The Switzers: A novel

[From Back cover] "In that country (America) a man can do all kinds of things If he's bold. It's got all kinds of opportunities for whoever'll take them. It's not like here. Here it's â old and stiff." They came over, like slaves, in the dark, cramped, disease-ridden hole of a ship â leaving the beautiful Rheinthal in Switzerland for the unknown challenges of a wilderness. Why did they come? What did they go through to survive? This is the story of Swiss settlers who emigrated to South Carolina in the early 1700s. They came, not necessarily to escape persecution, but to escape rigidity â the old customs which ruled society with an iron hand. They came with little money, few, if any, friends and relatives. They came through recruiting parties of Prussian soldiers, through hostile countries and unforseen dangers, across an ocean on a journey which as many as forty percent did not survive, and finally to a virgin wilderness inhabited by unpredictable native Indians. They gave up everything they knew and loved for the unknown, but free, opportunities to make a life of their own choosing. Historically accurate and well-researched the Switzers is a powerful saga about the kind of people who founded and built a great nation.