Kashubian diaspora

The Kashubian diaspora resulted from the emigration of Kashubians mainly in two waves occurring in the second half of the 19th century. The majority of Kashubian emigrants settled in the United States; others emigrated to Canada and Brazil.^[1] An online genealogical project, "The Great Kashubian Migration," is devoted to tracking their settlement patterns.^[2] Their reasons for emigration varied. Until the Franco-Prussian War, Kashubians emigrated primarily for economic reasons. After the Franco-Prussian War and especially due to the Kulturkampf, Kashubian emigration accelerated as socio-political factors came into play. In his 1899 book, Statystyka ludnosci kaszubskiej (Statistics of the Kashubian Population), the Kashubophile linguist and sociologist Stefan Ramult estimated that 130,700 Kashubians were living in the Americas.^[3]