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Pehlemann farming citizens in the Oderbruch region in Germany

Life circumstances of Peter (I.) Pehlemann ( * 1622 - † 1701 ), his parents and descendants from our family from the 16th century until 1753 in the Oderbruch before its drainage

Ackerbürger, what does that mean? Pehlemann, where does the name come from? The Oderbruch, what was there before 1753?

Before the drainage by King Friedrich II, the Oderbruch was a barren and swampy land devastated by the Thirty Years' War, which was less productive for the land and people and could not develop significantly after Slavic and Wendish influences.  

The few inhabitants of the Oderbruch were fishermen or had a farming background.
The name “Pehlemann” is said to derive from the Peilmann at the front of the fishing boat, which I would not like to affirm - the son, like the father, was closer to the farmers than to the dangerous Oder fishery. But my search for the origin of the name or its (foreign) linguistic derivation has so far been unsuccessful.

The term “Bürger/burgher” for a rural inhabitant in central Brandenburg in the 16th and 17th centuries (if you can call them both that) speaks for their reputation. An agricultural burgher (like Peter I. Pehlemann) was either a farmer who also traded, or a merchant who also farmed. In these early times, it was not enough to have just one occupation to make a living. And trading alone lacked the infrastructure to sell goods.

Like father like son, because one had to learn agriculture as a trade from the other - Pehlemann's were agriculturally oriented until prosperity, farms and estates were acquired through diligence and perseverance, which over the course of many decades then enabled better schooling and university studies for the offspring. Characteristic of the spread of professional status is also the later advancement in the civil service (also as civil servants) for notable family members.
 04.09.2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann

Poorly fertile soils before drainage meant hard and proactive work for the agricultural farmer (also similar to Peter I. Pehlemann). In those days, families with many children had to be fed and cared for from the low yield. And to acquire a second or even a third horse for the manual work with the plow? 

It was necessary to be on good terms with the landgrave and the feudals and to earn more than was absolutely necessary in order to work one's way out of dependency and into farming, whereby taxes, duties and interest were a burden even then.
04.09.2024
Wolfgang L. M. Pehlemann