EARLY ORIGINS
If you believe in the Biblical account of history, which most Christians do, then our tribal history begins with Adam in the Garden of Eden and follows to Noah and the world-wide flood. An additional assumption is that all pre-flood population, with the exception of Noah and his sons, perished during the flood.
SONS OF NOAH
The sons of Noah were Japheth, Shem & Ham.
Japheth was the oldest son of Noah and is considered the father of all Indo-European peoples. The early Greeks worshipped him as Iapetos or Iapetus, whom they regarded as the son of heaven and earth, the father of many nations. In the ancient Sanskrit vedas of India he is remembered as Pra-Japati, the sun and ostensible Lord of Creation. Later his name was further corrupted and was assimilated into the Roman patheon as Iupater and eventually Jupiter. The early Irish Celts, the early Britons and the early Saxons traced the descent of their royal houses from Japheth.
SONS OF JAPHETH
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, & Tiras. The current thought is that the Germanic tribes descended through Gomer.
Gomer was the founder of the Cimmerians who are believed to have settled originally on the shores of the Caspian Sea. They were later driven away by the Elamites. During the Babylonian Exile the Jews knew them as the tribes that dwelt in the uppermost parts of the north (Ezekiel 38:6). The Assyrians referred to them as the Gimirraya. Esarhaddon (681-668 BC) records his defeat of the Gimirrai whereas King Ashurbanipal tells us of the Cimmerian invasion of Lydia in the days of the Lydian King Gugu about the year 660 BC. Gomer was believed associated with the people of the Black Sea, Germany and Wales.
SONS OF GOMER
The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. Expectations are that the Germanic tribes descended through Gomer/Magog/Tiras.
Gomer & his tribe traveled from Mount Ararat up to the Black Sea/Caspian Sea area (Armenia), from there to the Eastern Europe/Western Russia area and then on up the continent to Northern Europe/Scandinavia.
Ashchenaz, one of the sons of Gomer, first settled in what is today Armenia, although in later Jewish writings he is associated (with his father Gomer) with the Germanic races, Germanic Jews are still known as Ashkenazim. The Assyrians tell us in their inscriptions of the Askuza, a tribe who allied themselves with the Mannai in a revolt of the 7th century BC, an event that is also mentioned in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 51:27). Jeremiah confirms the identity of the Ashkenazim with the Askuza. The Askuza, of the Assyrian records, later became the Skythai (Scythians) of Herodotus. Other early sources confirm their place of settlement to be the area later known as Pontus and Bythinia, where the peoples of Ashchenaz gave their name to the lake and harbour of Ascanius and to the land of Ascania. Josephus tells us that they were subsequently known to the Greeks as the Rheginians. Ashchenaz is believed to be associated with Germany, Armenia, Scandinavia, Denmark, northern islands of Europe and the European west coast.
Riphath and his descendents gave their name to the Riphaean mountains, which early cosmographers thought of as constituting the then northernmost boundary of the earth. Pliny, Melo and Solinus record the name of Riphath as that of the Riphaci, Riphaces and Piphlataci who were later known to history as the Paphlagonians, the descent and identification of which is confirmed by Josephus. Riphath is believed to be associated with generally Europe, Carpathians and Paphlagonians.
Togarmah and his earliest descendents settled in Armenia. We know from certain Hittite documents that in the 14th century BC, the then region of Tegarama, which lay between Carchemish and Haran, was sacked by the enemy from Isuwa, i.e. the enemy from beyond the Euphrates. The records of both Sargon II and Sennacherib mention the city of Til-gari-manu, the capital of Kammanu which lay on the border of Tabel. Til-gari-manu lay some thirty miles due east of present-day Malatya (it is known today as Gurun, anciently Gauraena), and was not finally destroyed until the year 695 BC. It was after the destruction of Til-gari-manu that the descendants of Togarmah became lost in obscurity. In line with the Assyrian policy of that time, the survivors were uprooted and transported to other lands within the Assyrian empire. The name was given as Thrugamma by Josephus. Togarmah is believed to be associated with Armenians, Germany and Turkey.
The Cimmerians are an ancient people of Southern Russia of whom little is actually known. They are mentioned in Homer, but they emerge into history only in the 8th century B.C. when they are driven by the Scythians from their former home in Crimea and came to the region around Lake Van (in present-day Eastern Turkey). Defeated (634BC) by the Scythians, the Cimmerians swept across Asia Minor, plundering Lydia and breaking the power of Phrygia. The biblical Gomer may be the eponym of the Cimmerians, and they are mentioned in the inscriptions of the Assyrians, with whom they warred.
The Cimmerians are touted as a mythical tribe who lived at the end of the world in a place of mists and darkness, where the sun never arrived. These people were popular in Greece and many stories were crafted. They were believed to be the ancestors of the Scythians or the Celts.
PRE- GERMANIC
After Gomer and his sons the trail of where the Germanic tribes originated disappears into a several hundred year hazy mist. Tracing backwards from what is known of the early history of the Indo-European languages, you can find a very substantial paper on this subject by Thomas V. Gamkrelidze & V.V. Ivanov that is enclosed within this document. Their paper concludes that recent evidence places the probable origin of the Indo-European languages in western Asia somewhere in the crescent that curves around the southern shores of the Black Sea, south from the Balkan peninsula, east across ancient Antolia (today the non-European territories of Turkey) and north to the Caucasus Mountains.
Enclosed you will find a very substantial history of the Germanic people going from 1750 BC, and one of the West Germanic tribes called the Inguaneones, to 1498 A.D.
The name Inguaevones is derived from the god Inguz from whom the Inguaevones believe they had descended. Inguz is another name for the Germanic god Freyr. It is conceivable that Inguz/Freyr may be the corrupted name of an actual individual from whom the Inguaveones did actually descend. Just as Japheth, the son of Noah, became worshipped as a god by later descendents.
From tales and myths such as these, we may one day be able to make the genealogical connection between the time of Gomer and his descendents to the Germanic tribes of southern Scandanavia. As you can see from the map of Europe the trek from the Black Sea to southern Scandanavia is largely a northwestern land/river route through Eastern Europe/Western Russia. It is very possible that during the building of the large western Asia empires, such as Assyria, Babylon, etc., that the tribes of Gomer were driven up and around the Black Sea and then north into the vast land/river expanse of the Eastern Europe/Western Russia territory and from there to Southern Scandanavia where they ultimately settled.
THE FORMATION OF GERMANY
The first identifiable permanent settlers in the area that is now Germany were Celtic tribes in the 8th century BC; the Rhineland was a key area of production in their industrial society. But new forces were developing in Europe. The Roman Empire was expanding, and Germanic peoples were on the move from Scandinavia. Germanic tribes moved to lands east of the Rhine and north of the Black Sea, and their invasions and periodic unrisings created instability within the Roman Empire. Roman attempts to push across the Rhine failed to establish permanent occupation. They ended in AD9; after reaching the Elbe the Romans were pushed back by German tribes under the leadership of Arminius, who destroyed three Roman legions.
Rise of the Franks
By the time of Constantine, when the Roman empires capital shifted to Byzantium in the east, Roman rule was beginning to break down. After the introduction of Christianity by Emperor Constantine, the Roman Empire disintegrated and the area that is now Germany was overrun by the Franks. When Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800, Frankish influence stretched across most of Europe, including the Frisian homelands which came under full domination by the Roman Catholic Church. Civil war followed Charlemagnes death; the Treaty of Verdun in 843 split the empire into a Latin western section, and a Germanic eastern part led by Ludwig the German. Ludwigs appointment marked the emergence of a German identity.
In 911-9 eight German duchies were formed which were Saxony, Frisia, Thuringia, Franconia, Lorraine, Swabia, Bauaria, and Rhaetia under Conrad I the first King of Germany. Small proprietary holdings (alods) and freemen (Gemeinfreie) persisted in Frisia, Ditmarsch, Saxony and the Alpine Forelands. Most of the other Germanic land were under servile labor and the manorial system.
The Saxon ascendancy
In the 10th century, the area came under the rule of the Saxons. Otto the Great was faced with invading Magyars from the east and a growing threat from duchies and principalities inside the eastern empire. After defeating the Magyars in 955, Otto strengthened his ties to the papacy, which led to Roman Church dominance over a large part of the country. In 962 he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1151-1250 Friesland became part of lower lorraine under the Kingdom of Germany.
The power of the princes
The influence of powerful dynastic German families increased steadily. By the 13th century the Holy Roman Emperor had little power against feudal princes. The German nobles abode largely in great castles, with the exception of Frisia which was considered a relatively safe area. Many of the princes began to push eastward, conquering Poland and setting up German communities in areas now in Russia and Romania. The black plague invaded Frisian territory about 1349. In 1356 the law regulating the election of an emperor (the Golden Bull) was introduced, based on the votes of four noble and three ecclesiastical electors, excluding the papacy. In the 15th century the Hapsburgs were elected Holy Roman Emperors, and they retained the title until it was abolished some 400 years later.
Discontent with the church authorities increased. Martin Luther led accusations over corruption, nailing his 95 theses, an attack against papal abuses, to the door of Wittenburg church in 1517. Luther was excommunicated but politically powerful German princes were able to protect him from sentence of death.
Century of conflict
After publication of Luthers translation of the Bible, the oppressed in Germany were ready to revolt. The Peasants Rebellion of 1524-5 brought destruction of church properties but was put down by princely armies. About 1560 the Friesland territories in northern Holland remained Roman Catholic, but the East Friesland territories in North Western Germany became a mixture of Calvanist & Lutheran religions.
GERMAN MIGRATION
Before the Revolutionary War more than 200,000 Germans had congregated in New York and the Pennsylvania back country, where they became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Many of them emigrated from the German Rhineland, called the Palatinate, in order to practice a number of dissenting religions. They were called Mennonites, Dunkards, Moravians, Schwenkfelders, or sometimes were all lumped under the common title of the Plan People. Later, Lutheran Germans came. Although they were industrious and sober settlers and usually welcomed. Thomas Jefferson, for one, was afraid of the influx of Germans, and warned against foreigners deluded by the maxims of absolute monarchies. He neednt have worried about any such democratic backwardness. During the Revolutionary War, the Germans already in America so successfully propagandized the 30,000 Hessian mercenaries hired by the British that nearly half of them deserted and settled in New England and Pennsylvania.
After 1848, a time of destructive revolution, bad crops, and avaricious landlords in the German states, a new wave of 1.5 million German immigrants arrived to help develop the Middle West. They settled in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, traveling even as far as Texas, where one of their number is said to have originated a very un-German dish called chili con carne.
GERMAN STEAMSHIP AMERICA
The steamship AMERICA was built for Norddeutscher Lloyd by Caird & Co, Greenock (yard #96), and was launched in November 1862. 2,752 tons; 318 x 40 feet (length x breadth); clipper bow, 1 funnel, 3 masts; iron construction, screw propulsion, inverted engines, service speed 11 knots; accommodation for 76 passengers in 1st class, 107 in 2nd class, and 480 in steerage; crew of 84 to 102.
25 May 1863, maiden voyage, Bremen-Southampton-New York, with 216 passengers and 300 tons of freight. 1864, briefly under the Russian flag during the Prussian war with Denmark. 1872, engines compounded by Day, Summers & Co, Southampton. 1882, engines rebuilt in Bremerhaven. 27 January 1894, last voyage, Bremen-New York-Baltimore. 29 June 1894, sold to F. Fratelli & Co, La Spezia, and renamed ORAZIO; re-sold to S. Repetto, Genoa. 9 September 1894, sold to La Spezia for scrapping. 1895, scrapped at La Spezia.
Sources: Edwin Drechsel, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857-1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Cordillera Pub. Co., c1994), p. 18, no. 12; Arnold Kludas, Die Seeschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd, Bd. 1: 1857 bis 1919 (Herford: Koehler, c1991), pp. 12-13 (picture); Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 2 (1978), p. 545. Michael J. Anuta, Ships of Our Ancestors (Menominee, MI: Ships of Our Ancestors, 1983), p. 6, reproduces what purports to be a photograph of the AMERICA, courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA.
