Eastern Pomeranian

The Eastern Pomeranians are the Low German-speaking people of the duchy of Pomerania, whose Slavic inhabitants were subdued by the Polish duke Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1102 to 1121. His vassal Wartislaw I founded the Griffin dynasty, which ruled for five centuries. The missionary Otto of Bamberg visited in 1124 to 1125 and 1128, when the nobility accepted Christianity at Usedom.

The dukes settled under the Holy Roman Empire as vassals in 1227. During the Ostsiedlung they founded towns such as Stralsund in 1234 and Stettin from 1237; colonists' Middle Low German became the East Pomeranian dialect as Slavs were Germanized.

Pomerania adopted Protestantism in 1534. When the last Griffin, Bogislaw XIV, died in 1637, the duchy was split: the 1648 Peace of Westphalia gave Farther Pomerania to Brandenburg-Prussia and the west to Sweden, which ceded Stettin to Prussia in 1720; the 1815 Congress of Vienna united Pomerania under Prussia.