| The last thing most Americans expect to come upon | | | | 1600s, there was a division among the Anabaptists or |
| when they're driving their car is a horse and buggy on | | | | Mennonites. The division occurred in Switzerland over |
| the road. However, for those of us who live in Amish | | | | the issue of shunning people who had been |
| country, it is nearly a daily occurrence. Who are the | | | | excommunicated from the church. A sizeable minority |
| Amish people and why do they drive horses and | | | | of the Anabaptists in Switzerland, led by Jacob |
| buggies? | | | | Amman, believed that excommunicated members |
| The Amish are descendants of the Swiss Anabaptists | | | | should be totally shunned. Those who supported this |
| who arose in the sixteenth century during the | | | | position came to be known as the Amish. |
| Reformation. Unlike the principal Reformers like Luther, | | | | How the Amish People Came to America |
| Zwingli, and Calvin, the Anabaptists believed in the | | | | Even in the 1700s, the Amish were still being |
| separation of church and state, and they were | | | | persecuted by the religious authorities in Switzerland. |
| opposed to infant baptism. Because of those beliefs, | | | | As a result, the majority of them emigrated to |
| they were persecuted by both the Catholics and the | | | | Pennsylvania, where they were welcomed by William |
| Reformers. Many of them found refuge in the remote | | | | Penn and granted freedom of religion. One of the first |
| mountain valleys of Switzerland. | | | | places the Amish settled was in Lancaster County, |
| Amish People: How They Got Their Name | | | | Pennsylvania--which is still where thousands of Amish |
| For a century or two, the people we know as the | | | | live today. Over time, the Amish spread westward and |
| Amish were simply called Anabaptists or the Swiss | | | | southward from Lancaster County. Today the region |
| Brethren. Sometimes they were called Mennonites, | | | | with the most Amish families is Holmes County, Ohio, |
| after Menno Simons, the leader of a group of | | | | where over 30,000 Amish people live. |
| Anabaptists in the Netherlands. However, in the late | | | | |