In scanning a Mormon microfilm of about 1750 from Vreden an ancestor of
mine has the word "LEIBZUIBTER" after his name.
Does anyone know the translation of this?
Joe in Mississauga
Kolon(e) - settler; farmer of a crop farm with hereditary tithe
To add a bit to Fred's answer:
For a little more detail--
Colonus comes for the Latin for "Colonist". It came to mean a farmer who
held a leasehold;a serf, basically, who had title not to the farm but to the
lease. The Colonus owned the right to farm the land, not the land itself.
That
right was inalienable (could not be taken away) and heridetary--he could
pass it on to his heirs. The leasehold itself was called the Colonat.
Colonus was sometimes spelled Kolonus and sometimes shorten to Colon or
Kolon. C and K were basically interchangeable in older German. Sometimes
one
was used, sometimes the other. A Colon would have to pay feudal dues (like
rent) to the
landholder, usually a noble or the church.
The title could also be passed through a female if there were no male heirs.
In my research, Toenies Brink married Maria Engle Schnake, moved to the
Schnake farm, and became Colonus Schnake. Their children were all named
Schnake. Then she died and he married again, to a Stumpelmeyer, but he
stayed on the Schnake farm and continued to be the Colon(us). The children
of the
second marriage were all named Schnake even though neither parent was born
Schnake--he was a Brink and she was a Stumpelmeyer.
When a Colon(us) got too old to farm he could turn the farm over to his
heirs and become a Leibzuchter. It was a contract, and he received
rights--a place to sleep, perhaps in a small shed or a little house or
whatever, maybe he could keep a hog or a garden, maybe the heir offered to
feed and keep him, maybe a little money, whatever. This was a form of
security for him in his old age. His heir would then be the Colon(us).
The new Colon had to honor the terms of the Leibzuchter contract and
could not put the Leibzuchter out.
For a more complete explanation of this and other customs, go to this URL on
my Schnake web site, find Chapter 4, and click on the subtitle that says
Social Conditions. You may want to read some of the other stuff too. You
might browse the entire site; there are a lot of articles on history,
background, and customs.
The URL: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schnake/story/
Roy Johnson
Researching Schnake worldwide
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~schnake