Anabaptists, including theAmish,Hutterites, andMennonites, have played a role insettler colonialism since the 1700s, in regions such asEastern Europe, North America, and Latin America. TheRussian Mennonites were invited toNovorossiya (what is now Southern Ukraine and Russia) byCatherine the Great following theRusso-Crimean Wars that resulted in theannexation of theCrimean Khanate; Mennonites settled on and farmed land that had been or would be ethnically cleansed of the IndigenousCrimean Tatar andNogai populations. In the United States, Amish people, Hutterites, and Mennonites settled and farmed land after American Indian populations were displaced. In Canada, Hutterite and Mennonite settlers were incentivized to settle and cultivate farmland on the westernPrairies following the displacement ofCree andMétis peoples, part of state-supported efforts to increase the white population. Across Latin America, Mennonite colonization has been seen as a driver of environmental damage, notablydeforestation of the Amazon rainforest through land clearance for agriculture.[1][2][3] While Mennonite communities are often called "colonies", some Mennonite communities in Africa avoid the term due to the legacy of European colonialism.[4] In the 21st century, some Mennonites have begun to reckon with the Mennonite legacy of settler colonialism and its relationship with Mennonitepacifism as a historicpeace church.[5][6]
There have never been Anabaptist states, but Anabaptists have participated insurrogate colonialism. While the majority of Anabaptists worldwide are non-white in the 21st century, historically the Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites were overwhelmingly white people of European descent for several centuries. While the Amish and Hutterites are still mostly white, most Mennonites are not. According to Professor John Eicher, author ofExiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age, Mennonites "routinely sought out states with weak or amorphous borders where they could establish agrarian communities that were relatively free from state control", aiding in nation-states' attempts to colonize land and displace Indigenous peoples. On three continents within the span of 150 years, Eicher writes, Mennonites "sought indigenous lands confiscated by state authorities" with the aim of clearing and cultivating the land, aiding in government-supported settlement schemes.[7] In the 21st century, scholars, historians, and Anabaptists themselves have begun to research and debate the Anabaptist role in settler colonialism, racism, antisemitism, andwhite supremacy, a legacy that may be perceived as at odds with the traditional Anabaptist dedication topacifism.[8][9]
In a review of Jeff Gundy's bookWind Farm, the author Daniel Shank Cruz has written that current debates about Mennonite settler colonialism are "long-overdue" and that "White Mennonite readers should feel uncomfortable...and should think about restorative ways of rectifying this violence." Cruz also states that Gundy has written that Mennonites across North America "live on stolen land", but that writing about the history of Mennonite settler colonialism is "incomplete because it has been recorded by whites."[10]
While many Mennonite communities have traditionally been called "colonies",MexicanOld Order Mennonite families who have immigrated toAngola eschew the word "colony" due to the violent legacy of Portuguese colonialism in Africa. As part of a deal with a diamond mining corporation, the Mennonites have cleared and farmed almost 2,000 acres of land.[4]
Following theRusso-Crimean Wars, Catherine the Great invited German andVistula delta Mennonites to settle in what is now Southern Ukraine. These supposedly "empty lands" were inhabited by Tatars.[11] Mennonites of theMolotschna colony arrived in 1803 and lived in close proximity to theNogais, as both Mennonites and Nogais were involved in sheepherding. The Nogais were a semi-nomadic Tatar Muslim ethnic group. The Nogais resented the Mennonite settlers and relations between the two groups were often mutually strained. Conflicts sometimes arose because the Mennonites objected to the Nogai practice of allowing cattle to freely roam and graze. As Christians, the Mennonites often heldIslamophobic views and perceived Muslims as backwards nonbelievers.[12] Mennonites and Nogais lived in close proximity until 1860, when Nogais departed from the region. Both landless and landed Mennonites had extensive share-pasturing contracts with Nogais, a practice that disadvantaged and harmed the Nogai economy and society. The Nogai exodus was caused by the practice of landless Mennonites leasing large tracts of Nogai land. The departure of Nogais caused a landlessness crisis among Mennonite colonists, as the Russian government then granted land leases to Bulgarian colonists.[13] By October 1860, 35,000 Nogais had fled to Ottoman Turkey, leaving only 105 Nogais left in what is now Ukraine.[14]
Mennonites of European descent first settled near what is nowWaterloo, Ontario, in 1786, the traditional territory of theAttawandaron,Anishinaabeg andHaudenosaunee people on theHaldimand Tract, land that was granted in 1784 to support the Six Nations, but was instead sold to Mennonite settlers in 1805.[15]
Low German Mennonite settlers from theRussian Empire first arrived in Manitoba in the 1870s.Treaty 1,Treaty 2, and theManitoba Act of 1870 were ostensibly crafted to protect Indigenous rights, but treaties were broken by the Canadian government, whoincentivized white European immigrants to settle on "empty space" that had been recently inhabited by various Indigenous peoples. White Mennonites of European descent were granted blocks of land in Treaty 1 territory, including theEast Reserve in 1874 and theWest Reserve in 1875, which originally belonged toAnishinaabe andSwampy Cree people. Although these land grants and privileges allowed Mennonites and other European settlers to enjoy religious and cultural freedom, thousands of Indigenous people were displaced and killed due to these policies.[16]
Upon early Mennonite settlement in Western Canada, Indigenous peoples and Mennonite settlers also agreed to secret "handshake" treaties, as a way to signal they would "share the land and help each other out."[17] Remembered throughoral tradition in Indigenous communities, these treaties were often broken and forgotten by Mennonite settler groups.[18]
In Western Canada, many Russian Mennonites settled on thePrairies. In Saskatchewan, the Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization was established in 1922.[19] Beginning in the 1920s, Mennonites and other settler groups, also settled unceded land inBritish Columbia, particularly in theFraser Valley.[20]
Mennonites first arrived inMexico in 1922. Mexican Mennonites descend from Canadian Mennonites who themselves were ofRussian Mennonite descent. The settlement of Mennonite immigrants was supported by the Mexican government. Mennonite settlement contributed to adverse societal effects to and displacement ofIndigenous andmestizo people.Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite communities lived separately from Indigenous and mestizo Mexicans and did not try to assimilate to surrounding cultures. The settlement was shortly after theMexican Revolution (1910-1920), during whichland reform was a major political question. Mennonites came into conflict with mestizo and Indigenous Mexicans by gaining land that was already claimed.[21]
The first Anabaptist settlers in North America were German and Swiss Mennonites and Amish people who settled in theProvince of Pennsylvania in the 1700s. From Pennsylvania, Anabaptists then settled in other colonies and later in additional US states.[22] In some places, such asWashington andJohnson counties in Iowa, Amish people were the very first white settlers to settle on Indigenous land. Amish settlers arrived in Johnson and Washington counties in the 1840s.[23]
The first Amish settlement in North America, theNorthkill Amish Settlement in Pennsylvania, was destroyed in 1757 following theHochstetler massacre. The massacre was committed during theFrench and Indian War by French-allied Native Americans who resented English encroachment on their land. The settlement had been located close to the edge of the legal boundary upon which European settlers were permitted by colonial authorities to settle.[24]
Mennonites first arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683 and now live on traditional Lenape land. In 2023, the Chief of theDelaware Tribe of Indians visited the Mennonite Heritage Center inHarleysville, Pennsylvania, in order to ask Mennonites for land to bury their dead ancestors.[25]
From 1873 on, many Russian Mennonites settled theGreat Plains on the western frontier of the United States. Mennonites settled land inIndian Territory (nowOklahoma), and in 1880 establishedmissionary work in an attempt to convert inhabitants of theCheyenne and Arapaho Tribes to Christianity. A decade later, theMennonite Brethren Church began missionary work in an attempt to convert theComanche.[26]
Hutterites who settled in western states likeSouth Dakota gained formerly Indigenous land through theHomestead Acts.[27][28]
Russian Mennonite settlers first settledParaguay in the 1920s, fleeing persecution underStalinism. Mennonites settled land in theGran Chaco region, which helped the Paraguayan government reassert its territorial claims and displaced Indigenous peoples.[29]
Mennonite settlement inSuriname has raised local concerns among Indigenous communities about colonialism and the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. About 50 Mennonites families, mostly from Bolivia, have settled in Suriname.[30]
Despite their reputation as a Christian peace tradition, European Mennonites, like many white people, have tended to dwell on narratives of their own innocence and God's providence at the expense of reckoning with the histories of harms in which they are implicated.
| Background | |
|---|---|
| Groups | |
| History | |
| Theology | |
| Practices | |
| Notable Anabaptists | |
