The German Merchant Colony in Mexico

Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821 after an eleven-year armed struggle against that European nation which had colonized it since 1519. The subsequent period from 1821 to 1876 was a period of great instability and economic stagnation for Mexico. During this period Mexico was ravaged by civil wars between rival generals, as well as foreign wars against other countries (Spain, United States, France).

During this tumultuous period, immigration from the central European country of Germany remained very limited. According to the historian Professor Jürgen Buckenau, a nascent German merchant colony began in Mexico City with about fifty individuals in 1820s. In the following decades, the colony remained small. This colony would grow to 3,000 individuals by 1939.

The Sartorius Family

According to Warren Schiff’s B.S. and M.A. Dissertations for the University of California (1948-49), one of the first Germans to arrive in Mexico was Karl Sartorius, a botanist and political refugee from Prussia (the dominant state of Germany at that time). He came to Mexico in 1824 and worked with a German mining company.

Sartorius eventually bought a large tract of land known as El Mirador, a coffee plantation near Huatusco in Veracruz. This estate became an extremely successful sugar cane and coffee plantation. Karl’s descendants continued to own the plantation and his descendant, Florentino Sartorius, became a successful speculator in cattle around the time of the Spanish-American War (1898). Other German plantations sprang up in the State of Chiapas after 1890, thanks to increasing coffee demand from Germany.

Migrants of Opportunity

According to Professor Buchenau, Mexico has proven to be a “salad bowl,” instead of a “melting pot,” largely due to the fact that “most immigrant families sought to retain their native languages and customs.” Although the Germans always remained one of the largest foreign ethnic groups in Mexico well into the Twentieth Century, they rarely exceeded 4,000 in number, and many of their descendants blended into the Spanish-speaking population only after multiple generations.

Buchenau refers to the early German merchants in Mexico City as “trade conquistadors… who fled persecution or poverty in their home country.” But, most of these German immigrants “were migrants of opportunity” who wanted “to get rich quickly” and “sent their profits home rather than commit significant capital investments to the host society.” As a result, they segregated themselves from Mexican society around them and did not assimilate very quickly.

German-Mexican Business Ties (1830s-1850s)

Germany’s dominant power, Prussia, sent trade representatives to Mexico City in 1826, but full diplomatic relationships with Prussia were not established until 1836. Over time, many of the other German states also created partnerships with the Mexican economy. According to Warren Schiff’s dissertation, the first German textile, match and hat factories were established in Mexico during the 1830s, followed by German-owned furniture factories in the 1850s.

German Interests in the 1860s

The 1860’s were dangerous and challenging times for Mexico. The War of the Reform (1857-1860) – a three-year civil war between the Liberals and the Conservatives – and the French Invasion and Occupation (1861-1867) pushed Mexico’s economy to the brink of collapse. But some German merchants profited as “neutrals” who smuggled goods between French- and Mexican-occupied territories. By the time of the French invasion, Professor Buchenau reports that the Germans in Mexico “consisted of several hundred merchants, miners, and intellectuals who had fled the stifling political climate” of Germany.

The Porfiriato (1876-1910)

“The Porfiriato” marked the period between 1876 and 1910, when the strongman President Porfirio Díaz served as President. As the political power of Diaz grew, Mexico embarked on a course of rapid economic growth that was predicated on foreign money and foreign expertise. During this period, the Mexican government encouraged European immigration, in part to “whiten” the population, but also to bring in badly need technological expertise to manage the growing economy, especially in regards to the railroads and mining sectors.

The Díaz Administration aggressively advertised Mexico as a land of unlimited opportunities for immigrants. The Mexican government hoped that new Mexican residents from Europe would settle in the northern reaches of the country to help modernize Mexico’s infrastructure and hopefully protect the region from the economic control – and possible annexation – of the United States.

The Germans in Yucatán

From 1880 until 1914, the Mexican state of Yucatán enjoyed an economic boom thanks to the export of henequen, Yucatán’s “Green Gold.” During this period, hundreds of North American and European immigrants came to the peninsula to serve as investors, merchants, managers, professionals and laborers. These included several hundred German speakers.

German Speakers in the 1910 Census

The last census taken during the reign of Porfirio Díaz was the 1910 census. In that census, 56,691 persons were registered as speaking a foreign language, of which the German language ranked fourth with 4,132 speakers (after English, Chinese and French).

The largest concentration of German speakers in Mexico was found in the Federal District (Mexico City), where 1,510 German speakers lived in 1910. Although there was a heavy concentration of German speakers in the Federal District in 1910, there were also 1,110 German speakers in the six northern states of Mexico, most likely providing expertise in mining or railroad operations.

Mexico’s View of Foreigners After 1910

Throughout its post-colonial history, Mexico had gone through periods of welcoming immigrants with open arms but also closing the door on immigrants. The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) changed Mexico’s perception of foreigners, whether they be American, German, French or Spanish. Because of the violence taking place throughout the country and the Constitution of 1917, foreigners felt less welcome in Mexico for several decades.

Nevertheless, the Germans have remained one of the largest groups of extranjeros (foreigners) in Mexico since the 1900. In 1900, 2,563 German extranjeros lived in Mexico; by 2000, the number of German extranjeros in Mexico had reached 5,595.

Some German-Mexicans have attained prominence in political circles. Two Mexican politicians, Jesús Porfirio González Schmal (born in Coahuila in 1942) and his brother Raul González Schmal (born in Chihuahua in 1940) are the grandsons of Fernando Schmal, a German immigrant from Berlin who came to Chihuahua in the early Twentieth Century to start a new life. In addition, from 2000 to 2006, the President of Mexico was Vicente Fox Quesada who was born in 1942 as the great-grandson of a German immigrant to the U.S., Louis Fuchs (the German word for Fox).

Copyright © 2021, by John Schmal. All Rights Reserved.

Bibliography

Buchenau, Jürgen. “Small Numbers, Great Impact: Mexico and Its Immigrants, 1821-1973,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 20, No. 3, Migration and the Making of North America (Spring, 2001), pp. 23-49.

Durán-Merk, Alan. European Migrants as ‘Ambassadors of Modernization’? The Case of Germans in Yucatán During the Henequen Boom. Germany: University of Augsburg, 2012.

Buchenau, Jürgen. “The Limits of the Cosmic Race: Immigrant and Nation in Mexico, 1850-1950,” In Nicola Foote and Michael Goebel (editors), Immigration and National Identities in Latin America. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2014, pp. 66-90.

Mexico Dirección General de Estadística, Tercer Censo de Población de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos 1910. Tabulados Básicos: Resumen General de Población, Según el Idioma o Lengua Hablado.

Schiff, Warren. “German Interests in Mexico in the Period of Porfirio Diaz.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1957.

Schiff, Warren, “The Germans in Mexican Trade and Industry during the Díaz Period,” The Americas, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Jan., 1967), pp. 279-296.