10 SLAVS ON SOUTHERN FARMS. 



POLES AS FARMERS. 



Texas, the largest of the Southern States, has the distinction of 

 containing the first permanent Polish settlement in the United 

 States. This colony was established at Panna Marya, Karnes 

 County, in the year 1855 by about 300 persons from Austrian Poland. 

 There are records of a few Polish families, chiefly political lefugees 

 from Europe, settling in different parts of the United States prior 

 to 1850, but no evidence of a sufficient number in any one locality to 

 constitute a colony. Poles settled in Wisconsin shortly after 1850, 

 and the records of several Roman Catholic Churches show that as 

 many as 16 Polish rural colonies were established in Wisconsin, 

 Michigan, and Texas between the years 1854 and 1870. 



Previous to 1860 the immigration of Poles to the United States 

 was irregular and was seriously affected by the American Civil War. 

 After 1865 the movement assumed the character of a popular exodus 

 of the peasantry of Polish Europe, as a direct result of the Austro- 

 Prussian war and the resulting political and economic conditions in 

 Germany. 



The real immigration of Poles to the United States, however, began 

 after the year 1870. Between 1870 and 1880 nearly 40,000 entered 

 the country. The majority of the Poles entering the United States 

 during this period went to the larger industrial communities and 

 cities to engage in industrial pursuits. Some migrated to the North- 

 western States, where they found employment in lumber camps and 

 sawmills, while a comparatively large number settled on the farms of 

 Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas. In 1880, 17 

 Polish churches were reported in Texas, 16 in Wisconsin, and 6 in 

 Missouri. By 1887 there were more than 50 Polish agricultural set- 

 tlements in the United States. 



About 1885 the tide of Slavish immigration began to sweep through 

 our ports of entry in an annually swelling stream, and Polish agri- 

 cultural colonies were rapidly established in the Great Lake States, 

 Minnesota, and in the Dakotas. A distinct change in the character of 

 the colonists began about this time. Instead of the Polish peasants 

 who had emigrated from Europe direct to the agricultural regions of 

 this country seeking permanent homes, the movement became an 

 immigration of Poles to the agricultural regions from the cities and 

 industrial communities of the United States, where they had been 

 engaged in the coal and ore mines, quarries, steel mills, and other 

 industrial establishments. 



This change was largely due to the efforts of land agents and their 

 advertisements in the Polish newspapers. Having been farmers or 

 farmers' sons abroad, and with savings from their earnings in the 

 industrial pursuits, these groups made good pioneers and were soon 

 firmly established on the cut-over and prairie lands of the Northwest, 

 the poorer farms of the Middle West, and on the fertile acres of Texas. 



Poles are often spoken of as "lovers of the land," and many among 

 even the lower classes consider it a degradation to work as industrial 

 laborers. In the United States they have proven themselves ex- 

 cellent pioneers, and after acquiring property, become exclusively 

 farmers. They are independent, self-reliant, self-supporting, though 

 possibly inclined to be clannish, and are efficient husbandmen. 



