Listen to this. Now look at this picture right here (point to the middle photo). This is what Billy Holliday was referring to as “strange fruit” in her song with the same title. Now…who can tell me the nationality of the people in this picture? (Pick on a few people in the audience) Believe it or not these were people of German descent. These were free thinking Germans who came to Texas for a better life. Germans who refused to pledge allegiance to the confederate army and because of that they were lynched, their farms destroyed and their homes burned. The estimate was as high as 150. No one knows for sure. On August 10th 1862, confederate soldiers chased down 61 fleeing Germans, killing 19 near the Nueces River. This event is known as the Nueces Massacre.

German Anti-slavery Sympathizers Were Lynched In Texas

Germans first migrated to Texas through the leadership of Johann Friedrich Ernst, a professional gardener. Ernst intended to settle in Missouri, but he learned that large land grants were available to Europeans in Stephen F. Austin's colony in Texas. He applied for, and received, a grant for 4,000 acres in 1831 in what is now Austin County in the Texas Hill Country.

Ernst encouraged other Germans to come to Texas. He said large tracts of land were available at low cost, and Texas was an "earthly paradise." Between 1844 and 1847, more than 7,000 Germans settled in Galveston, Houston and San Antonio.

Germans who refused to pledge allegiance to the Confederate Army had their farms and homes burned and were lynched. Some estimate the number of German lynchings to be 150.

Fearing violence, many Texas Germans fled to northern states or to Mexico. On August 10, 1862, Confederate soldiers chased down 61 fleeing Germans, killing 19 near the Nueces River. The event is known as the Nueces Massacre. The bodies of the Texas Germans were left unburied until after the Civil War. Four years later, in 1865, the Civil War ended. A monument - Treue der Union - "Loyalty to the Union" was built in 1866 to honor the lives of Germans who refused to join the Confederacy.

German immigrants began arriving again in Galveston. More than 40,000 Germans would settle in Texas between 1865 and the early 1890s and help to revive a devastated state.

Educate. Honor. Heal. The Society of Justice & Equality for the People of Sugar Land (S.O.J.E.S.) is an independent, non-profit community organization dedicated to historic preservation and educating the community about the contributions of African Americans in the creation and progression of Sugar Land and Fort Bend County, Texas. This includes commemorating and memorializing the Sugar Land 95. sojesjustice.org