Almost half a million Swiss have emigrated to the US. Some have left their mark there. According to estimates, around 460,000 Swiss nationals have made the journey across the Atlantic since the 16th century. Probably the first Swiss to arrive on what is now American soil was Diebold von Erlach from Bern. In 1564, he landed in what is now the state of Florida. It is also known today that Swiss emigrants were involved in the construction of Jamestown in 1608. This town in Virginia was the first permanent settlement of the English in North America. Where exactly these Swiss came from can no longer be traced from the sources, as historian David Aragai explains. "But they were already on the ground in the British colonies of North America at this early stage." However, emigration was not a mass phenomenon at the time, emphasises Aragai. On the one hand, it was individuals, typically merchants, who were involved in the Atlantic trade and were therefore partly connected to the slave trade.
