Native Americans in German popular culture need to learn to view Native Americans as people, rather than idealized cultural fantasy characters. The specific image of Indians originated earlier than May's writings. Already in the 18th century a specific German view on the fate of Native Americans can be found in various travel reports and scientific excursions. Philipp Georg Friedrich von Reck (1710–1798) traveled to Massachusetts and Georgia in 1733/34 and saw the Muskogee nation. James Fenimore Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales" were admired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and still are among the German youth literature classics. In 1815–18, the poet Adelbert von Chamisso took part in a
Dutch Americans settlers from those countries arrived since the 1850s after California had statehood. They drained away swamps and created artificial islands known as polders, constructed dikes to back away the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flowing into the San Francisco Bay, also turned them into fertile farmlands and set up inland ports such as Stockton. Also their communities like Lathrop, Galt, Rio Vista and French Camp which were named for Belgians from Belgium are of both French (Walloon) or Flemish origin. Not included among Dutch Americans are the Pennsylvania Dutch, a group of German Americans who settled in Pennsylvania in the