"A Breach That Must Be Healed": Immigration, Politics, and Voter Suppression in Late Colonial Pennsylvania

Abstract

Between 1740 and 1765, exponential growth and demographic shifts radically reshaped colonial Pennsylvania. German-speaking immigrants filled western territories, where they created communities and counties that complicated colonial elections and power structures. Because many of these immigrants could vote, German colonists played a vital role in a political paradigm resembling the modern two-party system. Initially, supporters of the Penn family resented the fact that that a foreign-born population helped perpetuate Quaker dominance over Pennsylvania's General Assembly. Eventually, however, both the proprietary faction and the Quakers came to fear that Germans might usurp control over the colony should they vote men from their own communities into the lower house. This article describes how these factions staved off this potentiality through blatantly suppressive tactics ranging from strategic districting to physical violence. Due to these measures, voter suppression limited German office-holding until the American Revolution, even as western counties displayed increased interest in proportional ethnic representation.