The 1789 census of landowning Mennonites

Having visited David Buller and family in Russia for a few posts, let’s head back to Poland/Prussia to pick up the Buller family story in the years before our Russian sojourn. As always, it is enlightening to rehearse the historical context before we consider individual Bullers.

The area in which our ancestors lived (gray-blue in the map) came under
Prussian control in the first partition of Poland, in 1772.

The area of our interest is best designated as Poland/West Prussia, to keep in mind the fact that our earliest ancestors began under Polish rule but ended up subjects of the Prussian kingdom. Although “Poland was the largest country in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” as a result of three partitions (1772, 1790, 1795) in which its territory was carved away by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, “by 1795 Poland had disappeared from the map of Europe” (Friesen 1986, 95).

These historical developments had consequences for all the inhabitants of Poland, but especially for the Mennonites resident in the land. The kingdom of Poland had granted to Mennonites and other religious minorities nearly unlimited freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. For Mennonites, this meant exemption from any requirement of military service.

Prussia initially offered the same exemption, but all that changed when Frederick II the Great died in 1786 and his nephew Frederick William II succeeded him. As Adalbert Goertz explains,

Since the Prussian army was based on the landowners’ resources in manpower and horsepower, and since the Mennonites were granted religious freedom and exemption from military service, it became increasingly worrisome to the military that Mennonites kept increasing their land holdings, thereby decreasing the military land base of what was called the canton system of conscription. (Goertz 1996, 3)

To stop the military land base from shrinking further, Frederick issued the Edict of 1789, which “regulated and limited Mennonite land ownership. Each land acquisition from non-Mennonites was made dependent on a special permit (Consens). A Consens was not necessary for transfer Mennonite-to-Mennonite or if the Mennonite purchaser would relinquish his military exemption Privilegium” (Goertz 1996, 3). Simply put, the Edict of 1789 required any Mennonite purchasing land from a non-Mennonite to secure a governmental permit (Consens) or to agree to participate in military service like any other landowner in the kingdom of Prussia.

Of course, every governmental regulation comes with its own red tape, and this one was no different. To monitor land sales to Mennonites fairly and efficiently, officials first had to know what land these Mennonites already owned. So it was that in 1789 the kingdom of Prussia conducted a census of land owned by Mennonites. Whereas  in 1776 the Prussian king had been interested in counting the number of Mennonites present in his realm, in this instance the only concern was with tabulating the number of landowners and which land they owned.

With all this as background we are finally ready to see which Bullers are listed in the 1789 Prussian land census. Adalbert Goertz has performed the herculean task of transcribing the entries for all 2,443 name entries (see here), which makes it easy for us to identify the objects of our interest.

All told, eight Bullers are included on the list. Two of the eight are shopkeepers from the Danzig area, so presumably of the “Buhler” line discussed earlier (here and here).

The other six are from the Schwetz area (as expected):

Name	Village	Hufen	Morgen	Ruten
George Buller	Jeziorka	3	15	–
Peter Buller	Deutsch Konopat	–	12	–
Benjamin Buller	Deutsch Konopat	–	3	–
Peter Buller	Deutsch Konopat	–	2	150
Heinrich Buller	Ostrower Kämpe	–	8	–
Jacob Buller	Przechovka	1	10	–

The three columns on the right give the amount of land owned: 1 hufe = circa 41 acres; 1 morgen = 1.4 acres; 1 rute = circa 4 square meters. Clearly, George Buller was the big landowner of this group, with approximately 144 acres. Jacob Buller was next, with around 55 acres. The other Bullers owned small amounts of land: Peter 1 = 16.8 acres; Benjamin = 4.2; Peter 2 = 3.5; Heinrich = 11.2; presumably they leased additional land, so as to have enough to support their families.

We have encountered three of these individuals in earlier lists. The 1776 census of Mennonites, for example, included a George in Jeziorka and two Peters in Deutsch Konopat (see here), just as this list does. The 1772 census of all landowners in Poland likewise included a George from Jeziorka and a Peter from Deutsch Konopat; in addition, it included a third match: a Heinrich from Ostrower Kämpe (see here).

Jeziorka (A), Deutsch Konopat (B/C), Przechovka (D), and Ostrower Kämpe (F).

Although we cannot be certain that the identical names refer to the same individuals in every case (a father may have died and had the land taken over by a son with the same first name), we can observe a certain amount of stability from 1772 through 1789. Only one of the names listed in the 1772 and 1776 censuses is missing in the 1789 one, and two names appear in 1789 but not earlier: Benjamin and Jacob. This likely is due to the natural growth of the Mennonite community, as children grew up and established families and farms of their own.

It is also instructive to compare Adalbert Goertz’s statistics for the 1789 list with Glenn Penner’s for the 1776 one, thirteen years earlier (compare here with here). In 1776, the census of all Mennonites listed 2,638 families for a total population of 12,186. The 1789 census contains 2,442 name entries, but Prussian records state that there were only 2,207 landowning Mennonites in West Prussia. This implies that some people were listed twice in 1789 (apparently because they owned land associated with two different villages).

In addition, one notes that the 1776 total of 2,638 families is over four hundred families larger than the 1789 total. It is worth noting that the first Mennonite migration to Russia began in 1787, with 228 families leaving for Chortiza colony. However, this accounts for only half of the decrease from 1776 to 1789. The rest of the decrease is no doubt a reflection of the fact that the 1776 census counted all Mennonites, while the 1789 one counted only landowning Mennonites, a group that was smaller by definition.

This also gives us an indication of the rough percentage of Mennonite families who did not own any land at all (even the small amounts registered for the two Peters, Benjamin, and Heinrich above). If one assumes a modest growth population growth rate of .75 percent per year, one would expect the 2,638 families in 1776 to number 2,732 by 1789. If we subtract the 228 families who left Prussia for Russia, this leaves an expected total of 2,504 families. Since the Prussian government records state that there were 2,207 landowning families, we can conclude that there were likely 297 families (or roughly 12 percent) who did not own any land at all. Some of that percentage probably leased their farmland (as at Jeziorka here), while some may have earned their living as artisans or laborers.

As noted multiple times before, the Bullers who are not part of the Buhler group (see links above) are found living almost exclusively in the Schwetz area, which is presumably where we need to look for our family tree. One wonders whether one of the landowning Bullers is our ancestor or whether our forebear was a laborer instead. We cannot say at present. The search goes on.

Sources

Friesen, John. 1986. Mennonites in Poland: An Expanded Historical View. Journal of Mennonite Studies. 4:94–108.

Goertz, Adalbert. 1996. The 1789 Land Census of West Prussian Mennonites. Mennonite Historian 22.4:3, 7. Available online here.