Lithuanian Emigration

Lithuanian Emigration
1870- 1920

Sventupi - Sacred Rivers of Water and People
"from where the Sesupe runs and the Nemunas flows"
to the Lackawanna and Susquehanna in Pennsylvania

Confluence of the Sesupe & Nemunas

https://goo.gl/images/RLjvlD

The land below the mouth of the Sesupe once belonged to the now extinct Baltic Scalvians. They were subjugated by the Teutonic Knights and disappeared along with other Old Prussian and Baltic tribes.

Map of Lithuanian Rivers

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lithuanian_ language_in_the_16th_century.png

Natural resources always drew beings to the rivers.
The source of food and transportation, cities line their path like beads. Margaret Jeskaviciute lived along the Nemunas in Seponu then Birstonas.
She oared down its waters to purchase salt for her family, once, on the way back, getting stuck as the river began to freeze. Her uncle managed to draw the boat back into shore and saved her frostbitten hands. The salt springs of Birstonas drew people to the area for health treatments at spas and sanitariums where she was able to begin saving the money to join her brother already in Pennsylvania.

Confluence
of the Lackawanna & Susquehanna

Earlier in the 18th century Luzerne County was the home of numerous Shawnee, Nanticoke and Delaware Indian towns. Some of these towns have since been eradicated by urban sprawl and the mining of topsoil in the main Wyoming Valley from Nanticoke to West Pittston. Assarughney, a former Delaware village was one of the larger Indian towns in Luzerne County, and it was located near the mouth of the Lackawanna River.
A review of the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey (P.A.S.S) files for Luzerne County reports a site density of one site for every 2.89 square miles. There are nearly as many historic period sites as there are prehistoric period sites and taken collectively, span the range from the Paleoindian period through the 20th century. As well, there are nearly as many riverine related site settings as there are upland related site settings and these nearly equally represent all cultural periods.
http://twipa.blogspot.com/2013/02/luzerne-county.html

Map of Northeatern PA Rivers

map from Jonas Zilius

The Lackawanna and Susquehanna were once the source of food and transportation for the Native Americans who had lived in the area for millennia.
Beginning in the 1700's the outcrops of stone coal that had been mined by the Native Americans for melting metals became the goal of English immigrants and their descendants, Connecticut Yankees who fought Native Americans and English Pennsylvania Quakers for possession of the Wyoming Valley. Anthracite coal mining quickly replaced agriculture as a way of living.

"Like rain in the summer or snow in winter" Lithuanians came to America.
Vincas Kudirka
Rastai, Tilze, 1909, III, p. 159

Reasons for Emigration Specific to Lithuania

Nations that condoned slavery diminished throughout the 19th century. In 1861, three years before the Emancipation Proclamation, Russia, who controlled Lithuania during the 19th century, freed serfs who had previously been sold with the land they tended. The serfs had to pay their landlords, "owners," for their financial loss within two years. For most, that was impossible. At the end of that time they revolted - The January Uprising of 1863, like the Kosciuszko Uprising, or the November Uprising of 1830 failed miserably. The repercussions of that uprising were particularly horrific leading to increased migration. Railroads and shipping companies were on the increase with the introduction of the steam engine. People fleeing for their lives had better avenues of escape -- and did.