German colonization of the Americas

In this map of German colonies, yellow marks Klein-Venedig and blue the Prussian colonies, some of them in the Caribbean.

Klein-Venedig ("Little Venice"; also the etymology of the name "Venezuela") was the most significant part of the German colonization of the Americas, from 1528 to 1546, in which the Augsburg-based Welser banking family to the Habsburgs was given the colonial rights by Emperor Charles V, who was also King of Spain and owed debts to them for his Imperial election.[2] In 1528, Charles V gave the Welser a contract to explore, rule and colonize the area in his name and with the primary motivation of searching the legendary golden city of El Dorado.[3] The venture was initially led by Ambrosius Ehinger, who founded Maracaibo in 1529. After the deaths of first Ehinger (1533), Nikolaus Federmann, Georg von Speyer (1540), Philipp von Hutten continued exploration in the interior. In absence of von Hutten from the capital of the province the crown of Spain claimed the right to appoint the governor. On Hutten's return to the capital, Santa Ana de Coro, in 1546, the Spanish governor Juan de Carvajal had Hutten and Bartholomeus VI. Welser executed. Subsequently, Charles V revoked Welser's charter.

The Welsers transported German miners to the colony, as well as 4,000 African slaves as labor to work sugar cane plantations. Many of the German colonists died from tropical diseases, to which they had no immunity, or during frequent wars with Native Americans.

The Brandenburgisch-Africanische Compagnie of Brandenburg (the future Kingdom of Prussia) established trading posts in Africa and leased a trading post on St. Thomas from the Danish West India-Guinea Company in 1685. In 1693, the Danes seized the post, its warehouse, and all its goods without warning or repayment. There were no permanent German settlers.

The Duchy of Courland, a German-led vassal state of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, leased New Courland (Neu-Kurland) on Tobago in the Caribbean from the British. The colony failed and was restored several times. A final Courish attempt to establish a Caribbean colony involved a settlement near modern Toco on Trinidad.[4]

The counties of Hanau-Lichtenberg and Hanau-Münzenberg, under Frederick Casimir and his adviser Johann Becher, funded – but did not complete – an extravagant program to lease Guiana from the Dutch West India Company. Calling his new realm the Hanauish Indies (Hanauisch-Indien), Frederick Casimir ran up huge debts that ultimately forced him into a regency by some of his relatives.

German settlers also immigrated to the established colonies in South America and Central America:

• Colonia Tovar, Venezuela
• Chile's Southern Zone
• Nicaragua[5]
• Southern Brazil
• Bariloche, and Patagonia, Argentina
• Colonia General Belgrano, in Cordoba, Argentina
• Obera, in Misiones, Argentina
• Soconusco region in Chiapas, Mexico
• Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
• Pozuzo and Oxapampa in Peru
• Seaford Town in Jamaica

They also founded some small communities in Paraguay.