits returned to their communities after two years in hospitals and other organisations.
In 1957, two Americans who had just been released from prison decided to celebrate. They got drunk and broke into the house of an Amish family. They killed the parents and their son, but left the baby alone. A police investigation showed that the Amish did not resist. After a high-profile trial, one of the attackers was sentenced to death.
The death sentence has shocked the Amish. From the beginning of their existence as a religious community, the Amish, like the Mennonites, have been opposed to the death penalty. For them, life was too precious and the prospect of repentance too real. Their letters began to arrive en masse at the prison where the death row inmate was being held. They wrote to forgive him for taking the lives of members of their community. They invited the condemned man’s parents to lunch and talked and prayed with them. They also wrote to the Governor of Ohio, asking him to spare the convict. Seven hours before the execution, the Governor commuted the death sentence to imprisonment.
Amish resistance to the American public school system, especially when elementary schools began to merge into larger ones, resulted in the Amish establishing a greater number of private schools. In some places, local authorities turned a blind eye and tacitly allowed them to operate. Elsewhere, however, there have been problems, such as in Hazelton, Iowa. In 1962, the Amish opened two school buildings here, to be taught by uncertified teachers. Before classes began, however, city officials showed up at the school and tried to forcibly remove the children to the city’s public school. The children started shouting and singing “Jesus loves me” and then ran out into the fields. The children’s mothers were crying and their fathers were looking ugly.
The Amish had other challenges ahead of them. On 2 October 2006, tragedy struck the peaceful Amish community near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. A man from outside the community broke into the school, shot ten girls and killed five. The news instantly went around America and some people started saying that Amish schools were unsafe. But what surprised the public most was that immediately after the incident, the Amish sympathised with the murderer’s family. They visited his parents and relatives and assured them that they were not to blame for the accident. Six days later, after burying their daughters the previous day, the Amish attended the funeral of their killer. Part of the funds that donors and individuals from all over the Americas had contributed to the fund of the five dead girls were earmarked for the education of the murderer’s children. All this shows that, despite many changes and the acceptance of certain phenomena of modern life, the basic moral values of the Amish have remained unchanged.
In American society, where people are taught not to give up anything that is individually given to them, the very thought of forgiving those who have wronged them is unnatural. Of course, some Amish communities are already more influenced by modern life, others less so. In some places, they are already using smartphones for small businesses, visiting doctors and donating blood, but they have not changed their basic moral values, which have been in place for centuries.
Much of the American public looks at their way of life with wonder, but also with admiration. The tourist boom that the Amish are experiencing in their immediate vicinity, the bestselling books about their lives, and even the films, make it clear that their community is also undergoing great changes. The small community, which today numbers around 250,000 people, has become known all over the world without an advertising campaign. Decades ago, some restaurants that had no connection to them were already brandishing names such as Amish restaurant, and in some places the word ‘Amish’ has become synonymous with local organic produce.
Pennsylvania, and Lancaster County in particular, has become a tourist destination, with tourists coming from all over America. Individual Amish families have already become involved in this tourism industry. In children’s picture books, it is common to come across people who are Amish. In 1955, a musical depicting their life was also performed on Broadway. However, the film Witness, which implicated the Amish community in a crime story, led a delegation of Amish in Washington to protest against this way of portraying their lives. Of course, nothing helped. Where capital is making money, all arguments are futile.
