Religious dissidents being drowned in Zurich Picture: Central Library, Zurich

The first important group to emigrate to America were members of the Anabaptist sect, a strict Protestant movement, which found its followers in the rural regions and which among other things called for the separation of church and state as well as an end to tithes and rents. They were thus seen as a threat to the established order, and severely persecuted by the authorities.

	A hidden cave said to have been used for worship in the 16th century by persecuted Mennonites in Bäretswil, Canton Zurich Picture: www.menno.ch

The sect split into the Mennonites and the even stricter Amish. Persecution dispersed them to different parts of Europe. The first organized group of Anabaptists arrived in America around the 1680s. They settled in Germantown Pa, six miles north of Philadelphia.

Many Mennonite families of Swiss origin did not arrive in America directly from Switzerland. They had first settled in Alsace and Lorraine, and in parts of Germany and the Netherlands; after 1870 some even came from Russia where they had moved in the middle of the 18th century at the invitation of Catherine the Great.

The first Mennonite settlers were encouraged to emigrate to America by the Englishman, William Penn, who in 1681 was granted the land of what is now Pennsylvania by King Charles II.

Marker commemorating the founders of the first Lancaster County settlement of 1710. Picture: John E. Sharp, Photographer, Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee

Penn wanted settlers to go out and colonise his new lands. He visited Switzerland and Germany distributing literature and speaking about the many advantages of the New World, including its freedom from religious persecution.

The most important breakthrough occurred in 1707 when a number of Swiss Mennonites arranged with Penn to colonize a portion of Lancaster County. Arriving in 1709 they established what are now the Townships of Lampeter, Manor, Pequea, and Strasburg.

	The „Herr House“ in West Lampeter Twp, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1719 by Christian Herr, son of Hans Herr, the founder of the first Mennonite community in the area. Picture: John E. Sharp, Photographer, Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee

Once a few had been persuaded, the existing laws meant that others followed: in trying to prevent emigration the authorities used the very means that encouraged it. Anabaptists were liable to collective punishment if their plan to emigrate became known, and even those remaining behind were stripped of their possessions. As a result, even those who might have preferred to stay in Switzerland were pushed into leaving.

These "push" factors were supplemented by "pull" factors: the availability of new land, and later glowing reports in letters from previous emigrants and from returnees.  

An influential brochure about the life of the “contented Swiss” living in Carolina, 1734 Picture Central Library Zurich

Other Swiss seeking religious freedom settled in the Carolinas and Georgia. Most of these immigrants came originally from the cantons of Bern and Zurich.