Hessians

Great Britain leased the services of about 30,000 German soldiers to suppress the re­bellion of the American settlers between 1776 and 1782. These soldiers were com­monly referred to as “Hessians” because the majority of them (about 17,000 to 19,000 troops) came from Hesse-Cassel, and the commander of Hesse-Cassel’s forces was put in charge of all German troops.

Hesse-Cassel was a small principality in the southwestern part of the Holy Roman Empire. With a total population of about 300,000 people, lacking natural re­sources, and occupying one of the least ad­vantageous geopolitical places in central Europe, Hesse-Cassel’s princes decided shortly after the Thirty Years’ War that only the renting out of soldiers would secure Hesse a prestigious and influential position in European politics. Between 1648 and 1813, Hesse-Cassel’s military forces were rented out to foreign powers such as Den­mark, Spain, Venice, the Netherlands, and Great Britain on nearly forty different oc­casions. Over the decades Hesse-Cassel cre­ated such a large army that it even sur­passed Prussia, if one considers the proportional share of soldiers within the general population. Because Hesse-Cassel did not possess the financial means to sus­tain such a large military contingent, its de­pendency on renting out troops steadily in­creased. The army thus became the single most important source of revenue for the princes of Hesse-Cassel.

On January 15, 1776, Prince Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel entered into a treaty

Hessians leaving their village for dispatch to the American colonies.

with his brother-in-law, George III of En­gland, according to which Hesse-Cassel promised to supply about 12,000 troops annually for military duty in the North American colonies. Between 1776 and 1782, Hesse-Cassel sent about 17,000 to 19,000 troops to North America. Together with the military units from Hesse-Hanau, Brunswick, Ansbach-Bayreuth, Anhalt- Zerbst, and Waldeck, the German contin­gent represented more than one-third of all forces loyal to the king of England in North America.

The Hessian troops wore the tradi­tional Hessian uniform. They were fully equipped and had to swear an oath to both the Hessian sovereign and King George III. Although many were forced into military service by recruiters—for in­stance, Johann Gottfried Seume—not all had joined the military involuntarily. In Hesse-Cassel all male citizens had been subjected to conscription within the can­tons system. (Cantons are military dis­tricts; each canton represented the geo­graphical area from which one regiment was to draw its recruits.) Accordingly, each regiment was in charge of one canton from which it drew its recruits. The hopes of American revolutionary leaders, who suggested that the majority of these co­erced mercenaries would soon desert their officers, did not entirely come true. The promise of free land and tax exemption at­tracted only 3,000 Hessian deserters. In fact, many Hessian soldiers who had been captured by the American rebels immedi­ately rejoined their military units after they were exchanged for prisoners cap­tured by the Loyalists.

The decisive battle at Yorktown, Vir­ginia (1781), was the most German of all battles during the American War of Inde­pendence. Both sides, Americans as well as the British, relied on German support. The American contingent included German American units under the command of Friederich Wilhelm von Steuben and the regiment Royal Allemand de Deux-Ponts, a military unit created by Duke Christian IV of Zweibrucken and employed on be­half of the French during the Seven Years’ War.

After the end of the American War of Independence, about 10,500 Hessian troops returned to Europe. According to some estimates, about 7,800 Hessians died during the war and 3,000 to 4,000 re­mained in North America afterward. About 2,400 of them made a new life for themselves in Nova Scotia and Ontario.

Thomas Adam

See also Nova Scotia; Ontario; Seume, Johann Gottfried; Steuben, Friederich Wilhelm von

References and Further Reading

Atwood, Rodney. The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University, 1980.

Auerbach, Inge. Die Hessen in Amerika 1776—1783. Darmstadt: Selbstverlag der Hessischen Historischen Kommission, 1996.

Eelking, Max von. Die Deutschen Hulfstruppen im nordamerikanischen Befreiungskriege, 1776 bis 1783. I. und II. Teil. Hanover: Helwing, 1863.

Kapp, Friedrich. Der Soldatenhandel deutscher Fursten nach Amerika (1775 bis 1784). Berlin: Franz Duncker, 1864.

Lowell, Edward J. The Hessian and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. New York: Harper & Bros., 1884.