Product Code Database
The Amish (, also or ; ), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism Christian church fellowships with Swiss people and Alsace origins. (2018). 9781607326960, University Press of Colorado. ISBN 9781607326960 As they maintain a degree of separation from surrounding populations, and hold their faith in common, the Amish have been described by certain scholars as an ethnoreligious group, combining features of an ethnicity and a Christian denomination. The Amish are closely related to Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites, denominations that are also a part of Anabaptist Christianity. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, Christian pacifism, and slowness to adopt many conveniences of modern technology, with a view neither to interrupt family time, nor replace face-to-face conversations whenever possible, and a view to maintain self-sufficiency. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility and Gelassenheit (submission to God's will).
The Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Mennonite Anabaptists in 1693 led by Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Ammann became known as Amish. In the second half of the 19th century, the Amish divided into Old Order Amish and ; the latter do not abstain from using motor cars, whereas the Old Order Amish retained much of their traditional culture. When people refer to the Amish today, they normally refer to the Old Order Amish, though there are other subgroups of Amish. (2015). 9781317477280, Routledge. ISBN 9781317477280 The Amish fall into three main subgroups—the Old Order Amish, the New Order Amish, and the Beachy Amish—all of whom wear plain dress and live their life according to the Bible as codified in their church's Ordnung. (2025). 9780253345387, Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253345387 (2017). 9781501708138, Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501708138 (2003). 9780801876318, JHU Press. ISBN 9780801876318 The Old Order Amish and New Order Amish conduct their worship in German, speak Pennsylvania Dutch, and use buggies for transportation, in contrast to the Beachy Amish who use modern technology (inclusive of motor cars) and conduct worship in the local language of the area in which they reside. Both the New Order Amish and the Beachy Amish emphasize the New Birth, evangelism to seek converts, and have . (2013). 9781601263872, Masthof Press & Bookstore. ISBN 9781601263872
In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Most Old Order Amish, New Order Amish and the Old Beachy Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch, but Indiana's Swiss Amish also speak Alemannic German. , the Amish population surpassed the 400,000 milestone, with about 405,000 Old Order Amish living in the United States, and over 6,000 in Canada: a population that is rapidly growing. Amish church groups seek to maintain a degree of separation from the non-Amish world. Non-Amish people are generally referred to as "English" by the Amish, and outside influences are often described as "worldly".
Amish church membership begins with adult baptism, usually between the ages of 16 and 23. Church districts have between 20 and 40 families, and Old Order Amish and New Order Amish Church service are held every other Sunday in a member's home or barn, while the Beachy Amish worship every Sunday in churches. The rules of the church, the Ordnung, which differs to some extent between different districts, are reviewed twice a year by all members of the church. The Ordnung must be observed by every member and covers many aspects of Old Order Amish day-to-day living, including prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. Generally, a heavy emphasis is placed on church and family relationships. The Old Order Amish typically operate their own and discontinue formal education after grade eight (age 13–14). Most Amish do not buy commercial insurance or participate in Social Security. As present-day Anabaptists, Amish church members practice nonresistance and will not perform any type of military service.
Swiss Anabaptism developed, from this point, in two parallel streams, most clearly marked by disagreement over the preferred treatment of "fallen" believers. The Emmentalers (sometimes referred to as Reistians, after bishop Hans Reist, a leader among the Emmentalers) argued that fallen believers should only be withheld from Holy Communion, and not regular meals. The Amish argued that those who had been banned should be avoided even in common meals. The Reistian side eventually formed the basis of the Swiss Mennonite Conference. Because of this common heritage, Amish and conservative Mennonites from southern Germany and Switzerland retain many similarities. Those who leave the Amish fold tend to join various congregations of Conservative Mennonites.
In the years after 1850, tensions rose within individual Amish congregations and between different Amish congregations. Between 1862 and 1878, yearly Dienerversammlungen (ministerial conferences) were held at different places, concerning how the Amish should deal with the tensions caused by the pressures of modern society. The meetings themselves were a progressive idea; for bishops to assemble to discuss uniformity was an unprecedented notion in the Amish church. By the first several meetings, the more traditionally minded bishops agreed to boycott the conferences.
The more progressive members, comprising roughly two-thirds of the group, became known by the name Amish Mennonite, and eventually united with the Mennonite Church, and other Mennonite denominations, mostly in the early 20th century. The more traditionally minded groups became known as the Old Order Amish. The Egli Amish had already started to withdraw from the Amish church in 1858. They soon drifted away from the old ways and changed their name to "Defenseless Mennonite" in 1908. Congregations who took no side in the division after 1862 formed the Conservative Amish Mennonite Conference in 1910, but dropped the word "Amish" from their name in 1957; in the year 2000 many congregations left to organize the Biblical Mennonite Alliance in order to continue the practice of traditional Anabaptist ordinances, such as headcovering.Stephen Scott. An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups. Intercourse, Penn.: 1996, pp. 122–123. (2025). 9780801899119, JHU Press. ISBN 9780801899119
Because no division occurred in Europe, the Amish congregations remaining there took the same way as the change-minded Amish Mennonites in North America and slowly merged with the Mennonites. The last Amish congregation in Germany to merge was the Ixheim Amish congregation, which merged with the neighboring Mennonite Church in 1937. Some Mennonite congregations, including most in Alsace, are descended directly from former Amish congregations.
With Germany's aggression toward the US in World War I came the suppression of the German language in the US that eventually led to language shift of most Pennsylvania German speakers, leaving the Amish and other Old Orders as almost the only speakers by the end of the 20th century. This created a language barrier around the Amish that did not exist before in that form.Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Steven M. Nolt. The Amish. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, p. 122.
In the late 1920s, the more change-minded faction of the Old Order Amish, that wanted to adopt the car, broke away from the mainstream and organized under the name Beachy Amish.
During the Second World War, the old question of military service for the Amish came up again. Because Amish young men in general refused military service, they ended up in the Civilian Public Service (CPS), where they worked mainly in forestry and hospitals. The fact that many young men worked in hospitals, where they had a lot of contact with more progressive Mennonites and the outside world, had the result that many of these men never joined the Amish church.
In the 1950s, the Beachy Amish laid heavy emphasis on the New Birth, personal holiness and Sunday School education. (2025). 9781601263872, Masthof Press & Bookstore. ISBN 9781601263872 (2025). 9781603445382, Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 9781603445382 The ones who wanted to preserve the old way of the Beachy became the Old Beachy Amish.
In 1966, the New Order Amish were formed after certain congregations left the Old Order Amish due to issues regarding salvation and "the use of modern agricultural methods." (2025). 9781610605366, Voyageur Press. ISBN 9781610605366 The Old Order Amish believe that they have a "hope for salvation", believing that "joining with other church members to live according to the Ordnung and the Bible will give them the strength to lives worthy of salvation". (2020). 9781421438702, JHU Press. ISBN 9781421438702 The New Order Amish, on the other hand, affirm that a believer can have assurance—"that one can know the state of his soul while on earth".
Until about 1950, almost all Amish children attended small, rural, non-Amish schools, but then school consolidation and mandatory schooling beyond eighth grade caused Amish opposition. Amish communities opened their own Amish schools. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court exempted Amish pupils from compulsory education past eighth grade. By the end of the 20th century, almost all Amish children attended Amish schools.Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, (2013) The Amish. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 250–255.
In the last quarter of the 20th century, a growing number of Amish men left farm work and started small businesses because of increasing pressure on small-scale farming. Though a wide variety of small businesses exists among the Amish, construction work and woodworking are quite widespread.Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Steven M. Nolt. The Amish, Baltimore: 2013, p. 294. In many Amish settlements, especially the larger ones, farmers are now a minority.Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt, The Amish Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2013, pp. 281–282. Approximately 12,000 of the 40,000 dairy farms in the United States are Amish-owned as of 2018.
Until the early 20th century, Old Order Amish identity was not linked to the limited use of technologies, as the Old Order Amish and their rural neighbors used the same farm and household technologies. Questions about the use of technologies also did not play a role in the Old Order division of the second half of the 19th century. Telephones were the first important technology that was rejected, soon followed by the rejection of cars, tractors, radios, and many other technological inventions of the 20th century. (2025). 9781421409146, JHU Press. ISBN 9781421409146
Old Order Mennonites, Old Colony Mennonites and the Amish are often grouped together in North America's popular press. This is incorrect, according to a 2017 report by Canadian Mennonite magazine:
Amish church membership begins with baptism, usually between the ages of 16 and 23. It is a requirement for marriage within the Amish church. Once a person is baptized within the church, he or she may marry only within the faith. Church districts have between 20 and 40 families and worship services are held every other Sunday in a member's home or barn. The district is led by a bishop and several ministers and deacons who are chosen by a combination of election and cleromancy (lot).
The rules of the church, the so-called Ordnung, which differs to some extent between different districts, is reviewed twice a year by all members of the church. Only if all members give their consent to it, Eucharist is held. The Ordnung must be observed by every member and covers many aspects of day-to-day living, including prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. As present-day Anabaptists, Amish church members practice nonresistance and will not perform any type of military service. The Amish value rural life, manual labor, humility, and Gelassenheit, all under the auspices of living what they interpret to be God's word.
Members who do not conform to these community expectations and who cannot be convinced to repent face excommunication and shunning. The modes of shunning vary between different communities. On average, about 85 percent of Amish youth choose to be baptized and join the church. During an adolescent period of rumspringa ( , from Pennsylvania German rumschpringe ; compare Standard German herum-, rumspringen ) in some communities, nonconforming behavior that would result in the shunning of an adult who had made the permanent commitment of baptism, may be met with a degree of forbearance.
Bearing children, raising them, and socializing with neighbors and relatives are the greatest functions of the Amish family. Amish typically believe that large families are a blessing from God. Farm families tend to be larger, because sons are needed to perform farm labor. Community is central to the Amish way of life.
Working hard is considered godly, and some technological advancements have been considered undesirable because they reduce the need for hard work. Amish also avoid using technologies they believe will disrupt their traditional lives. Machines, such as automatic floor cleaners in barns, have historically been rejected as this provides young farmhands with too much free time.
All clothing is sewn by hand, but the way to fasten the garment widely depends on whether the Amish person is a part of the New Order or Old Order Amish. The Old Order Amish seldom, if ever, use buttons because they are seen as too flashy; instead, they use the hook and eye approach to fashion clothing or metal snaps. The New Order Amish are slightly more progressive and allow the usage of buttons to help attire clothing.
Amish cuisine is often mistaken for the similar cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch with some ethnographic and regional variances, as well as differences in what cookbook writers and food historians emphasize about the traditional and intertwined religious culture and celebrations of Amish communities. While myths about the diffusion of shoofly pie are common subject matter for studies of American cuisine, food anthropologists point out that the culinary practices of Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish are innovative and dynamic, evolving across time and geographic spaces, and that not all the Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish, and not all Amish live in Pennsylvania. Distinguishing local myths from culinary fact is accomplished by dedicated anthropological field studies in combination with studies of literary sources, usually newspaper archives, diaries, and household records.
Over the years, the Amish churches have divided many times mostly over questions concerning the Ordnung, but also over doctrinal disputes, mainly about shunning. The largest group, the "Old Order" Amish, a conservative faction that separated from other Amish in the 1860s, are those who have most emphasized traditional practices and beliefs. The New Order Amish are a group of Amish whom some scholars see best described as a subgroup of Old Order Amish, despite the name.
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Contrary to popular belief, the word "Dutch" in "Pennsylvania Dutch" is not a mistranslation, but rather a corruption of the Pennsylvania German endonym Deitsch, which means "Pennsylvania Dutch / German" or "German".Hughes Oliphant Old: The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 6: The Modern Age. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007, p. 606.Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, p. 2Hostetler, John A. (1993), Amish Society, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 241Irwin Richman: The Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Arcadia Publishing, 2004, p. 16. Ultimately, the terms Deitsch, Dutch, Middle Dutch and German language are all and descend from the Proto-Germanic word meaning "popular" or "of the people".W. Haubrichs, " Theodiscus, Deutsch und Germanisch – drei Ethnonyme, drei Forschungsbegriffe. Zur Frage der Instrumentalisierung und Wertbesetzung deutscher Sprach- und Volksbezeichnungen." In: H. Beck et al., Zur Geschichte der Gleichung "germanisch-deutsch" (2004), 199–228 The continued use of "Pennsylvania Dutch" was strengthened by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 19th century as a way of distinguishing themselves from later (post 1830) waves of German immigrants to the United States, with the Pennsylvania Dutch referring to themselves as Deitsche and to Germans as Deitschlenner (literally "Germany-ers", compare Deutschländ-er) whom they saw as a related but distinct group.Mark L. Louden: Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. JHU Press, 2006, pp. 3–4
According to one scholar, "today, almost all Amish are functionally bilingual in Pennsylvania Dutch and English; however, domains of usage are sharply separated. Pennsylvania Dutch dominates in most in-group settings, such as the dinner table and preaching in church services. In contrast, English is used for most reading and writing. English is also the medium of instruction in schools and is used in business transactions and often, out of politeness, in situations involving interactions with non-Amish. Finally, the Amish read prayers and sing in Standard German (which, in Pennsylvania Dutch, is called HochdeitschHochdeitsch is the Pennsylvania Dutch equivalent of the Standard German word Hochdeutsch; both words literally mean "High German".) at church services. The distinctive use of three different languages serves as a powerful conveyor of Amish identity. "Although 'the English language is being used in more and more situations,' Pennsylvania Dutch is 'one of a handful of minority languages in the United States that is neither endangered nor supported by continual arrivals of immigrants.'"
In 2010, a few religious bodies, including the Amish, changed the way their adherents were reported to better match the standards of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. When looking at all Amish adherents and not solely Old Order Amish, about 241,000 Amish adherents were in 28 U.S. states in 2010.
The Amish added 100,000 more adherents in just 9 years, reaching 411,000 in 2025 in comparison with the 308,000 figure from 2016, at the same time the total number of settlements grew from 509 to 684 (+34%), and the number of districts went from 2,259 to 3,114 (+38%).
| + Amish population by U.S. state and year ! data-sort-type="text" | State ! data-sort-type="number" | 1992 ! data-sort-type="number" | 2000 ! data-sort-type="number" | 2010 ! data-sort-type="number" | 2020 ! data-sort-type="number" | 2025 |
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| 18,465 | ||||||
| 16,720 | ||||||
| 10,965 |
The United States is the home to the overwhelming majority (over 98 percent) of Amish people. In 2025, Old Order communities were present in 32 U.S. states. The total Amish population in the United States has stood at 404,575 up 9,855 or 2.5 percent, compared to the previous year. Pennsylvania has the largest population (95.4 thousand), followed by Ohio (86.3 thousand) and Indiana (67.3 thousand), . The largest Amish settlements are in Lancaster County in southeastern Pennsylvania (44.7 thousand), Holmes County and adjacent counties in northeastern Ohio (39.0 thousand), and Elkhart County and LaGrange counties in northeastern Indiana (29.9 thousand), . The highest concentration of Amish in the world is in the Holmes County community; nearly 50 percent of the entire population of Holmes County is Amish as of 2010.
The largest concentration of Amish west of the Mississippi River is in Missouri, with other settlements in eastern Iowa and southeast Minnesota. The largest Amish settlements in Iowa are located near Kalona and Bloomfield. The largest settlement in Wisconsin is near Cashton with 13 congregations, i.e. about 2,000 people in 2009. "Wisconsin Amish: Cashton" at amishamerica.com.
Because of the rapid population growth of the Amish communities, new settlements in the United States are being established each year, thus: 18 new settlements were established in 2016, 22 in 2017, 17 in 2018, 26 in 2019, 26 in 2020, 18 in 2021, 19 in 2022, 39 in 2023 and 19 in 2024. Amish Population in the United States and Canada by State and County, September 18, 2021 by Edsel Burdge, Jr., Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College. The main reason for the continuous expansion is to obtain enough affordable farmland, other reasons for new settlements include locating in isolated areas that support their lifestyle, moving to areas with cultures conducive to their way of life, maintaining proximity to family or other Amish groups, and sometimes to resolve church or leadership conflicts.
The adjacent table shows the eight states with the largest Amish population in the years 1992, 2000, 2010, 2020 and 2025. 2010 U.S. Religion Census , official website.
Rising land prices are causing some Amish families to leave Ontario. Since 2015, some Amish families have settled in provinces other than Ontario, including Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, primarily due to farmland prices, the geography of existing Amish settlements in both Canada and the United States, and the political hospitality of certain provinces. Since 2017, some Amish families originally from Ontario have settled in Manitoba's Rural Municipality of Stuartburn.
The Old Order Amish in Canada trace their origins to two distinct waves of Amish Mennonites migration. The first wave occurred in the 1880s, when a group of Amish Mennonites from Europe settled in Ontario. The second wave of Old Order Amish migration occurred in the 1950s, when Amish communities from states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Iowa established settlements in Ontario.
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The majority of Old Order settlements are located in the province of Ontario, namely Oxford (Norwich Township) and Norfolk Counties. A small community is also established in Bruce County (Huron-Kinloss) near Lucknow.
In 2016, several dozen Old Order Amish families founded two new settlements in Kings County in the province of Prince Edward Island. Increasing land prices in Ontario had reportedly limited the ability of members in those communities to purchase new farms. At about the same time a new settlement was founded near Perth-Andover in New Brunswick, only about from Amish settlements in Maine. In 2017, an Amish settlement was founded in Manitoba near Stuartburn. at amishamerica.com. In 2024 this colony ceased to exist, as the Amish have sold their properties and moved to Minnesota.
Two whole Christian communities have joined the Amish: the church at Smyrna, Maine, one of the five Christian Communities of Elmo Stoll after Stoll's death and the church at Manton, Michigan, which belonged to a community that was founded by Harry Wanner (1935–2012), a minister of Stauffer Old Order Mennonite background. The "Michigan Amish Churches", with which Smyrna and Manton affiliated, are said to be more open to seekers and converts than other Amish churches. Most of the members of these two para-Amish communities originally came from Plain people, i.e. Old Order Amish, Old Order Mennonite, or Old German Baptist Brethren.
More people have tested Old Order Amish life for weeks, months, or even years, but in the end decided not to join. Others remain close to the Amish, but never think of joining.
On the other hand, the Beachy Amish, many of whom conduct their services in English and allow for a limited range of modern conveniences, regularly receive seekers into their churches as visitors, and eventually, as members.
Stephen Scott, himself a convert to the Old Order River Brethren, distinguishes four types of seekers:
Various congregations belonging to Old Order Anabaptism and Conservative Anabaptism lend support to Christian Aid Ministries, a missionary arm of these movements, along with Iron Curtain and Freiheit Messengers Prison Ministry. (2010). 9780801897900, JHU Press. ISBN 9780801897900
While the Amish are at an increased risk for some genetic disorders, researchers have found their tendency for clean living can lead to better health. Overall cancer rates in the Amish are reduced and tobacco-related cancers in Amish adults are 37 percent and non-tobacco-related cancers are 72 percent of the rate for Ohio adults. Skin cancer rates are lower for Amish, even though many Amish make their living working outdoors where they are exposed to sunlight. They are typically covered and dressed by wearing wide-brimmed hats and long sleeves which protect their skin.
Treating genetic problems is the mission of Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, which has developed effective treatments for such problems as maple syrup urine disease, a previously fatal disease. The clinic is embraced by most Amish, ending the need for parents to leave the community to receive proper care for their children, an action that might result in shunning. Another clinic is DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children, located in Middlefield, Ohio, for special-needs children with inherited or metabolic disorders. The DDC Clinic provides treatment, research, and educational services to Amish and non-Amish children and their families.
People's Helpers is an Amish-organized network of mental health caregivers who help families dealing with mental illness and recommend professional counselors. Suicide rates for the Amish are about half that of the general population.
The Old Order Amish do not typically carry private commercial health insurance. A handful of American hospitals, starting in the mid-1990s, created special outreach programs to assist the Amish. In some Amish communities, the church will collect money from its members to help pay for medical bills of other members. Although the Amish are often perceived by outsiders as rejecting all modern technologies, this is not the case and modern medicine is employed by Amish communities, including hospital births and other advanced treatments. As they go without health insurance and pay up front for services, Amish individuals will often travel to Mexico for non-urgent care and surgery to reduce costs.
Amish typically have a large number of children, not because of any lack of birth control but because of their beliefs and because large families are useful in agrarian communities. Comparing the number of children per family across multiple communities, it is clear that some Amish seem to practice some form of family planning, a subject that generally is not discussed among the Amish, because the size of families increases in correlation with the conservatism of a congregation—the more conservative, the more children. Some communities openly allow access to birth control to women whose health would be compromised by childbirth. The Amish are against abortion and also find "artificial insemination, genetics, eugenics, and stem cell research" to be "inconsistent with Amish values and beliefs".
The modern way of life in general has increasingly diverged from that of Amish society. On occasion, this has resulted in sporadic discrimination and hostility from their neighbors, such as throwing of stones or other objects at Amish horse-drawn carriages on the roads.
The Amish do not usually educate their children past the eighth grade, believing that the basic knowledge offered up to that point is sufficient to prepare one for the Amish lifestyle. Almost no Amish go to high school and college. In many communities, the Amish operate their own schools, which are typically one-room schoolhouses with teachers (usually young, unmarried women) from the Amish community. On May 19, 1972, Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller of the Old Order Amish, and Adin Yutzy of the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church were each fined $5 for refusing to send their children, aged 14 and 15, to high school. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the conviction, Wisconsin v. Yoder, 182 N.W.2d 539 (Wis. 1971). and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this, finding the benefits of universal education were not sufficient justification to overcome scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 32 L.Ed.2d 15, 92 S.Ct. 1526 (1972).
The Amish are subject to sales and property taxes. As they seldom own motor vehicles, they rarely have occasion to pay motor vehicle registration fees or spend money on the purchase of fuel for vehicles. Under their beliefs and traditions, generally the Amish do not agree with the idea of Social Security benefits and have a religious objection to insurance. On this basis, the United States Internal Revenue Service agreed in 1961 that they did not need to pay Social Security-related taxes. In 1965, this policy was codified into law. Self-employed individuals in certain sects do not pay into or receive benefits from the United States Social Security system. This exemption applies to a religious group that is conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any private or public insurance, provides a reasonable level of living for its dependent members, and has existed continuously since December 31, 1950. The U.S. Supreme Court clarified in 1982 that Amish employers are not exempt, but only those Amish individuals who are self-employed.
Reports of poor standards of care and treatment of dogs as a cash crop by members of the Amish community has led to calls for puppy mills and auctions to be closed, with one breeder being issued with a restraining order from the practice for numerous violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. At the time the restraining order was issued, the breeder had at least 1,000 dogs in their care.
Conservative "Russian" Mennonites and Hutterites who also dress plain and speak German dialects emigrated from other European regions at different times with different German dialects, separate cultures, and related but different religious traditions. Particularly, the Hutterites live communally and are generally accepting of modern technology.
In Ukraine there is a nameless movement of Baptists that has been compared to the Amish, due to their similar beliefs of plain living and pacifism.
The few remaining Plain Quakers are similar in manner and lifestyle, including their attitudes toward war, but are unrelated to the Amish. Early Quakers were influenced, to some degree, by the Anabaptists, and in turn influenced the Amish in colonial Pennsylvania. Almost all modern Quakers have since abandoned their traditional dress.
As early as 1809 Amish were farming side by side with Native American farmers in Pennsylvania. According to Cones Kupwah Snowflower, a Shawnee genealogist, the Amish and Quakers were known to incorporate Native Americans into their families to protect them from ill-treatment, especially after the Removal Act of 1832.Cones Kupwah Snowflower in NAAH No. July 14, 1996 "Let's Get Physical"
The Amish, as pacifists, did not engage in warfare with Native Americans, nor displace them directly, but were among the European immigrants whose arrival resulted in their displacement.
In 2012, the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society collaborated with the Native American community to construct a replica Iroquois Longhouse. The following years saw continuous efforts to meet with local Indigenous in a series of reconciliation meetings, a process started by Lancaster Mennonites more than a decade prior.
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