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Samuel Urlsperger (August 31, 1685 in Kirchheim unter Teck, Germany – April 21, 1772 in Augsburg, Germany) was a German Lutheran theologian with pietistic orientations. Funded by the Dowager Duchess Magdalena Sibylla of Hesse-Darmstadt, Urlsperger completed his theological studies in Tübingen (1707). Shortly after his study trip that led him to places like Halle and London, which brought the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge" in contact with him, Urlsperger became a chaplain in 1714, and then he became a court preacher in Stuttgart in 1715. From time to time he stayed in prison for criticizing the lifestyle of Duke Eberhard Ludwig von Württemberg. In 1720 he was a pastor and superintendent in Herrenberg, three years later he became a pastor of the Main Church of St. Anne in Augsburg, where he would later be granted the title of Senior of the Evangelical Ministry. Urlsperger also served as a local agent and as a diplomat fully authorized to represent his government. From 1735 to 1752 he edited the 18 Continuations of the "Detailed Reports on the Salzburger emigrants who settled in America" which contain the diaries and letters of two pastors (Boltzius and Gronau) who accompanied and helped Urlsperger to transfer the exiled Salzburgers from their lands and settle them at Ebenezer near Savannah, Georgia. He edited and published portions of his correspondence with the emigrants' pastors, passages from the pastors' travel diaries, and reports from the Royal British Commisioner, Baron Georg Philipp Friedrich von Reck, a Hanoverian nobleman, who accompanied the emigrants.

Urlsperger came from a former prestigious and wealthy Hungarian family that, during the Thirty Years’ War, was forced to emigrate like many other Protestants in Hungary and Styria due to religious persecution.

In 1733, Urlsperger and the English Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge invited a group of Salzburgers to travel to the Colony of Georgia; they accepted the invitation and were then transported under various terms, such as: they would receive free passage from Rotterdam (where they would meet with Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau) to Georgia; the head of every family would be given fifty acres of land in Georgia; and the Salzburgers would be guaranteed religious liberty and the rights of English citizens. At Rotterdam, Urslperger and the Salzburgers were joined by Boltzius and Gronau. Altogether they traveled to England, where they took the oath of allegiance to the British Government on January 8, 1734 in order to set sail for Georgia on the ship "Purisburg" under Captain Coram. A great quantity of archives that document the Salzburgers' emigration to America are available. Nevertheless, they do not seem to answer basic questions that still remain regarding their justification for their trans-Atlantic journey. The reasons for the Salzburgers to emigrate to Georgia are unclear, however, Urlsperger believed that convincing the Salzburgers of emigrating to Georgia was of the uttermost importance despite having the opportunity of following the call of the Prussian king to settle in his East Prussian or Lithuanian territories. A text that was published by an anonymous author in 1733 in Frankfurt demonstrated a balance sheet of the advantages and disadvantages of a respective emigration to Prussia or America. Although he tried to refute the arguments favoring Prussia, Urlsperger ultimately admitted that travelling to Georgia would be more dangerous and much less certain of success than the simple journey to the Prussian lands. Urlsperger concluded his apology, however, by emphasizing that religion was the main reason of their emigration to America. "If the emigrants were to desert the cross and seek only a good life, they would not be faithful pilgrims," said Urlsperger.