In the glow of their first enthusiasm many of the intellectuals
believed they could establish a German state in America. "The
foundations of a new and free Germany in the great North American
Republic shall be laid by us," wrote Follenius, the dreamer, who
desired to land enough Germans in "one of the American territories to
establish an essentially German state." In 1833 the Giessener
Gesellschaft, a company organized in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, grew
out of this suggestion and chose Arkansas as the site for its colony.
But unfavorable reports turned the immigrants to Missouri, where
settlements were made. These, however, never grew into a German state
but merged quite contentedly into the prosperous American population.

A second attempt, also from Hesse, had a tragic dénouement. A number
of German nobles formed a company called the Mainzer Adelsverein and
in 1842 sent two of their colleagues to Texas to seek out a site. The
place chosen was ill-suited for a colony, however, and the whole
enterprise from beginning to end was characterized by princely
incompetence. Thousands of immigrants, lured by the company's liberal
offers and glowing prospectus, soon found themselves in dire want;
many perished of disease and hunger; and the company ended in
ignominious disaster. The surviving colonists in Texas, however, when
they realized that they must depend upon their own efforts, succeeded
in finding work and eventually in establishing several flourishing
communities.

Finally, Wisconsin and Illinois were considered as possible sites for
a Germany in America. But this ambition never assumed a concrete form.
Everywhere the Americans, with their energy and organizing capacity,
had preceded the incoming Germans and retained the political
sovereignty of the American state.