Hauländer

Hauländer is a German-language term for German settlers in Prussia and in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Their settlement contracts with owners of the land where they founded villages followed practices introduced into Poland by Mennonite immigrants from the Netherlands and Friesland in the 16th and 17th centuries. These contracts specified certain freedoms not enjoyed by serfs. Villages settled under this law were called Holęndry or Olędry, and the inhabitants of such villages were called Olędrzy (singular: Olęder <-- Hauländer), regardless of their ethnicity (i.e., even if they were ethnically Polish or German).