Prince Charles (Karl) of Solms-Braunfels (July 27, 1812 — November 13, 187) was a German prince and military officer in both the Austrian army and the cavalry of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. As commissioner general of Adelsverein, he spearheaded the establishment of German immigrant colonies in Texas. The largest and most unusual immigration of Germans to the United States occurred in Texas in the mid-19th century. The organization formed to lead this German colonization of Texas became popularly known as Adelsverein (The Society of Nobles).
The key figure in this settlement was Carl, prince of Solms-Braunfel, appointed commissioner-general by the Adelsverein. The Solms diary of this time was discovered in documents related to the Adelsverein and has been translated here for the first time. He was the handsome prince of wealth and privilege, well-educated and well-connected, seeking adventure and looking for new worlds to explore. A series of letters, which were later converted into formal reports, chart the route and detail Carl's growing understanding of North American culture, commerce, and geopolitics.
He pressured his many family members, traveled incognito through France and Belgium to the Isle of Wight, where he may have met Prince Albert and, together with other members, won covert support from England, France and Belgium for the Texas colonial project, which was both philanthropic and mercantile, and political. Unlike some members of the German nobility, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels (for short) seemed to be genuinely concerned about the inhabitants of his crowded and impoverished “kingdom”. While stationed in the imperial garrison of Biebrich, he read Charles Sealsfield's novel about Texas (see POSTL, CARL ANTON), The Geography of Texas by William Kennedy and G. That same year Carl became a cavalry captain in the Austrian imperial army, progressing on important missions in the Balkans.
Bohemia and Rhineland. It was during his service in the cavalry that Carl read books about Texas and became interested in joining the Adelsverein, zealously campaigning for its success. Prince Charles (Charles) of Solms-Braunfels (July 27, 1812 — November 13, 187) was a German prince and military officer in both the Austrian army and the cavalry of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. At age 30, after hearing good reports about opportunities in the newly independent Republic of Texas, he joined other German counts and princes to form the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, which later set out to establish a German colony.
After the arrival in December 1844 of the society's first settlers, some of whom he left in Indianola or Carlshafen, the prince drove the first wagon train into the interior of Texas. A precocious morganatic marriage, which had begun in secret in 1834, tarnished their prospects when they met, until, under duress from all sides, Carl agreed in 1841 to have his wife, retired as Baroness Luise von Schönau, and their three children imprisoned because of that marriage. In March 1845, while immigrants were preparing for their trip to the interior, Prince Charles went to San Antonio to buy land called Las Fontanas, along the legendary Camino Real, for a temporary settlement on the road to the Fisher-Miller scholarship. Prince Solms married Maria Josephine Sophia, widow of Prince Francis of Salm-Salm and princess of Lowenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, on December 3, 1845. Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Ludwig Georg Alfred Alexander, Prince of Solms, Lord of Braunfels, Grafenstein, Münzenberg, Wildenfels and Sonnenwalde, the first commissioner-general of Adelsverein and imperial field marshal, was born in Neustrelitz on July 27, 1812, the youngest son of Prince Frederick William of Solms-Braunfels and the princess Friederika of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The royal infant was christened Carl Frederick Wilhelm Ludwig Georg Alfred Alexander, Prince of Solms, Lord of Braunfels, Grafenstein, Muenzenberg, Wildenfels and Sonnenwalde. .
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