Bringing the World into the (perceived) Wilderness

     The Moravians that moved to Pennsylvania in the mid 18th century were relative latecomers in the larger process of European colonization.  By the time the Brethren founded Bethlehem in 1741, the Spanish had spent two and a half centuries laying down their ever-expanding empire, and the British – to whom the Moravians were adding their numbers on the edges of established settlement - almost a century and half.  Despite their isolated location and relatively late arrival, Bethlehem’s Moravians maintained an understanding of the world’s geography, both distant continents and the more immediate colonial world.
     Settling the proverbial wilderness, the Moravians found themselves mapping what was to them a new geography.  Their library, however, kept them in close contact with the geography of the world they left behind.  John Arbo, member of the Moravian community, hand-numbered a large atlas composed of printed, hand-colored maps that displayed the latest information regarding known geography in Europe.  Dozens of maps, many themselves as recent as the mid 18th century, illustrate minute details for European states and localities.  It would not be remiss to conclude that the Moravians knew more about the geography thousands of miles away, even in Africa and Asia, than they knew about what was outside their front door in Bethlehem.
     By settling relatively late in the colonial period, Moravians had the added benefit of understanding the “new world” they were moving into much more than their colonial predecessors.  The first Iberians to wander through North and South America in the 16th century were seeing rivers and mountains never before viewed by European eyes.  Their earliest settlements were, from a European perspective, drawn on a completely blank map.  The same is true for the earliest Englishmen in the 17th century to plant colonies on the eastern shore of North America.
     Arbo’s aforementioned Atlas shows how the Moravians understood the western hemisphere at a level the earliest Spanish, English, and other initial explorers could never have imagined.  Moravians in Bethlehem were cognizant of even the smallest villages in Spain’s extensive North and South American empire.  English colonies are shown as settled areas filled with dots on the map representing towns and settlements.  As such, even though the immediate realm around Bethlehem may have been unexplored by Europeans, the Moravians must have been aware they were moving into a very busy colonial neighborhood.
     Many of the books in the Congregational collection showcase maps; however,  Arbo’s atlas most clearly suggests that the Moravians in Bethlehem were not only more familiar with the geography of distant lands more than their own immediate environment but also that they were aware of the already crowded nature of the colonial world they were making into their new home.

                                                                                    -Andrew Stahlhut