Since the 14^th century, historians have recorded ten major migration waves of the Serbian people. During the past seven centuries, Serbians moved mainly across the Balkans, from Bela Krajina in Slovenia and Military Krajina in Croatia (ex-Habsburg monarchy) to Dubrovnik, Dalmatia and to New Serbia in Russia. In the early 1800s, the Serbs from all over Europe started migrating across the Atlantic to the New World. The first recorded Serb in the USA was Djordje Šagić (George Fisher) who arrived in America in 1815. Having lived in the USA for more than fifty years and having accumulated considerable wealth but never forgetting his Slavic origin, he founded Russian and Pan Slavonic Benevolent Society in San Francisco, in 1869. The same year, The Alaska Herald announced a book about the Slavs in San Francisco titled Sloboda which was dedicated to the Prince of Montenegro. This was the first Serbian book published in the USA.

However, a more intensive influx of Serbian immigrants, mainly from coastal areas such as Boka, Dalmatia, Hercegovina and Lika was prompted by the Gold Rush during the late 1840s and 1850s. The first mention of Serbs in America was in the newspaper called Podonavka News on March 5^th, 1848, in the text “Srbleni u America” authored by S. Popovich.  According to him, the estimated number of Serbs from Dalmatia and Boka was as follows: New Orleans (300), New Mexico (300), Texas (250), Florida (200), New York (200), Philadelphia (160), Mobile (120), Washington (100), Boston (100), Louisville (50), Charleston (30), Baltimore (20).

At that time, the West Coast (San Francisco and the Bay Area, in particular) became а leading Serbian cultural center in the USA with the first South Slav organization in the world Slavonic Illyric Mutual and Benevolent Society established overseas in 1857.

According to some sources (Pejović, 1935, 25 ), New Orleans is likely the earliest Serbian community in the USA as it is known that the first Serbian settlers (mariners from Boka) came to New Orleans with the intention to stay as early as the 1830s and that by 1845, there hade been established a fully-formed Serbian community. The first Serbian-Americans in New Orleans were born in the late 1840s.

The southernmost Serbian colony, Galveston, TX, was not formed before the mid-1880s although the first city paper in this coast town was issued to an individual named Jaksich in 1849, which is only thirteen years upon the establishment of the city of Galveston in 1836.

The movement of the Serbs from other areas of the homeland (e.g. the Prečani Serbs from Vojvodina, Serbs from Kordun and Banija) started after 1880 and they mainly settled in the industrial heart of the USA, the East Coast and the Midwest. By late 1890s and early 1900s, more notable Serbian colonies started appearing in Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit.

Almost instantly upon arrival in the New World, Serbs started getting organized into various societies and associations. Between 1857−1910 there were total of 52 Serbian organizations registered in 17 US federal states. Most societies and associations were founded in California (18) with the most notable and influential being the First Serbian Benevolent Society founded in 1880. Their literary and library activities inspired the launch of the newspaper Sloboda (1893). They recognized the need to preserve their mother tongue Serbian and the cultural roots of the motherland, which were to serve as a bond among the Serbian community members. The following words taken from the first issue of the Serbian paper Srbin-Amerikanac (Србин-Американац) published on May 22, 1893, in San Francisco, California best illustrate how important the national and ethnic identity was to American Serbs of the time.

“Ево вам Србина Американца лист који неће сјеђети на двије столице и неће мијешати народност и вјеру, већ ће се држати својега начеља и почитовати све Славене што признају СРБИНУ ОНО ШТО ЈЕ НЈЕГОВО“.

The precise number of Serbs in the USA at that time remains unknown as, according to the account that the editor of Srbin Amerikanac gives in his opening article, “apart from the Czechs, Serbs are the most numerous Slavonic people in America, but, alas, they are not referred to as Serbs but as Austrians, Illyrians, Italians, Croats or Slavs…” Indeed, according to the Review of Census Schedules of 1850 to 1880 in California, less than 1% of South Slavic immigrants were listed as Serbs, while majority of those declaring themselves as Dalmatian, Montenegrin, or Slavonian were registered as Austrians but also as Italians, Venetians, Turks or Hungarians. For example, even Michael Pupin was registered as a Hungarian while Tesla was recorded as an Austrian immigrant. In this way, the first Serbian pioneers were innocently [blended] and their exact contribution to the American history, heritage and building of America remains largely unknown.

At the same time, from 1860−1885, the so-called South Slavic business community in Nevada, which included the proprietors of general stores, saloons and coffee shops, was the fourth largest thus outnumbering other European immigrant communities except for the English, German and Irish ones. Similar was the situation in San Francisco. Some of the Serb-owned businesses known to have been operational in San Francisco at the time were: Radovich Anton (restaurant), Markovich Joh (saloon), Obradovich Peter (coffee saloon), Milinovich Martin (fruit export-import), Jovanović Antone (fruit export-import).

Between 1860−1890, Serbs would occasionally hit headlines and news in the papers across the Wild West and Alaska (The Alaska Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Fissure, Carson Daily Appeal, San Francisco Bulletin).

Though many sources of Serbian socio-cultural activity in the USA have been lost, those still available witness that the Serbian people living beyond the borders of Central Serbia declared themselves as Serbs and clung to their Serbian national roots through preservation of their culture with the focus on the Serbian language.

This site’s goal is to preserve that particular segment of Serbian culture and to make it visible and available to wider audiences.

Sources:

Eterovich, Adam.1980. “The First Serbian Pioneers in California and the South”, Serb World, April/May, Vol.1, No.7, 8-27.

Пејовић, М. Лука. 1934. Живот и рад америчких Срба. Срби у Ст. Луису. Свеска I. Штампарија Американског Србобрана. Питсбург, Па.

Pejović, M. Luka. 1935. Život i rad američkih Jugoslovena.  Jugosloveni na Jugu. Sveska II. Louisinana-Texas-Mississippi. Pittsburgh, PA: Štamparija Am. Srbobrana.

Pejović, M. Luka. 1936. Život i rad američkih Jugoslovena . Srbi na Srednjem Zapadu. Sveska III. Prvi deo Michigan. Pittsburgh, PA: Štamparija Am. Srbobrana.