Bettina (Texas)

Bettina (Texas, USA) was a small German settlement on the north bank of the Llano River in the west of Llano County, which had only a few months inventory in 1847, is a ghost town since 1964 to historical monuments of the state of Texas.

Foundation

The " forties ", a group of 40 young, mostly students and young intellectuals from Hesse - Darmstadt and the university cities of Gießen and Heidelberg, who had come at the initiative and with the support of the " Mainzer nobility association" to Texas, founded in 1847 on the north bank of the Llano Rivers an independent, politically free, based on the ideals of the young communist settlement.

The " forties " were in the time of political upheaval in Germany (see Frankfurter guard tower or March Revolution) the group of revolutionaries and " freethinkers " to, in Karl Marx ( 1818-1883 ) had its ideological roots found, and therefore wanted there - completely detached from political restrictions and requirements - as free citizens in a free country with the motto " Friendship, Freedom, Equality " live. They named the settlement after the Liberal and then celebrated in these circles writer Bettina von Arnim ( 1785-1859 ).

It was the fifth Latin German Settlement of the "Nobility Association" in Texas, after John O. Meusebach (1812-1897), General Secretary of the "Nobility Association" in Texas, was completed in the spring of 1847 his famous peace treaty with the Comanches.

To this group of settlers of the " forties " also included the botanist Ferdinand Lindheimer (1801-1879), the physician Ferdinand von Herff (1820-1912), the engineer Gustav Schleicher (1823-1879), Jacob Kuchler, Christopher Platt, John horns, Louis Reinhardt and Friedrich Schenk. Some of Bettina settlers, including some craftsmen, mechanics and farmers who actually worked hard to build their community, but most of that intellectual adventurers who had never learned before, " daily bread " actually work for her. However, have not until later in life, some of them - some even their descendants - done a lot for their new home Texas.

Downfall

At that time, these intellectuals chose to go on the hunt, led perennial philosophical discussions or adhered to the Latin words " Bibe, post mortem nulla voluptas - Occasional, after death there is no pleasure " or " Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! - Seize the day, trust, not the next " (from: Horace's " Odes "). No wonder, then, that the utopian settlement Bettina few months had stock.

There were tensions, the group of settlers broke up, most of them went to San Antonio, Austin and New Braunfels, where she had a profession, which corresponded more closely to their academic training. The settlement Bettina disintegrated and became a ghost town. In 1964 she was admitted to the list of Texas monuments.