THE EARLY HISTORY OF PANNA MARIA, TEXAS ... - Repositories

that they might have formerly had to their peasants as
serfs.
For example, lords no longer allowed the peasants
to graze their animals on manoral lands.
By these
arrangements, although the peasants gained somewhat
greater personal freedom, they often found themselves in
g
a more difficult economic situation.
The 1850's were times of increasing food prices
in Upper Silesia.
Already in 1852 officials of the
Prussian government were reporting to Berlin that inflated
food prices were causing increased poverty among the
people in Upper Silesian villages and towns.
Bad harvests
of grain and potatoes the following year further raised
the prices of these foods vital to the Polish peasant
diet.
The head of the Prussian administration in the
Opole Regency summed up the situation there in 185 3 by
saying that the "working class suffers the most because
of the rising prices of essential foods, living on the
7
things they can get from hand to mouth."
The Crimean War, beginning in autumn of 1853,
further increased the prices of food in Upper Silesia.
The suddenly increased need for bread by the Russian
army stopped the flow of cheap Russian grain to the
88-93.
Brozek, Emigracja Zamorska, pp. 3-4; Rose, pp.
7 Brozek, Emigracja Zamorska, p. 7.