PENI^SYLVANIA AND DELAWARE 291 



passed into oblivion ; iu some cases being irrecoverably 

 lost, in other cases being so confused with the Dutch and 

 Swedish colonists as to defy all attempt at separation. 

 It is not altogether strange that the early settlers in Penn- 

 sylvania who were of French descent lost their national 

 identity. The majority of them did not come direct from 

 France, but from Germany and Holland, where most of 

 them had long resided and where many of them, indeed, 

 had been born. During their residence in the Palatine 

 and iu Holland, they identified themselves with the in- 

 habitants of those countries iu speech and uame. That 

 faculty which the Huguenots possessed to an eminent de- 

 gree, and which made of them such desirable immigrants, 

 the ability to adapt themselves readily to new conditions 

 and new environments, operated against the preservation 

 of their identity as Frenchmen. How completely had 

 the Gallic flavour disappeared from such a typical Ger- 

 man name as Kieffer, or such a typical Dutch name as 

 De Witte ! Yet the Kieffers, of Pennsylvania, and the 

 De Wittes, of New York, were once the Tonuelliers and 

 the Le Blancs of France. And even Peter Miuuit, "the 

 discontented governor," is described as a German by our 

 historian Bancroft. Little wonder, then, that the Hugue- 

 not settlers in America have never received their due 

 meed of justice at the hands of historians, and have 

 never been given the popular recognition which they de- 

 serve. 



A majority of the French settlers in the Delaware region 

 came over at the time of the first general influx of emi- 

 grants from the Palatine ; roughly speaking, between the 

 years 1654 and 1664. The names of some of the more 

 prominent of these refugees have been preserved, and the 

 positions which some of them held in the colony give 

 proof of the high esteem in which the Huguenots were 

 held among the Dutch. The first Huguenot of note to 

 take up his residence in the Delaware colony was the ex- 

 director of the New Netherlands, Peter Minuit, something 



French 

 Identity Lost 



Adaptability 



Kieffers 

 De Wittes 

 Minuit of 

 French 

 Extraction 



Influx 

 1654-1664 



