produced Copernicus should be allowed to moulder in the barbarism that results from tyranny. Those hitherto in power have destroyed the schools, thinking that the uneducated people are easily oppressed. These provinces cannot be compared with any European country—the only parallel would be Canada." However, in a letter to his favorite brother, Prince Henry, Frederick admitted that the Polish provinces were economically profitable: It is a very good and advantageous acquisition, both from a financial and a political point of view. In order to excite less jealousy I tell everyone that on my travels I have seen just sand, pine trees, heath land and Jews. Despite that there is a lot of work to be done; there is no order, and no planning and the towns are in a lamentable condition. Frederick's long-term goal was to displace the Poles from the conquered region and colonize it with Germans, whom he considered better workers. To accomplish this goal, Frederick invited thousands of German colonists into the conquered territories by promises of free land. He also engaged in plunder of Polish property, gradually appropriating (Polish Crown estates) and monasteries and redistributed them to German landowners. He also aimed to expel the Polish nobles—who were viewed as wasteful, lazy, and negligent—from their land by taxing them at a rate higher than other regions of Prussia, which increased their financial burden and reduced their power. In 1783, Frederick also passed legislation allowed buyouts of noble land. This legislation allowed the free alienation of Polish nobles' estates so that this property could be purchased by German colonists. This resulted in a greater percentage of noble land being transferred to bourgeoise owners than in any other part of Hohenzollern land. Ultimately, Frederick settled 300,000 colonists in territories he had conquered. Frederick undertook the exploitation of Polish territory under the pretext of an enlightened civilizing mission that emphasized the supposed cultural superiority of Prussian ways. He saw the outlying regions of Prussia as barbaric and uncivilized, He expressed anti-Polish sentiments when describing the inhabitants, such as calling them "slovenly Polish trash". He also compared the Polish peasants unfavorably with the Iroquois, and named three of his new Prussian settlements after colonial areas of North America: Florida, Philadelphia and Saratoga. The Poles remaining in the territories were to be Germanized. The Polish language was marginalized. Teachers and administrators were encouraged to be able to speak both German and