Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922

From 1919-1922 various groups of Kanadier Russian Mennonites living in central Canada sent out a number of delegations to search for a new homeland. These Mennonites were reacting to the loss of autonomy over the education of their children as a result of a series of assimilationist reforms, restrictions, and penalties introduced by the governments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan during and after World War I. In all cases, the delegations sought from governing bodies exemption from military service and from swearing oaths, the right to administer their own inheritance, property, and mutual aid laws, and the right to control without restriction the education of their children, including the continuing use and nurture of the German language. They also looked for land that would be suitable for agriculture and available for purchase in large plots. These delegations ultimately negotiated conditions satisfactory to them in Mexico and Paraguay, which led to the emigration of nearly 8000 Canadian Mennonites from Canada during the 1920s.

Reinländer Delegations

Reinländer leaders began seriously considering and threatening emigration with the passage of mandatory school attendance laws in 1916 in Manitoba and in 1917 in Saskatchewan. In early 1919, as negotiations between the church and the provincial governments broke down, Klaas Peters, a businessman and land agent from Waldeck, Saskatchewan, led a semi-official delegation to Latin America to look for immigration options, negotiating without success with officials from Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, and also making an initial contact with the Paraguayan government.

In meetings held in July 1919, all three Reinländer groups – western Manitoba, Hague-Osler, SK, and Swift Current, SK – determined on a course of emigration. On 6 August, they dispatched a delegation of six men with the aim of finding a single tract of land suitable for the entire Reinländer body.

This delegation went first to Ottawa to attain proper travel documentation and to again attempt, unsuccessfully, to gain concessions from Canadian officials. They then travelled to Brazil and Argentina. They knew Argentina was looking for settlers and had a substantial German population. Meanwhile, a Brazilian railway agent had instigated interest in his country with a visit to the Swift Current settlement. However, neither government was interested in granting special concessions to settlers and the delegation returned unsuccessful at the end of November. Delegate Johann J. Wall from Hague died and was buried in Brazil after a week long illness.

In early 1920 a land agent from Mississippi approached the Reinländer with an offer of 200 000 acres of land. A delegation immediately set out to investigate; they met with the governor who promised satisfactory concessions. Subsequent delegations confirmed these concessions and entered into an arrangement to purchase 125 000 acres of land, which the Reinländer membership ratified in a 1 June meeting. The church prepared a down-payment and in early June sent it with a delegation of four to complete the purchase. In a surprising turn of events this delegation was turned back at the Canada-U.S. border for reasons that remain mysterious; after examination of the available evidence, Adolf Ens concludes that it was most likely the arbitrary decision of an individual Immigration official. The Reinländer considered this an act of God's will and it ended their attempts to move to Mississippi.

By this point Reinländer leaders were under pressure and the unity and resolve of the Reinländer community was fracturing. The Manitoba and Swift Current groups sent a series of delegations to Quebec after learning that that province was looking for settlers in the Abitibi region of the Great Clay Belt. However, despite an initially promising meeting with Quebec officials on 19 August, concessions were not forthcoming and the delegates judged the land unsuitable for farming.

Meanwhile, the Hague-Osler settlement independently decided to follow up a lead they had in Mexico, where stakeholders had their own set of interests in attracting white farmers and land-owners. Another delegation from Hague-Osler investigated Paraguay, following up on the initial contact made by the very first delegation, but their report of the environment was not encouraging. The Mexican delegation returned on 9 October with an optimistic report, which immediately caught the attention of other Mennonite groups, including the two other Reinländer settlements.

Representatives from Manitoba were unable to join the next delegation to Mexico because their passports were not in order, but all three groups sent delegates to Mexico in January 1921. They received a warm welcome into Mexico and had a series of productive negotiations with President Obregón and his Minister of Agriculture in mid-February. Mexican officials were initially unwilling to allow the Mennonites to run their schools in German, but the delegation eventually achieved the desired concessions and received a Privilegium dated to 25 February 1921. After touring land in the state of Durango, they returned to Canada in March.

A delegation returned to Mexico in April with the intention of completing a land purchase. They initially worked out a contract to purchase land in the Valle de Guatimape in Canatlan, Durango. The delegation had to cancel this deal when the Hague-Osler representatives withdrew following a rupture between Johann P. Wall of Hague and the delegates from the other two groups. Wall’s strong personality had reputedly clashed with the equally forceful Klaas Heide of Manitoba, and a conflict between the two erupted when Wall was offended by the suggestion that the Hague-Osler group might be unable to meet their financial obligations for the purchase.

The delegates from Swift Current and Manitoba immediately turned their attention to the Hacienda Bustillos in Chihuahua and became enthusiastic about agricultural prospects there. Another delegation representing the two settlements purchased 225 000 acres in Chihuahua in Sept. 2021 and quickly negotiated government approval of the purchase. In the meantime, the Hague-Osler group saw its emigration plans disrupted and delayed. It was only in 1924 that the Hague-Osler Reinländer purchased 35 000 acres in the Valle de Guatimape (where the original deal had fallen through), by which time enthusiasm for migration had substantially soured. Three-quarters of the Hague-Osler Reinländer remained in Canada, including one of their chief delegates, and later their Ältester, Johann Loeppky.

Other Canadian Mennonite Delegations

Four members of the Chaco expedition on 1 June 1921 in Puerto Casado. Left-right: Bernhard Toews, Johann Friesen, Jakob Neufeld, and I. Funk. The Canadian wheat they seeded in April is in the background. Photo via Old Colony Mennonites in Canada 2nd edition, ed. Delbert Plett (D.F. Plett Historical Research Foundation, 2011), p. 113.

The Sommerfelder and Chortitzer churches, with common origins in the Bergthal Colony in imperial Russia, cooperated in their approach to the schools crisis in Manitoba. They reached a decision to emigrate in late 1920, only after repeated attempts at a compromise position with the Manitoba Government. These groups, along with their Bergthaler kin in Saskatchewan, assembled a six man delegation to Latin America that left on 11 February 1921. It would be gone for more than six months.

Their first destination was Paraguay. Reinländer delegations had made the acquaintance of General Samuel McRoberts, a New York banker with business and political connections in Latin America who played a critical role in encouraging and facilitating Mennonite immigration to Paraguay. Commissioned by the Reinländer, McRoberts had determined that the Paraguayan Chaco was the best option for Mennonite resettlement, and when the coalition of emigrating Bergthal Mennonites contacted him, he pointed them to that country. The delegation conducted productive negotiations with Paraguayan President Manuel Gondra, receiving a satisfactory Privilegium on April 4 and permission to settle in the Chaco. McRoberts's associate, Fred Engen, took the delegates on a tour of the Chaco in late April, precisely when conditions there (widely considered utterly inhospitable at the time) are at their best. They were impressed with what they saw. Even before the delegation visited Mexico, Johann Pries, the spokesman for the delegation, wrote that Mexico was "very unattractive" in comparison with what they had seen in Paraguay.

Before the delegation had left Manitoba, positive news from the Reinländer delegation to Mexico reached Sommerfelder Ältester Abraham Doerksen and he instructed his delegates to investigate that country as well. A Chihuahua banker and member of a landholding family also visited Doerksen in Manitoba, hoping to find buyers for his family’s land and directing the Sommerfelder’s attention to the Hacienda Santa Clara. After the delegation's visit to Paraguay, the Saskatchewan delegates returned home while the Manitobans continued to Mexico. The delegation gave a glowing report on the prospects of settlement in Paraguay and a discouraging one on Mexico.

This report on Mexico was discordant with the reports of both the Reinländer delegations and that of private individuals. Doerksen was suspicious and rallied the Sommerfelder and Chortitzer to send a second delegation to Mexico with specific instructions to seek a Privilegium. This delegation conducted successful negotiations with President Obregón who explained that the earlier delegation had not asked for concessions but for changes to Mexico’s laws. He granted them a Privilegium dated 30 October 1921.

After this Abraham Doerksen was persuaded to the Mexico option. The Sommerfelder thus sent a delegation to Santa Clara to purchase land in the summer of 1922. In what Harry Sawatzky describes as a "baffling" move, this delegation selected land with an inadequate water supply, much of which was, in addition, extremely stony; whether and how this delegation may have been deceived remains a matter of speculation. Regardless, they successfully made a contract to purchase 12 000 acres with an option on an additional 50 000. The Chortitzer, Saskatchewan Bergthaler, and a few Sommerfelder chose immigration to Paraguay instead.

In 1999, Delbert Plett identified the existence of a 1922 delegation to Mexico, representing the Kleine Gemeinde communities in Manitoba and Kansas. Three Kleine Gemeinde families from Kansas, including some of these delegates, ended up immigrating to Mexico from 1924 to 1926, but no Kleine Gemeinde from Canada emigrated at that time.

Table: Reinländer Delegations

Reinländler Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1921

Date	Destination	Groups Represented	Delegates
Feb. 1919	Brazil Uruguay Argentina	unofficial	Klaas Peters Johann Hamm Johann Heinrichs
Aug. 4-Nov. 24, 1919	Ottawa Argentina Brazil	Hague Manitoba Swift Current	Johann J. Wall Johann P. Wall Klaas Heide Cornelius Rempel Julius Wiebe David Rempel
Jan. 15-29, 1920	Mississippi	Hague Manitoba Swift Current	Jacob E. Peters Franz F. Froese Peter P. Harms Julius Wiebe Abraham Wiebe
April 12-29, 1920	Mississippi	Hague Manitoba	Johann P. Wall Benjamin Goertzen Franz Peters Johann J. Friesen Cornelius Rempel Johann W. Rempel
May 14-25, 1920	Mississippi	unkown	unknown
Early June	Turned back at the Canada-U.S. border	unkown	four members, unknown
Aug. 13-end Aug. 1920	Quebec	Manitoba Swift Current	Johann J. Friesen Abraham Wiebe Jacob Friesen David Rempel
Sept. 8-Oct. 9, 1920	Mexico	Hague	Johann P. Wall Benjamin Goertzen ? Klassen
Fall 1920	Quebec (multiple delegations)	Manitoba Swift Current	unknown
Oct. 9-Dec. 1920	Paraguay	Hague	Abram Klassen Jacob Friesen Franz Dyck ? Wiens
Nov. 11-end Dec. 1920	Mexico	Hague Swift Current	unknown
Jan. 24-Mar. 12, 1921	Mexico	unaffiliated Hague Manitoba Swift Current	John F. D. Wiebe Johann Loeppky Benjamin Goertzen Julius Loewen Klaas Heide Cornelius Rempel David Rempel
April 5-May 9, 1921	Mexico	Hague Manitoba Swift Current	Johann P. Wall Klaas Heide
July 1921	Mexico	Manitoba Swift Current	Abram Giesbrecht ? Peters ? Baumann ? Klassen Julius Wiebe David Rempel
Aug. 12-Sept. 10, 1921	Mexico	Manitoba Swift Current	unknown

Table: Other Canadian Mennonite Delegations

Other Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922

Date	Destination	Groups Represented	Delegates
Feb. 11-Sept. 2, 1921	Paraguay Mexico	SK-Bergthaler Chortitzer Sommerfelder unaffiliated	Jacob W. Neufeld Johann J. Friesen Jacob Doerksen Bernhard Toews Isaak Funk Johann Pries
Feb. 1921	Mexico	SK-Bergthaler	Heinrich A. Neufeld Johann C. Schellenberg Peter Epp Peter H. Goertzen Cornelius F. Andres Heinrich H. Reimer Benjamin E. Redekop
Oct.-Nov. 1921	Mexico	Chortitzer Sommerfelder	A. Doerksen Dietrich Doerksen Abram Hiebert
Early summer 1922	Mexico	Chortitzer Sommerfelder	D. Doerksen Julius Harder Franz Voth
Aug. 1922	Mexico	Kleine Gemeinde, MB Kleine Gemeinde, KS	Heinrich R. Reimer Heinrich R. Dueck Cornelius L. Plett Heinrich K. Friesen Jakob J. Reimer Cornelius J. Classen Jakob F. Isaac Peter F. Isaac

See Also

• Emigration from Canada to Mexico and Paraguay in the 1920s
• Migrations

Bibliography

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Author(s)	Gerald Ens
Date Published	2024

Cite This Article

MLA style

Ens, Gerald. "Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2024. Web. 19 Jan 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Canadian_Mennonite_Land-Seeking_Delegations,_1919-1922&oldid=180867.

APA style

Ens, Gerald. (2024). Canadian Mennonite Land-Seeking Delegations, 1919-1922. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 January 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Canadian_Mennonite_Land-Seeking_Delegations,_1919-1922&oldid=180867.

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