Heide, Klaas (1859-1926)
Klaas Heide was a notable leader of the Reinländer church community in Manitoba and in Chihuahua, Mexico in the 1910s and 1920s. He served as a significant member of the land-seeking delegations sent from 1919-1921 by the Reinländer in central Canada. He was also an important architect of the Manitoba Reinländer settlement plan in Chihuahua.
In 1916, the Manitoba government began a concerted campaign to close the private Mennonite elementary schools in order to use the public school system as a tool for cultural and religious assimilation. After failed negotiations, the Manitoba Reinländer, with their co-religionists in Saskatchewan, began to explore emigration options and sent delegations to various countries in Latin America, to Mississippi, and to Quebec over a three year period. Heide was one of the more important members of these delegations. Records are incomplete, but according to family history Heide was a member of every single delegation sent by the Manitoba Reinländer and may have been the designated financial expert of these groups.[1] He also played a leading role in the decision to purchase land in Chihuahua after a previous deal in the state of Durango fell through. Heide is a prominent figure in the journals of his fellow delegates and recurs as a primary person of contact in the archival record during this critical juncture of the Reinländer church.
Heide was involved in an incident that significantly changed the trajectory of the Reinländer emigration from Canada. In the spring of 1921, at the Hotel Posada Duran in Durango, Hague-Osler delegate Johann P. Wall confronted Heide and the other delegates over their concerns that the Hague-Osler group could not be relied upon for their portion of a joint land purchase. Both Heide and Wall possessed forceful personalities and clashed over the issue. As a result, the Hague-Osler group withdrew from a planned joint purchase in Durango, delaying their emigration to Mexico until 1924. Meanwhile, the Manitoba and Swift Current groups redirected to settlement opportunities in the state of Chihuahua, contracting to purchase land there in September 1921.
Heide continued to provide leadership during the settlement of the Manitoba and Swift Current Reinländer in Chihuahua. He accompanied the Mexican land surveyers for the planned land purchase and measured the land into two square kilometer blocks, drawing up a comprehensive settlement plan. He was intimately involved in the purchase of land and its distribution to the Manitoba Reinländer, who undertook this process via two land holding companies, one of them in Heide's name, rather than via individual title.
Heide then served as one of the chief administrators during the critical early years of the Manitoba Colony. He was, along with his friend Walter Schmiedehaus, one of the point persons in dealing with the problem of local farmers who claimed the Mennonites' newly purchased land as their own under Mexico's land redistribution laws. Together with Schmiedehaus, Heide was able to move the state and federal government to both protect the Mennonite settlers from the "agraristas" and then, at the end of 1925, persuade them to largely resolve the crisis by compensating the agraristas with land elsewhere. When a new Mexican president, Elías Calles, made noise in 1925-26 about removing the Mennonites' special privileges, colony leadership again delegated Heide and Schmiedehaus, who together successfully represented the colonists' interests before government officials. In his written work, Schmiedehaus singles out Heide's impact, leadership, and personality as "towering above" all others in the first years of the Mennonite settlements in Mexico.[2]
Klaas Heide was born in Schönneberg, Chortitza Colony, Russia (present day Ukraine) to Peter Heide and Helena Loewen on 14 May 1859. When he was young, his family moved to Rosenbach in the Fürstenland Colony. In 1875 he immigrated to Manitoba, Canada with his parents. He married Maria Driedger in 1877 and they settled in Grunthal in the West Reserve. Heide and his family moved to Blumenort in the Manitoba Colony in 1922. He died on 19 October 1926.
See Also
- Johann J. Friesen
- President Álvaro Obregón
- Manitoba Colony (Chihuahua, Mexico)
- Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922
- Walter Schmiedehaus
Notes and References
Bibliography
Ens, Adolf. Subjects or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994. Pp. 201-230.
Harms, Sally. "Klaas Heide (1859-1926), Delegate, Schoneberg, Imperial Russia, to Grunthal, W.R. Manitoba, to Blumenort, Cuauhtemoc, Mexico." In Old Colony Mennonite in Canada: 1875-2000, edited by Delbert F. Plett. Steinbach: Crossway, 2001. Pp. 116-121.
Kouwenhoven, Arlette. The Fehrs: Four Centuries of Mennonite Migration, translated by Lesley Fast and Kerry Fast. Leiden: Winco, 2013. Pp. 143, 190-91.
Loeppky, Johann. “Journal on a Trip to Mexico, 1921.” Preservings 26 (2006): 37-44.
Rempel, David. “Diary of his Trip to South America and Mexico in 1919-1921.” Trans. Jake K. Wiens. Volume 5015, Small Archives. Mennonite Heritage Archives, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, Man., R3P 0M4.
Sawatzky, Harry Leonard. They Sought a Country: Mennonite Colonization in Mexico. Berkeley, Calif.; University of California Press, 1971. Pp. 31-52 and 57-59.
Schmiedehaus, Walter. The Old Colony Mennonites in Mexico. Translated by Erwin Jost. Edited by Glenn Penner. Mennonite Heritage Archives, 2021. Pp. 20-27, 67-70, 86-92, 148.
Werner, Hans. "Old Colony and Russlaender Land Transactions." Preservings 45 (Fall 2022): 23-28.
Werner, Hans. "Restoring the Commons: Land Deals and the Migration of Manitoba Mennonites to Mexico in the 1920s." Agricultural History 87, no. 4 (Fall 2013): 452-472.
Wiebe, John F. D. et al. “Correspondence with J. F. D. Wiebe, 1922-1931." Mexico Mennonite Files, 1875-1931, vol. 4297 no. 12. Mennonite Heritage Archives, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, Man., R3P 0M4.
| Author(s) | Gerald Ens |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 2024 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Ens, Gerald. "Heide, Klaas (1859-1926)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2024. Web. 1 Feb 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Heide,_Klaas_(1859-1926)&oldid=180608.
APA style
Ens, Gerald. (2024). Heide, Klaas (1859-1926). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 1 February 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Heide,_Klaas_(1859-1926)&oldid=180608.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, {{{hp}}}. All rights reserved.
©1996-2026 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved..