ABSTRACT
When a group of Salzburger Protestants under the leadership of young Baron Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck and the spiritual guidance of the Pietist pastors Johann Martin Boltzius (1703-1765) and Israel Christian Gronau (1714-1745) from Halle arrived in Savannah in 1734, it was a triumph of faith after an arduous journey. Before long, however, the joy of liberty in a promised land was tempered by the reality of life in a wilderness, and the recognition that the diverse creeds that had spread over Europe in the wake of the Reformation convened on a very small space to exercise religious freedom in their new American homeland. The task at hand was not only the survival in a hostile environment, but also conformity to the demands of a colonial power, and close cooperation with rival systems of faith. During the next decade the fledgling settlement of Ebenezer on the Savannah River experienced in a nutshell the religious conflicts from which they had sought to escape in Europe.1
