Minnesota Holy Land

The German Catholic culture region of central Minnesota, commonly called the Minnesota Holy Land, is an area of land in central Minnesota that is known for its high concentration of Catholics and heavy German ethnicity among the population.

The cultural imprint of this region is most evident in the significant percentage of Germans and Catholics among the pop­ulation. There are only small pockets of Polish, French, and Luxemburg Catholics in the region. By 1905 the region was nearly 70 percent German and mostly Catholic. As late as 1970, it was still more than 70 percent Catholic and 50 percent German (Vogeler 1976, 72, 76). The Ger­man communities have fervently avoided assimilation. One parish even had mass ser­mons in German until 1945, long after most ethnic enclaves in America assimi­lated. The Minnesota Holy Land is ar­guably the most enduring culture region in the state. Many factors contributed to that endurance and maintenance of culture, in­cluding religion, language, farming, close­knit families, and insular communities, among many other things. Because of its continued existence, the Minnesota Holy Land is not like many other ethnic areas and culture regions across the country, hence its significance.

Roman Catholic missionary priest Francis Xavier Pierz (1785-1880) played an integral role in the origin and growth of the Minnesota Holy Land.

Pierz knew from experience working with Indians and the U.S. government that European settlement would in time come to Minnesota just as it did to Michigan, where he had worked as a missionary. The government would restrict Indians to reser­vations and open their land for European settlers. Anticipating that eventuality, Pierz took it upon himself to use whatever influ­ence he had to persuade Catholics to settle on land vacated by Indians. Working alone, as he always did in his missions, Pierz began a campaign urging Catholic immigration to Minnesota. He specifically attracted people from the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Bavaria.

Pierz believed that rural Catholic set­tlements in the Sauk River Valley would not only benefit the state but also the na­tion. Moreover, he thought that German Catholics would be ideal immigrants, and would set an example for other farming communities and groups of settlers. Pierz’s experience in Michigan reinforced his be­lief that Yankee Protestant settlers would be favored should they be allowed to settle land in Minnesota before Catholics. To prevent that from happening, Pierz’s solu­tion was to establish a significant number of Catholic communities and encourage Catholics to settle on the best farmland available before it was taken.

Pierz first began recruiting settlers by writing letters to friends and relatives in his native Carniola, which was one of the Slavic provinces of the Habsburg Empire at the time. Ironically, Pierz did not at first appeal to immigrants to move because of religious reasons; he cited the social and economic benefits of Minnesota. Some of the earliest immigrants to heed Pierz’s call were his sister Apolonija and his nephew Jernej Pierz who arrived in 1854. Others came from Carniola as well and settled northwest of St. Cloud, where they estab­lished St. Stephen in Krain Township, the oldest Slovenian settlement in America.

In 1855 Pierz published his book Die Indianer in Nord-Amerika (The Indians of North America). In 130 pages, Pierz gave a detailed account of his life as a missionary among the various tribes. He described his successes and failures of Catholic conver­sion and his adventures and gave his own perspective of the Indian way of life. Al­though the main focus of the book was on his work as a missionary, Pierz also un- apologetically included an endorsement of Minnesota in the preface and appendix.

The book was intended to be enter­taining, but what made it important was the appendix. Entitled “Eine Kurze Beschreibung des Minnesota-Territoriums” (A Short Description of Minnesota Terri­tory), the appendix was intended to sup­plement Pierz’s other recruiting letters and provide useful information for potential settlers. In it Pierz addressed eleven specific points and answered questions that settlers may have had about possibly migrating to Minnesota Territory. He described lakes and rivers, timber, climate, towns, and conflicts with Indians, among other things. With the exception of comparing the cli­mate of Minnesota to regions in Europe, Pierz made no comparison of Minnesota to Germanic states or to Europe.

Like all promotional publications in­tended to attract settlers, Pierz’s exagger­ated. He did not lie, however, about the availability of land and his wish for it to be settled by German Catholics.

In addition to his Indian missions in northern Minnesota, Pierz was responsible for preaching to the German Catholic set­tlers of the Sauk River Valley. As a result of the influx of settlers, he founded parishes in Sauk Rapids, Swan River (now So­bieski), and Belle Prairie in 1853; St. Cloud and St. Joseph in 1854; and St. Au­gusta in 1855. Those six parishes formed the core of the new and expanding Min­nesota Holy Land. The number of parishes in the region grew to nineteen by 1869, thirty-two by 1879, and forty-seven by 1889. The vast majority of those parishes were in Stearns County.

As an instrumental force in bringing German Catholic settlers to the region, Pierz believed he was obligated to attend to their spiritual needs. But because the area he was responsible for was large, Pierz was able to visit each village only a few times a year. The pioneers who came at Pierz’s be­hest were disappointed that he could not say mass in their respective settlements more often. By 1855 his missionary and colonization efforts were so successful that he needed help with both his Indian mis­sions in the north and his German mis­sions in the south.

With no help available from the still small Diocese of St.

A group of five men left St. Vincent’s together for central Minnesota with the in­tention of building a monastery. The group comprised one priest, Demetrius di Mar- gona; two soon-to-be ordained clerics, Cornelius Witmann and Bruno Riss; and two monks, Benno Muckenhalter and Patrick Greil. They arrived in St. Paul on May 2, 1856, and spent two weeks assist­ing Bishop Cretin before departing for St. Cloud. During that time, Wittmann and Riss were ordained priests. Bishop Cretin escorted the group to St. Cloud himself and they arrived there on May 21. Pierz, busy as usual, was not even able to greet his new help and left a note welcoming them to his Sauk Rapids mission.

With the arrival of the Benedictines in Minnesota, Pierz finally had the help with his missions and parishes in central Min­nesota that he desperately needed. In 1856 those five clerics laid the foundation for St. John’s Abbey in St. Cloud. They soon opened a school of higher education that was incorporated by an act of the legisla­ture in 1857. Ten years later, St. John’s Abbey and Seminary moved west to its cur­rent location of Collegeville.

The Benedictines worked tirelessly and endured many hardships in their first years among the settlers of the Sauk Valley.

A third religious family also formed within boundaries of the culture region: the missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. Their mission was founded at Belle Prairie in 1873, and a convent was built in 1875. In 1888 it was destroyed by fire. They eventually re­organized and built a new convent five miles south in Little Falls three years later. By 1875, twenty-three years after Pierz

came to Minnesota, three monasteries served the religious needs of the German Catholic settlers.

Pierz was directly responsible for the arrival of the Benedictine monks, which led to the arrival of the Benedictine and Franciscan sisters. Immigration into central Minnesota increased when news spread of the arrival of the monks and nuns. Their establishment in central Minnesota en­couraged other Germans to migrate to the area and is probably one of the most im­portant factors in the growth of the culture region. These religious institutions ex­panded and grew rapidly alongside the population.

As a direct result of Pierz’s colonization efforts, the number of parishes established in the Minnesota Holy Land increased an­nually. Consequently, the Diocese of St. Cloud, encompassing the entire Minnesota Holy Land, with additional counties to the east and west, was officially created on Sep­tember 22, 1889. In the 37 years from 1852 to 1889, 47 parishes were established in the 5 county areas known as the Min­nesota Holy Land, while only 36 were es­tablished in the remaining 11 counties that became the St. Cloud Diocese. Of the 140 parishes in the St. Cloud Diocese in 2005, 83 are in the Minnesota Holy Land.

Tim Hoheisel

See also Indians in German Literature;

Ludwig-Missionsverein

References and Further Reading

Busch, Joseph F A Century Living with Christ: Pastoral letter and brief historical sketch. Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, 1852—1952. St. Cloud, MN: Diocese of St. Cloud, 1952.

Conzen, Kathleen N. Making Their Own America: Assimilation Theory and the German Peasant Pioneer. New York: Berg, 1990.

Dockendorff, Thomas J. “Upper Mississippi Valley Landscape: A Legacy of German Catholic Settlement in Central Minnesota.” Pioneer America Society Transactions 8 (1985): 85—90.

Massmann, John C. “German Immigration to Minnesota, 1850-1890.” PhD diss. University of Minnesota, 1966.

Mitchell, William Bell. History of Stearns County, Minnesota. Chicago: H. C. Cooper, 1915.

Pierz, Francis X. Die Indianer in Nord- Amerika, ihre Lebensweise, Sitten, Gebrduche u.s.w., nach vieljdhrigem Aufenthalte undgesammelten Erfahrungen unter den verschiedenen Stdmmen. St. Louis: F. Saler u. Co., 1855.

Vogeler, Ingolf. “The Roman Catholic Culture Region of Central Minnesota.” Pioneer America 8 (July 1976): 71-83.

Yzermans, Vincent A. The Spirit in Central Minnesota: A Centennial Narrative of the Church of St. Cloud, 1889—1999. Vols. 1 and 2. St. Cloud, MN: Diocese of St. Cloud, 1989.