Vistula delta Mennonites

The Mennonite community played an important role in the drainage and cultivation of the Vistula delta and the trade relations with the Netherlands.

The Plautdietsch language, a mixture of Dutch and the local Low German dialect, originates from the Vistula delta and is still used by Mennonite communities worldwide.

Religious persecution in the Low Countries under Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, forced many Mennonites to leave in the 16th century.

In the 1530s, Dutch Mennonites from what is now the Netherlands and Belgium moved to the area of Danzig (Gdańsk) Poland's principal seaport, which was connected to the Low Countries by traditional grain trade.

Michael Loitz, a Danzig councillor and merchant, had received a thirty-year lease of an area at the river Tiege (Tuja) by the Polish King.

[9][10] Plautdietsch, a mixture of Dutch and the Low Prussian dialect of the Vistula Delta, became the typical language of the Mennonites in this region.

[11] The first German-language sermon in the Mennonite Church of Danzig in 1762 caused protests by community members and led to a return to the Dutch language.

Only men who had served in the Prussian Army were allowed to purchase land tenure, conscientious objectors were subject to special charges.

In 1786, Georg von Trappe, a colonization agent of the Russian government, sought to recruit settlers for the regions recently conquered from the Ottoman Empire.

Along with the rest of the German-speaking population, Mennonites were expelled after World War II to remaining parts of Germany,[13] many of them moving on to North and South America (including Uruguay).

[12] The low German Plautdietsch language remains a vital link of the Mennonite communities in North and South America.