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James Van Horn Melton
Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)
An Alpine Miner in the Old World and the New: Transatlantic Lives of Thomas Geschwandel, 1693-1761

Thomas Geschwandel (1693-1761), one of 20,000 Salzburg Protestants driven from their homeland in the 1730s, began life in a remote alpine valley and ended it in the Georgia lowcountry. His odyssey illuminates questions of interest to European and colonial historians alike. How had a clandestine religious minority managed to survive two centuries of efforts to “re-confessionalize” it? What led some exiles to seek refuge across the Atlantic when other options were available in Europe? Once in the New World, how did a previously isolated alpine folk react to the rapidly expanding institution of slavery? What attitudes toward race did they import from their homeland, and how do these views help explain their opposition to slavery?

[Grant products]

Project fields:
European History

Fellowships for University Teachers

Research Programs

$40,000 (approved)
$40,000 (awarded)

Grant period:
1/1/2008 – 12/31/2008