Template:Wp-Bytów-History

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According to the city's official webpage the name Bytów comes from the founder of the settlement named "Byt". A settlement was first mentioned by the name of Butow in 1321.

Bytów passed to the Teutonic Knights in 1329. From 1335 comes the oldest mention of a Catholic parish, which, however, could have existed since the 12th or 13th century.^[1] In 1346 it was granted town rights. The castle seen today was built by the Knights between 1399 and 1405 at the site of the older castle, to protect their western border. It has been the seat of an administrator of the State of the Teutonic Knights.

This castle was captured by Poland after the Battle of Grunwald (1410), and king Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland gave it to Bogislaw VIII, Duke of Pomerania, for all of his lifetime as payment for support obtained from him against the Teutonic Knights. In the Peace of Thorn (1411) Bogislaw had to return the castle to the Knights. The town did not join the Prussian Confederation's revolt against the Teutonic Knights.

The town alternated between Poland and the monastic state during the Polish-Teutonic Wars, and returned to Polish control after the Second Peace of Thorn (1466). Poland gave Bytów as lien to the Dukes of Pomerania. Since 1526 the Pomerania dukes held it as an inheritable lien.

In 1627 during the Thirty Years' War, the town was rebuilt after being destroyed by a fire. When the Pomeranian dukes died out in 1637 Bytów ceased to be a Polish fief and became directly ruled by Poland,^[1] administratively part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Then the local nobility obtained equal rights with the nobility of the entire Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.^[1] Bytów was overshadowed by Lębork, which developed faster and became the seat of local starosts. In 1651 there was a dispute between the city authorities and the starost Jakub Wejher, regarding overdue taxes.^[2] To gain an ally against Sweden during the Deluge, in 1657 King John II Casimir of Poland gave the Lauenburg and Bütow Land to Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia as a hereditary fief in the Treaty of Bydgoszcz.^[3] Although Poland still retained sovereignty, the town was administered by Brandenburg and, after 1701, by the Kingdom of Prussia. Brandenburg imposed higher taxes to pay off its debts after the Thirty Years' War. During the 18th century, the town suffered from fires and plague.

In 1773 in the First Partition of Poland the town was wholly incorporated in the Prussian Province of Pomerania. In the 18th century attempts began at Germanisation of the indigenous Polish-Kashubian population by introducing German into schools.^[4] It remained a center of Polish resistance against Germanisation and was a Polish-Kashubian printing center. From 1846 to 1945, Bütow was the seat of the Landkreis Bütow district in Prussia. The town became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany. Polish minority remained active in the city, and in 1910 a Polish Bank Ludowy was founded here.

After the end of World War I and the re-establishment of independent Poland, the Treaty of Versailles kept the town in the Weimar Republic in 1919. There was an economic decline, many Germans emigrated to western Germany, and the population was slowly decreasing. In the interbellum numerous Polish organizations, including the Union of Poles in Germany, operated in the town.^[5] Poles were subjected to repressions. The hero of the local Polish population was a local Polish teacher, Jan Bauer, who was arrested by the Germans in 1929. Months before World War II, in 1939, the Germans carried out arrests of notable local Poles, incl. activists and the head of the local Polish bank.

During World War II the Polish population was subject to deportations and executions, two of its leaders, and were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps,^[6] however, the town remained a local center of the Polish resistance movement (Kashubian Griffin).^[5] It was captured by the Soviet Red Army on 8 March 1945. Some inhabitants had fled before the Soviet advance. In April 1945, it was put under Polish administration, confirmed after the end of the war by the Potsdam Conference and the Polish name Bytów was restored. Those German inhabitants, which had remained in the town or had returned to it short after the war, were later on expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. The indigenous Polish-Kashubian population was joined by Poles displaced from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union and from the rest of Kashubia.

Bytów became the seat of a powiat (1946–1975, 1999-) within Poland. From 1975 to 1998 it was administratively part of the Słupsk Voivodeship.

Kashubian Emigration to America

During the Kashubian diaspora, many families from Bytów such as the Brezas and the Pehlers emigrated to the area of Winona, Minnesota in the United States, beginning in 1859. The Prussian policy was to force the Kashubians out to make room for German settlers. Some Kashubians moved across the Mississippi River to Pine Creek, Wisconsin in the early 1860s. Many found jobs in the lumber mills during the lumber boom of the late 1800s occurring in the region.