THE POLISH EMIGRATION ZOJship, but not their nationality. Even if the historian so wishes, it is often impos-
sible to distinguish Prussian Poles from Prussian Germans, Galician Poles from
Galician Ukrainians, or Russian Poles from Russian Jews. By 1939, however,
tentative figures suggest that some 195,000 Poles had settled permanently in
Brazil: some 450,000 in France, some 250,ooo in Canada, some 1.5 million in the
USA, and over 2 million in Germany. Taking into consideration the natural
increase over the last century, and the constant re-injection of political refugees,
an estimate of between 9 to 10 million people of Polish extraction living abroad
becomes entirely credible. Even so, this total is not complete. There are still a
million and a half Poles living in the USSR, some voluntarily, others by force of
circumstances. It should also be remembered that large numbers of Jewish,
Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and German emigrants, who since emigrating have
rejected all sense of Polish identity, did none the less originate from the Polish
lands, and not infrequently were educated in Polish schools, or travelled on
Polish passports. Their exact numbers are incalculable, but any global estimate
of emigrants 'of Polish origin' in its widest sense must surely be approaching the
15 million mark.
Nowadays, the American 'Polonia' takes pride of place. An estimated six and
a half million Polish Americans constitute not only the largest single Polish com-
munity abroad but also one of the largest ethnic minorities of the USA. The pio-
neers are to be found on the earliest pages of American colonial history, and
contain at least one doubtful candidate for the doubtful honour of having discov-
ered the New World before Columbus. According to sources which claim no gen-
eral acceptance, Jan z Kolna (John of Kolno) alias 'Scolnus', a sailing-captain in
the Danish service, reached the coast of Labrador in 1476. More certainly, in
October 1608, an emigrant ship, the Mary and Margaret, carried among its pas-
sengers the first Polish settlers into Jamestown, Virginia. Michal Lowicki, mer-
chant; Zbigniew Stefafiski of Wloclawek, glass-blower; Jan Mala of Cracow,
soap-maker; Stanislaw Sadowski of Radom, water-mill constructor; and Jan
Bogdan of Kolomyja, shipwright, had presumably been recruited in Danzig by the
Virginia Company, and belonged to a team of technicians specially ordered by
Governor John Smith to establish the infant colony's economy. Ten years later
the Polish artisans of Jamestown were said to be responsible for the continent's
first industrial strike and, in their game of palant, for the invention of Baseball. In
New Amsterdam, in 1659, the city's Grammar School was run by a certain Dr
Curtius from Poland, whilst in 1622 Al(brecht) or Al(exander) or Al(bin)
Zaborowski (d. 1711), a noble Arian refugee from Royal Prussia, first set foot in
the New World from the deck of the De Vos. His eldest son, Jakub, was seized as
a boy by the Iroquois and lived henceforth with the Indians. Four younger sons
fathered the far-flung 'Zabrisky' family. In the Midwest, in the eighteenth cen-
tury, Antoni Sadowski, of Philadelphia, a fur-trader, opened up the valley of the
Ohio. His sons, Jacob and Joseph 'Sandusky' figured prominently in the expedi-
tions which founded the settlements of Cincinnati (Ohio) and Harrodsburgh
(Kentucky). There were Polish participants in all the great events of American