The German colonization of the Americas consisted of failed attempts to settle Venezuela (German: Klein-Venedig, also German: Welser-Kolonie[1]), St. Thomas, the Crab Island (Guyana) and Tertholen in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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The Augsburg banking families of Anton and Bartholomeus Welser obtained rights in 1528 to Venezuela from Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. Heinrich Ehinger and Hieronymus Sailer, either independently or as agents of the Welsers, negotiated the rights. By 1531, the Welsers controlled the privilege. They set up a colonization scheme and sent Ambrosius Ehinger as governor to Santa Ana de Coro (German: Neu-Augsburg[2]), the capital of Klein-Venedig in 1529. Ehinger left Seville on 7 October 1528 with the Spaniard García de Lerma and 281 settlers. At Santo Domingo, de Lerma with 50 companions left for Santa Marta, to reestablish Spanish control following the murder of the governor there. Ehinger and the remainder headed for the Venezuelan coast and landed on 24 February 1529 at Santa Ana de Coro. From there, he explored the interior in search of the legendary golden city of El Dorado. On 8 September 1529 Ehinger founded the colony of New Nuremberg (German: Neu-Nürnberg), today know as Maracaibo.[3]
Other German governors followed: Nikolaus Federmann, Georg Hohermuth von Speyer, Philipp von Hutten, all of whom engaged primarily in the search for gold. Federmann crossed the Andes to Bogotá, where he and Sebastián de Belalcázar initially contested Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada's claims to that province. They transported German miners to the colony, as well as 4,000 African slaves as labor to work sugar cane plantations. By 1541 disputes arose with Spain, which stripped the bankers of control of their colony in 1556.
Many of the German colonists died from tropical diseases, to which they had no immunity, or hostile Indian attacks during frequent journeys deep into Indian territory in search of gold.
The Brandenburgisch-Africanische Compagnie of Brandenburg, which became the Kingdom of Prussia, established colonies in Africa and on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas.
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The Duchy of Courland, a German-led vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, colonized Tobago in the Caribbean and St. Andrews Island in Gambia.
German settlers also immigrated to the established colonies in North America, Colonia Tovar (Venezuela), Chile's Southern Zone, Nicaragua,[4] southern Brazil, Argentina, Soconusco region in Chiapas, Mexico; Alta Verapaz, Guatemala; Pozuzo and Oxapampa, both in Peru and Patagonia. They founded a few towns in Paraguay at about the same time as the Welsh migrated to the Argentine Patagonia.
The Germans established the thriving town of Colonia Tovar in Venezuela. They were invited by local governments and did not owe allegiance to any European nations. Their descendants have intermarried with and merged into the local populations of those countries.
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