Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation

Chapter 12. Nassau-Rosenberg

165 ChaPter 12 Nassau-Rosenberg The von Rosenberg family was a prominent German family who spent the formative stage of their move to Texas at or near Nassau Plantation. Their extensive correspondence, published as Ancestral Voices, offers fascinating insight into the process of assimilation and establishing a new life in a new world, which included coming to terms with slavery. Of the von Rosenbergs, it is safe to say that Germany’s loss was Texas’ gain. The family proved to be a clan of energetic and cultivated individuals, many of whom subsequently pursued professional and 166 James C. Kearney business careers, rising to positions of prominence. As a group they were also extremely civic-minded. They established schools, churches, and clubs in many communities across the state. They were also prime participants in an unpleasant but fascinating episode concerning the plantation; they left an extensive record of their move to and assimilation in their new country; and, finally, their presence in the Round Top area acted as a magnet to other educated Germans so that the small town and surrounding community eventually emerged as one of the more refined German settlements in Texas.1 The record they left is generally in the form of letters; most, but not all, translated and published by the family.2 Collectively, this correspondence offers a rich, absorbing, and multifaceted record of the trials and tribulations, as well as the simple joys and pleasures , of frontier (or quasi-frontier) life in Texas in the 1850s with particular reference to Nassau Plantation. Additionally, Amanda Fallier, the wife of Peter Carl, described life from a woman’s point of view. In 1849 Peter Carl von Rosenberg was the aristocratic master of Eckitten, an estate on the banks of the Memel River in East Prussia. He was fifty-six years old and a former officer in the Prussian cavalry who had served with Field Marshal Blücher against Napoleon in the decisive battle of Waterloo. His first wife, Amanda Dorothea (Fröhlich), had died at the young age of twenty-nine after the birth of their fourth child, Johannes Carl. In addition to taking care of the children from the first marriage, his second wife, Amanda Fallier (1806–1864), gave birth to five more children, four of whom lived to adulthood. She and her husband also adopted an orphaned niece.3 In this most conservative region of Germany, Peter Carl von Rosenberg nourished attitudes distinctly out of tune with most of his countrymen. He was a Freidenker, a freethinker, who had been sympathetic to those antiauthoritarian ideas that had been simmering under the surface for decades in all parts of Germany and that finally erupted in 1848.4 His oldest surviving son from his first marriage, Carl Wilhelm (1821–1901), who had risen to the position of court architect in Berlin, was outspoken in his views. This was an untenable Nassau Plantation 167 and unforgivable attitude for a prominent member of the Prussian aristocracy. In the backlash of the collapsed 1848 revolution, he was dismissed from his post, forced to resign from his commission in the reserves, and banned from professional activity. This proscription led Carl Wilhelm (henceforth, William) to the decision to emigrate. At first his father remonstrated, but the idea took root and eventually the whole family decided to join him and emigrate en masse. In 1849, Peter Carl put Eckitten, his beloved estate, up for sale and with the proceeds liquidated his debts to finance the move to Texas. Moved by the spirit of adventure, Peter Carl’s older brother, Ernst, had come early to Texas and had participated in the Long expedition.5 In the aftermath of this filibustering misadventure, he was executed in Mexico. His connection with Texas, however, influenced the von Rosenbergs in their choice of a destination.6 The eleven members7 of the von Rosenberg family departed Germany in October 1849 on the Franziska8 under Captain Hagedorn and arrived in December after an uneventful passage. Although all were related by marriage or blood, it is best to consider the group as a collection of separate families, for the three older children (two sons and a daughter) were married (or soon to be), and each couple set up their own farmstead with their own resources. While in Galveston, Captain Hagedorn hosted a ball for his passengers . Shortly thereafter, the party traveled overland to Velasco at the mouth of the Brazos...