“I don’t know how to make ends meet here anymore. … I won’t be able to subsist here much longer.”

That’s what one immigrant said about leaving Europe. Taxes, inflation, exorbitant rents, and the threat of war made leaving look better than staying. This was especially true in central Germany and Switzerland, where the Amish came from.

In addition to spreading poverty, religious intolerance was also an issue. The government expelled a pastor for holding an unauthorized Bible study. Both Catholics and Protestants were unwelcome in places where they were in the minority. The congregation of Jakob Ammann, founder of the Amish, was expelled. Eventually groups like the Mennonites and Amish were told to leave the Rhine Valley.

The government was so eager to have the Amish gone that they asked the Dutch East India Company to ship them to islands in the South Pacific! When the shipping company did not respond, the Swiss turned to the idea of “exporting” the Amish and Mennonites to the Carolinas in North America.

In 1711, the Netherlands promised these groups safe passage into Dutch territory. After that, the groups could decide on their ultimate destinations. The plan was not without problems. Because the Amish had divided from the Mennonites over the question of shunning, the groups were reluctant to travel together. Eventually, they left Switzerland on the same ships, but many of the Mennonites disembarked at various ports along the Rhine rather than stay on the vessels, leaving the Amish to arrive in the Netherlands. There, they formed several congregations and began farming.

While the government in Switzerland had tried to force the Amish to go to North America, Mennonites were first to voluntarily make the journey across the Atlantic. William Penn advertised his colony of religious tolerance in the Rhine Valley, and the Mennonites began to emigrate to be part of Penn’s “Holy Experiment.” Eventually, of course, Pennsylvania became a destination for the Amish as well. The Amish immigration began in earnest with 21 families aboard the Charming Nancy in 1737, and the process endured in waves for a century. In another hundred years, by 1937, the remaining Amish in Europe joined the Mennonites and no Amish congregations remained. North America was the new Amish home.

-How the Amish Left Europe by Olivia Newport

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Olivia Newport’s novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. She chases joy in Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is. Her Amish novels include the Valley of Choice series along with Wonderful Lonesome and Meek and Mild.