The SS Silesia was a late 19th-century Hamburg America Line passenger and cargo ship that ran between the European ports of Hamburg, Germany and Le Havre, France to Castle Garden and later Ellis Island, New York transporting European immigrants, primarily Russian, Prussian, Hungarian, German, Austrian, Italian, and Danish individuals and families.

Most passengers on this route were manual laborers, including stonecutters, locksmiths, farmers, millers, upholsterers, confectioners, and tailors, though physicians and other professionals also bought passage on her.

After this she was fitted with a compound engine and supposedly began sailing the route from Hamburg to the West Indies, though passenger manifests continue to show her bringing immigrants to New York for many more years.

[8] On 12 November that year she collided with and sank the Guernsey schooner Squale in the English Channel 12 nautical miles (22 km) south of Beachy Head, Sussex.

[10] Sources agree, however, that on 2 December 1899, she ran aground near the island of Lobos in the River Plate between Uruguay and Argentina and was eventually sold for scrap metal.