My mother gave me a fascinating book, published in 1947, called Americans from Holland by Arnold Mulder. Mulder’s perspective is of a writer who has just witnessed the world going through WWII, and while this book reads as a definitive history secondary source, it is shaped by the time period in which it was written. That said, it’s the best account I’ve seen of the history of the Dutch in the United States and what led up to the waves of immigration.
Five years ago I wrote about one of my ancestors who applied to the city of Goes to emigrate. You can find the story of tailor Adriaan Zuijdweg’s (1805-1851) declined petition in this post: My Dutch Family Almost Arrived in the U.S. Decades Earlier. At the time, the only information I had was what Elly Mulder had given me, telling me about the “separated” Reformed Church and how Adriaan probably was probably part of the separatists.
The chapter, “Souls or Bodies,” sheds more light on the situation for Adriaan and his family, as well as other members of his congregation.
Mulder investigates whether it was religious differences or economic troubles that drove the Dutch to begin to immigrate to the United States in the 19th century. He describes how the Reformed Church had been negatively transformed by the government after Napoleon. According to the Napoleonic Code, they were not allowed to gather in groups of more than twenty. Dissenters appeared who wanted to bring the church back to what it had been. The government cracked down on them, levying fines on the religious leaders and others who allowed church services in their homes or businesses. The leaders were arrested. The more the government went after them, the more dissenters appeared.
Two of the main leaders were the Reverend Hendrik Pieter Scholte and the Reverend Albertus Christiaan Van Raalte. Scholte immigrated to Iowa with his congregation.
Scholte founded the town of Pella, Iowa, in 1847. His house was one of the first buildings constructed there. That house is now on the National Register of Historic Places, and you can see from the photo that house was enlarged at some point.
from Wikipedia
Van Raalte’s group went to Michigan (and perhaps Wisconsin) in 1846, one year after Adriaan ‘s request to leave the Netherlands.
By as cited RVD (although unlikely because it did not exist at the time) – Nationaal Archief Nederland, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4198265
Note: The town of Zeeland was founded by Jannes van de Luijster (Luyster) and other immigrants in 1847. What I have not yet discovered is where the lives and influence of Van Raalte and Van de Luijster intersected.
Arnold Mulder argues that the immigrants were not individuals immigrating to the United States, but rather communities–specifically, church communities.
If you think about it this way, it would have been a real hardship for Adriaan not to be allowed to emigrate from the Netherlands with his community. What I do not understand is why some would have been allowed and others not, but it might have had to do with the city itself. Adriaan was from Goes, and it was the government of Goes that denied him his request. Van Raalte was from a town in Overijssel, far from Zeeland. So while Adriaan’s church community may have been part of the separated/seceded Reformed church, it was not Van Raalte’s own congregation. Jannes van de Luijster was born in Hooftplatt, Zeeland, about 30 miles from Goes, so it’s more likely that Adriaan was following his lead. It would be fascinating to know how many requests during that period were approved by Goes. Clearly, because of the timing of Adriaan’s request, he intended to be in an early group moving to the United States. [Important note: at first the Van Raalte group were in New York, and then after Van Raalte saw the value of Michigan land for farming, moved to west Michigan.]
Mulder conjectures that it wasn’t only the religious differences that caused the Dutch to leave during this time. He believed that the Dutch would have stayed and fought their battles at home if that were the only reason. You see, they really didn’t want to leave the Netherlands. But Napoleon had stripped the Netherlands of much of her wealth, and the Dutch were struggling economically. With a population of two million, 700,000 Dutch people were on the dole in one way or another! With hunger, disease had also increased.
At the end of the chapter, Mulder makes one more assertion, that the Dutch were welcomed in the United States because although they came for partially economic reasons, in contrast to immigrants from Ireland and Germany, the Dutch looked reasonably well off. In part, this was because some of the immigrants did bring some wealth with them (and helped out their congregation members, as well). Another reason, Mulder speculates, was because the Dutch valued appearances and cleanliness and maybe would have gone without necessities in order to look presentable. Whether this is ethnic pride on Mulder’s part or has a basis in truth, I don’t know. What I have read of German and Irish immigration during this same time period makes me think the Germans and Irish were perhaps more desperate.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Great post.
Thank you, James!
That was a really interesting post Luanne. Lots of interesting points and ideas were made 🙂
Thanks, Sharon. It helped me understand why they left and a little more about what their lives were like in the Netherlands.
You know what, Luanne? I had never thought about families immigrating together from their homeland. It makes total sense. I can see religious communities who also faced economic issues taking a vote about how to proceed. And someone said, hey let’s go to America. And the rest, as you say, is history. Great post.
Yes, I can see it, too! And wouldn’t that feel more secure than the usual “immigration story”?! The gardener’s immigration stories on his father’s side are more like the ones you read about: the grandmother traveling alone at age 15 and going to live with an uncle she probably doesn’t even know.
My g-grandfather, who emigrated from the tiny village of Loppersum in 1864, listed his occupation as day laborer, carpenter’s helper and then grave digger in the year or two before left. I wonder how he was able to finance the passage for himself, wife and child. No doubt family members pitched in to help.
That is what I would think, too. One of my great-great grandfather’s was an orphan and he could only come and bring his wife and 2 babies because his grandmother died and he inherited enough money to bring the family. I looked up Loppersum and see it is in Groningen. I have a couple of old portraits from Groningen, so I think there were relatives who lived there.
This was a fascinating discussion! When my mother wrote her family history a few years ago, she took great pains to research the socail and historical context for their emmigration.
She was smart to do that. We spend so much time on the details of their passage and lives here, but not really on what drove them to leave so much behind.
My mother also wanted to avoid writing a version of The Begats that no one would want to read.
LOL! I can understand that!
😀
This is so interesting, Luanne. Religious oppression likely always leads to economic oppression as well. I tend to think of the Dutch of those times as fairly homogeneous and middle-class to wealthy, so this sheds a new light. Thanks!
You are probably right about cause and effect. Yes, I think in comparison with many other countries your image of Holland was accurate, but Napoleon changed all that.
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