Sartorius, Karl C. b. (?) 1796; Gundernhausen, Hesse d. (?) 1872; Huatusco (Veracruz), Mexico
German liberal who was forced to leave his homeland in 1824, he brought German settlers to Mexico. As a university student in Gieβen, he took part in the student movement that had begun during the Napoleonic occupation of 1807 to 1814.
Like many other men who joined this movement, Sartorius joined a Burschen- schaft (students’ association) dedicated to forging a united, free, and democratic Germany out of the patchwork of small states dominated by Austria and Prussia. In 1818 he got a high school teaching position. After just a few months in his new job, the Carlsbad Decrees led to a crackdown on democratic societies throughout Germany, and he was suspended from his position and brought to trial. In 1824 he decided to accompany a friend and fellow democrat, Karl Follenius, to Mexico. Once there, Fol- lenius and Sartorius began a small mining operation. Six years later, Sartorius wed Follenius’s sister and bought a hacienda near Huatusco in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz. Successful as a sugarcane grower, he attempted to bring more German immigrants to Veracruz and assembled a small colony of Germans in the tropics. After a three-year stay in Germany between 1848 and 1851, Sartorius established an important German Mexican clan, the descendants of whom still live in Mexico in 2005.Sartorius is best known for his main work Mexico und die Mexicaner (Mexico and the Mexicans, 1852), an attempt at a human and physical geography of Mexico. Richly illustrated by the engraver Moritz Rugendas, the work shares Alexander von Humboldt’s optimistic tone, but is far less detailed and more attuned to describing social and cultural characteristics. Even more importantly, it was based on two decades of life experience as a hacendado in tropical rural Mexico. A permanent immigrant, Sartorius retained his inborn preju- dices—prejudices shared by many of his class, whether Mexican or foreign. But he acquired a personal stake in the country that precluded a pessimistic outlook. Like many Mexican liberals of his day, he disdained the moral and intellectual faculties of the indigenous and mestizo population and desired to “improve” his adopted country by “whitening” it through German immigration. Written in a lively, engaging style, his book therefore reads like an invitation to Mexico, if not a propaganda piece. The book shows the fascination of a romantic intellectual brought about by a verdant, exotic landscape, and his harsh condemnation of what he thought of as primitive people who made the best use of their tropical environment.
Jurgen Buchenau
See also Follen, Charles (Karl); Humboldt, Alexander von; Mexico
References and Further Reading
Sartorius, Karl Christian. Mexico und die
Mexicaner. Darmstadt: Gustavus George Lange, 1852.