Also, omg, you mentioned "huge immigration waves" and I had a duh moment. I *own* a book on a mass 18th century German migration: the Great Palatine Migration of 1709. It was the biggest migration to the pre-revolutionary American colonies. I learned about it as a child because my mother was the family historian and discovered that this is how one branch of our family came to the not-yet-United States. And I had a memory of them asking permission.
I searched "emigrate" in the book, and sure enough:
The principalities of the German southwest carefully regulated migration, requiring people to petition the government for permission to leave the territory. Once they received such permission, emigrants had to pay a departure tax and a tax on any property they removed from the territory. In addition Leibeigene had to pay a manu-mission fee before emigrating...Such regulations and fees caused many people to leave illegally without informing the government. Rulers tried to discourage illegal emigration by seizing property that was left behind, thus ensuring that it did not pass on to relatives or heirs remaining in the country.
It makes sense: every single thing I've read about the 18th (and previous) centuries agrees that everyone believed more population == better, for economic and military reasons. With 90+% of the population having to do agriculture just to keep the rest of the population alive, they weren't *wrong* (although there were exceptions, like the Dutch, who managed to at least temporarily generate wealth with a small population).
So naturally you're going to try to keep your own population from emigrating, and naturally, even before you try to destroy the Saxon economy in all possible other ways, you're going to have spies trying to lure Saxon families into your Prussian colonies.
Re: Random Pfeiffer
I searched "emigrate" in the book, and sure enough:
The principalities of the German southwest carefully regulated migration, requiring people to petition the government for permission to leave the territory. Once they received such permission, emigrants had to pay a departure tax and a tax on any property they removed from the territory. In addition Leibeigene had to pay a manu-mission fee before emigrating...Such regulations and fees caused many people to leave illegally without informing the government. Rulers tried to discourage illegal emigration by seizing property that was left behind, thus ensuring that it did not pass on to relatives or heirs remaining in the country.
(Leibeigene are serfs,
It makes sense: every single thing I've read about the 18th (and previous) centuries agrees that everyone believed more population == better, for economic and military reasons. With 90+% of the population having to do agriculture just to keep the rest of the population alive, they weren't *wrong* (although there were exceptions, like the Dutch, who managed to at least temporarily generate wealth with a small population).
So naturally you're going to try to keep your own population from emigrating, and naturally, even before you try to destroy the Saxon economy in all possible other ways, you're going to have spies trying to lure Saxon families into your Prussian colonies.