The Flemish Contribution to America

New Netherland Institute

October 5, 2013 – Session 5 – 3:15 PM

David Baeckelandt

Flemings in Greenland and North America Before Columbus

…A Flemish Priest in Greenland – in 1364!!

Left a Record – the “Inventio Fortunatae”

… becomes a critical piece in the intellectual impetus for 14th, 15th and 16th century

explorers looking for a path to Asia…

“In A.D. 1364 eight of these people [from Greenland] came to the King’s Court in

Norway. Among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, [and] who

was descended in the fifth generation from a Bruxellensis [native of

Brussels]…The eight (were sprung from) those who had first penetrated the

Northern Regions in the first ships.”

- E.G.R. Taylor, “A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, p.58 in Imago Mundi, XIII, (1956), ed. Leo Bagrow, (‘s Gravenhage), pp.56-68

Flemish Flag First Recognized Internationally

“The first flags identifying

nationality were used at sea. The

oldest international legal

obligation on record for ships to

display flags as identification was

agreed by King Edward I of

England and Guy, Count of

Flanders , in 1297.”

– A Znamierowski, The World Encyclopedia

of Flags, p.44

The Vlaamse Leeuw saluted by English ships

in 1297 was black on a yellow background

14th century Guidebook– From Bruges to Greenland Created for Flemish merchants ca 1380-1420

The “Bruges Itinerarium” – the only copy extant (at

the University of Gent) dates from the 14th

century and shows the step-by-step route (and

distances between) Bruges and Greenland .

Gilles le Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit

Berry... ; publié pour la première fois avec une introduction et des notes, et

suivi de l'"Itinéraire brugeois″ et de la "Table de Velletri" et de plusieurs autres

documents géographiques, inédits ou mal connus du XVe siècle, recueillis et

commentés par le Dr E.-T. Hamy,..., (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908), p. 167. Found

online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f172

Direct Flemish Trade With Greenland – in 1327!

”Proof that there was trade in walrus tusks between

Greenland and Flemish merchants is provided by the

accounts of [Bruggeling] Bernardus de Ortolis, an agent of the

papal camera, who was appointed in 1326 to collect the

sexennial tenth from the Scandinavian sees…The see of

Gardar [Greenland] habitually paid its required dues in walrus

tusks and Bernardus noted the receipt of one hundred twenty-

seven Norwegian lisponsis [ca 1500 lbs] …on August 11,

1327, from the hand of the archbishop of Nidarios, the

ecclesiastical head of the see of Greenland. These tusks were

sold to one Jan d’Ypres, a Flemish merchant from Bruges,

who paid for them 12 li. 14 s. in silver Tournois [ca $166,000 in

2013 $*] of which the Norwegian king, who possessed a

monopoly of trade with Greenland, received one half. The

papal agents set out from Bruges, which commercial

metropolis possessed a flourishing trade with Scandinavian

lands…A few years before the activities of Bernardus de

Ortolis, other papal representatives had suggested that the

papal monies be entrusted to loyal and honest merchants

of Flanders.”

-Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”,

Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937),

pp. 167-181. Published by: Medieval Academy of America

Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572

*A 1314 silver Tournais = ca EUR 10,000 ; 1 EUR=$1.3077 4/13/12

Flemings Sent Ships Northwest to Greenland & Canada

“The arctic falcon preys largely on ptarmigan, of which there are certainly more on

Victoria [Island] (and throughout the Arctic) than on Greenland….[Martin] Behaim’s

[1492] globe depicts Victoria Island.”

-James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos & Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press, 2002),

p. 57

“Pure white gyrfalcons, unique to

the American Arctic, were

supplied to medieval Europe by

the Norsemen.”

- James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos &

Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press,

2002), p. 57

Gyrfalcon Nest

Ptarmigan

“The northern Vikings were not only wild sea-rovers, they were also enterprising

merchants who sought to get riches in every way.” - James Westfall Thompson, “The Commerce of France in the Ninth Century”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 9 (Nov.,

1915), pp. 857-887, The U.of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819140 .Accessed: 29/04/2012 23:44; p.858

Norwegian King Hakon V Magnusson makes a five-year trade treaty with Flanders

in 1308 to sell luxury goods (ivory & gyrfalcons especially) to Bruges’

merchants. - Kristen Seaver – The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, p.82

Flanders’ Cloth Exports

15th cent Flemish Style Dresses Found in Greenland…

”Shrouds recovered from the graves [in

Greenland] show that the garments

which these people wore resembled

those of their distant kin…Thus the

custom wearing pleated dresses,

illustrated by the Flemish artist Petrus

Christus (d.1473) in his portrait of Marco

Barbarigo which hangs in the National

Gallery [of London] …was imitated in

Greenland. The date of the specimen

of pleated dresses discovered in one of

the graves must therefore be placed at

about 1450 or later….”

- Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between

Flanders and Greenland”, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval

Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 167-181 Published

by: Medieval Academy of America

Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572 Greenland dress – Petrus Christus

detail 1450-1460

Were Vikings & Flemish in…Rhode Island??

The Tower of the Monastery

of Saint Bavo, Ghent, Belgium

“The monastery evolved over the

next several centuries (600s –

1100s) until it reached its

Romanesque form in the twelfth

century. …The construction in its

geometric features offers a viable

prototype for Newport Tower.”

- Suzanne Carlson, “Loose Threads in a Tapestry of

Stone: The Architecture of the Newport Tower” in New

England Antiquities Research Association , online

downloaded April 11, 2012

http://www.neara.org/CARLSON/newporttower.htm

Newport Tower

Rhode Island

Lavatorium, St. Baaf’s/ Bavo’s Abbey in Ghent

- The Counts of Flanders were crowned here!

Newport Tower Compared to St Bavo’s Tower

Flemish, Fish & Innovations in the Settlement of America

European

Exploration of

North America

Followed

(Coastlines)/Fish

“Along this southern coast of

Newfoundland the explorers

met great schools of cod,

which the sailors caught

merely by lowering baskets

into the water and hauling

them up again full of fish…So

plentiful were the cod in this

region [Newfoundland] that

according to Sebastian Cabot,

‘they sumtymes stayed his

shippes.’”

– H.P.Biggar, Precursors of Jacques

Cartier, pp. x, xiv

The Flemish Banks – Codfish Grounds 875 miles from the Azores, 420 miles From Newfoundland

“The eastern most extension of what

we today call the Outer Banks, the

rich fishing grounds off of the coast

of Newfoundland, have traditionally

been called the “Flemish Cap”.

This is the closest North Atlantic

fishing ground for Europeans.

European fishermen could fish

there literally year-round. Even

today, fishermen, when making

for the Flemish Cap from Europe,

would often say, “We are headed

for Flemish.”

- Rosa Garcia-Orellan, TerraNova: The Spanish Cod

Fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the

Twentieth Century, (Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press,

2010), p.222.

Codfish & Christianity

“The introduction of Christianity

had an impact on the European

diet…[meat] could be prohibited

for up to 135 days during the

year…the usual alternative was

fish.”

– J.Wubs-Mrozewicz, “”Fish, Stock and

Barrel” p.188

“’Bacalao’ was the southern European name for cod, deriving from the Flemish word for

cod, bakkeljaw.” - Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007), p.382

The oldest continuously named geographic place in Canada – the island

“Baccalieu” – named for the codfish 1st appears on a map by Antwerp

cartographer Ruysch in 1508 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalieu_Island)

Codfish Migration

“The record for long-distance travel belongs to a cod tagged in the North Sea in June

1957 and caught on the Grand Banks in January 1962 after a journey of about 3,200

kilometers.” - Brian Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World, (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.228.

“Cod migrate for spawning, moving into still-shallower [less than 120 feet deep] water

close to coastlines, seeking warmer spawning grounds and making it even

easier to catch them.”

- Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, (New York: Penguin, 1997), p.42.

“Gilles Le Bouvier (writing about [the year]1450) refers to the Icelanders’

trade with Flanders [and Brabant], especially in ‘stocphis’ [cod] , mutton, wool,

and salmon.” R.A. Skelton, et.al., The Vinland Map and Tartar Relations, (New Haven: Yale University Press,1965), p.165. Quoting Gilles le

Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit Berry..., ed. E.T. Hamy, (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908),

p. 167. Found online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f109

“Vismarkt” by the 16th century Antwerp artist Joachim B

Early Flemish Innovations in Navigation

“Innovation occurred through trade.” -Hanno Brand, ed., Trade, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange: Continuity and Change in the North

Sea Area and the Baltic c.1350-1750, (Hilversum: Verloren, 2005), p.159

Compass Rose in Flemish Compass Rose Mounted

“The use of the initials of the Frankish names of the winds – N, NNE, NE, etc. – on

compass cards, seems to have arisen with Flemish navigators, but was early [1400s]

adopted by the Portuguese and Spanish.” –

- Silvanus P. Thompson, "The Rose of the Winds: The Origin and Development of the Compass- Card,"

Proceedings of the British Academy 6 (London, 1918)

The Flemish Buss

“A Flemish Buss doth often take seven or eight Last [=14-16 tonnes] of herrings in a

day. But if GOD gave a Buss, one day with another, but two Last of herrings a day, that

is, twelve Last of herrings in a week; then at that rate, a Buss may take, dress, and

pack the said whole Proportion of a hundred Last [200 tonnes] of herrings

(propounded to be hoped for), in eight weeks and two days, And yet is herein[after]

allowance made for victuals and wages for sixteen weeks, as after followeth. Of which

sixteen weeks time, if there be spent in rigging and furnishing the said Buss to sea, and

in sailing from her port to her fishing-place; if these businesses, I say, spend two weeks

of the time, and that the other two weeks be also spent in returning to her port after her

fishing season, and in unrigging and laying up the Buss: then I say (of the sixteen weeks

above allowed for) there will be twelve weeks to spend only in fishing the

herring.” -Edward Arber, Social England Illustrated, a Collection of XVIIth Century Tracts With an Introduction by Andrew Lang,

(Westminister: Archibald Constable & Co., 1903), Forgotten Books Classic Reprint, p.284.

”The Mediterranean Sea could not supply enough fish on its own, so countries in

Northern Europe became a major source of fish for the region – primarily cod. Salt cod

was traded for various goods including wine, cloth, spices and salt. When word

arrived at the end of the 1400s of abundant codfish on the Grand Banks of New-

foundland, fishermen were quick to respond.”-

RWA Rodger & S Spurrell, The Fisheries of North America (2006), p.1

Flemish Fish for Asian Spices

The First Flemish Connections to Asia (1200s-1400s)

Late 1200s Flemish Trade Begins to the East

“In 1277, the first of the Genoese Atlantic galleys sailed out of the Mediterranean and

then through the English Channel into the North Sea and moored at the Flemish city of

Sluis, the outport of Bruges [Brugge]. Bruges began its career as the new hub of

international trade between northern and southern Europe.”

-Wim Blockmans & Walter Prevenier, The Promised Lands: The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule

-, 1369-1530, (Philadelphia: U of PA Press, 1999), p.6

peppers

Before Marco Polo – Flemings to the East “In the aftermath of the conquest [of Byzantium, in 1202], the prospect of land and

money had attracted people…such as Stephen of Tenremonde [Dendermonde], a

Fleming.” - Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.306

“His description of the islands on the way to the East is clear and specific, as is his account of the

Venetian and Genoese trading posts of Tana and Caffa on the Black Sea, adding that the

sea voyage from Flanders to Tana is ‘half the world’, while few westerners go there by

Land because of the dangers of the trip, for the oncoming Turks now controlled much of

This territory.” - Margaret Wade LeBarge, Medieval Travelers: The Rich and the Restless, (1982) p. 11

Flemish Clergy as Chroniclers

“Prior to the twelfth century, literacy was almost exclusively the province of

churchmen.” - Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.xvi

“Given the restricted levels of literacy, messages to religious houses were

often the main conduit of news to the West.” - Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade: and the Sack of Constantinople, (New York: Penguin, 2004) p.19

Willem van Rubroeck– 1st Chronicler of Asia

“William of Rubruck was, therefore, the first European to record his impressions of

the Mongol capital.”

-James Chambers, The Devil’s Horseman: The Mongol Invasion of Europe, (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p.139

“No one traveller since his [William of Rubruck’s] day has done half so much to

give a correct knowledge of this part of Asia.”

- Historian William Rockhill, quoted in Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo, (New York: Dorset Press,

-1989), p. xix

“Rubruck was born in 1215 and died

in 1270. He went to the East as an

envoy of Louis IX (St. Louis) of

France, who learning that Sartach,

son of Batu the commander of

Tartar troops in Russia, had

become a Christian, desired to

open communications with him.”

- Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo,

(New York: Dorset Press, 1989), p.52

Willem van Rubroeck– 1st Chronicler of Asia

“He [William of Rubruck] was the first to give us [Europeans] an accurate

description of Chinese writing as well as of the scripts of other Eastern races. He

was also the first to tell about the various Christian communities that he

found in the Mongol empire.” -Manuel Komroff, ed., Contemporaries of Marco Polo, (New York: Dorset Press, 1989), p. xix

“Mandeville” – Influences Portuguese, Columbus

“The most popular description of the East, published in 1360, was The Travels of Sir

John Mandeville.” -James Chambers, The Devil’s Horseman: The Mongol Invasion of Europe, (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p.166.

The sheer number of surviving manuscripts is testament to Mandeville’s

popularity: more than 300 handwritten copies of The Travels still exist in

Europe’s great libraries – four times the number of Marco Polo’s book.”

- Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p.3.

Jan de Langhe van Ypres & Mandeville

“To return to the Netherlands, a far greater personage than John of Hese (or John of

Utrecht) was John of Ypres or "Long John" (Jan De Langhe), who was abbot of the

Benedictine house of St. Omer until his death in 1383. Long John was one of the first

to appreciate the pregnancy of geographical discoveries and to collect travelers'

accounts; this is very remarkable because the golden age of scientific discoveries

had not yet begun (the usher of it was the Portuguese infante Henrique o

Navegador, who was born only eleven years after Long John's death).“

-George Sarton,Introduction To The History Of Science Volume III Part II Science And Learning In The Fourteenth

Century, (Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1948) p.10

Flemish-Portuguese Discovery of America

Jan de Langhe Influences Henry the Navigator…

“To return to the Netherlands, a far greater personage than John of Hese (or John of

Utrecht) was John of Ypres or "Long John" (Jan De Langhe), who was abbot of the

Benedictine house of St. Omer until his death in 1383. Long John was one of the first to

appreciate the pregnancy of geographical discoveries and to collect travelers' accounts;

this is very remarkable because the golden age of scientific discoveries had not yet

begun (the usher of it was the Portuguese infante Henrique o Navegador, who was

born only eleven years after Long John's death).“

-George Sarton,Introduction To The History Of Science Volume III Part II Science And Learning In

The Fourteenth Century, (Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1948) p.10

Royal Siblings Foster Flemish-Portuguese Ties

Isabel of Portugal, Duchess

of Burgundy

Henry the Navigator

(1394-1460)

Wijnendaele Castle, West Flanders

“Flanders, which had commercial ties with Portugal since the twelfth century, was to remain,

for the rest of the Middle Ages, one of Portugal’s most important trading partners.” Ivana Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa, and Factory: Three Institutions of Late-Medieval Portuguese Trade with Flanders,”

The International History Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 1-22; p.1

Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/40106532

“The Bohemian cosmographer and globe-maker Martin Behaim confirms that

this Flemish immigration into the Azores was sponsored by Henry’s

Sister Isabel, the duchess of Burgundy.”

- Peter Russell, Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’: A Life, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) p. 105

By 1400s Deep Flemish-Portuguese Ties…

“So large was the number of Portuguese in Flanders and Flemings in Portugal that the

Portuguese had their own cemetery in Bruges in 1410, as did the Flemings in Lisbon

before 1414.“

-Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World

-in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 1977) p.41

Portuguese Search For Prester John & Spices

“Vasco da Gama, 1497, on

arriving in Calicut, India [said]: 'I

come in search of Christians and

spices;' [but he] quickly forgot

about the Christians.”

“Now that Africa had been circum-

navigated…the king of Portugal had

no more use for Columbus”

-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the

Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus,

(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942), p.76

Jaak van Brugge/Jacques de Bruges

A copy exists of a donation “granted by [Prince] Henry [the Navigator] on 2 March 1450

in which the Prince is said to have made sub-donatory [“Capitania”] of Terceira one

Jacques de Bruges, a Fleming…Jacques de Bruges is important in the history of

the Portuguese maritime expansion as the harbinger of the massive vinflux of

Flemish settlers into the central group of the Azores after Henry’s death [1460].

This had the result that, for a few decades, these islands, while Portuguese in

name, were in fact dominated by and ruled by Flemings.” - Peter Russell, Prince Henry ‘the Navigator’: A Life, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) pp. 104-105

Terceira, Azores

The Azores = The Flemish Isles

List of prominent

Flemings Involved

with the Discovery

and Settlement of the

Azores in the 1400s .

- Patrick Maselis,

Van de Azoren tot de

Zuidpoel p. 13

A Fleming Discovers Antilles Before Columbus?

“Martim Antonio Leme was the son of Martin Lem, or Leme, a Fleming who had

prospered in Portugal. In 1471 Martim Antonio took part in the expedition to Arzila and

the capture of Tangier, commanding military forces equipped by his father in Flanders.

He was legitimized along with several brothers and sisters on September 6, 1464, and

ennobled on November 12, 1471…Ferdinand Columbus [in his biography of his father,

Columbus, Chapter 9] and [Bartolomeo] Las Casas [Columbus’ friend, in his Historia, Bk

I, Chapter 13] cite the case of Martim Antonio Leme, resident of Madeira, who it was

said sailed far west sometime before 1484 and saw three islands which, Peres says,

‘could not be any but some of the Antilles, [but] of this discovery nothing else whatever is

known, though the history of Antonio Leme shows him to be a person capable

of such a sea voyage’.” -Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World

in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 1977), p.450

.

L:The Antilles

–’Imaginary’

Islands in the

Atlantic; R: A

Ship used in

the Madeiras

”Towards the west the Sea Ocean [Atlantic] has likewise been navigated

further than what is described by Ptolemy and beyond the columns of

Hercules [Gibraltar] as far as the…Azores occupied by the noble and

valiant knight Joost van Hurter of Moerkerken [Wijnendaele/Duchy of

Cleves] and the people of Flanders…The far-off places towards

midnight [north]…such as Iceland, Norway and Russia, are likewise

now known to us, and are visited annually by ships.”

E.G. Ravenstein, Translations & Commentary on Martin Behaim’s ‘Erdapfel’, (London, 1992) p.15

Flemish Sailors From the Azores Ferdinand Van Olmen (Fernao Dulmo) “Columbus’ Predecessor”

Islas de Fernão Dulmo – Azorean island

held as a fief to the Portuguese Crown by a

Flemish knight in the 1470s-1480s

“1486-1487: Ferdinand van Olmen. This Flemish settler in the Azores was governor of

the northern half of Terceira simultaneously with Joao Vaz Corte Real’s governorship of

the southern half. In March of 1486 the Portuguese king, Joao II, issued the first of

several exploration patents to van Olmen. All of them related to an Atlantic voyage

projected for March of 1487. The plans for this voyage were similar to many

others that had tried to identify the unknown islands on the nautical chart of 1424

with the Isle of Seven Cities in a Portuguese legend “ Van Olmen was Re-

quired to take the “German knight”, Martin Behaim, on ship, “for 40 days west”.

- James R Enterline, Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus, p.209

Flemish Sailors From the Azores Ferdinand Van Olmen (Fernao Dulmo) “Columbus’ Predecessor”

“1486-1487: Ferdinand van Olmen.

“However, van Olmen’s plans differed from

those of the other island hunters in that he

proposed ‘to seek and find a great island

or islands or the coast of the

mainland’…In this context ‘mainland’ would

have meant ‘Orbis Terrarum’ [continent].

That Van Olmen’s interest lay towards the

northwest is confirmed by the nearly

contemporary historian Las Casas, who

wrote of a contemporary Portuguese

voyage, ‘During the Ireland run they were

heading so far to the northwest that they

saw land to the west of Ireland, which

they believed must be that which

Ferdinand Van Olmen sought to explore.’”

- James R Enterline, Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus,

p.209

Canadian Province Labrador Named for Flemish

Landowner From the Azores Joao Fernandez (Jan Hendrick) native of Terceira

“On a visit paid by Cabot to Lisbon and to Seville, to engage the services of men who

had sailed to the East with Da Gama or who had navigated with Columbus to the Indies/

he [John Cabot] appears to have met a certain Joao Fernandez, called ‘llavrador’,

who about the year 1492 had made his way from Iceland to Greenland. As Greenland,

which was then thought to form part of Asia, lay so near Iceland, Cabot, from the

scanty evidence available, would seem to have made up his mind to steer a more

northerly course on this voyage.”

“Early in May, the expedition, which consisted of two ships and 300 men, set sail from

Bristol. 5 Several vessels in the habit of trading to Iceland appear to have accompanied

them. Off Ireland, a storm forced one of these to return ; but the fleet proceeded on its

way along the parallel of 5.7 The further they advanced the more they were carried to

the north by the Gulf Stream. At length early in June Cabot sighted the east coast of

Greenland. Fernandez having been the first to tell him in this country, he named it

'the Labrador's land.‘”

-H.P. Biggar, The Precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497-1534: A Collection of Documents Relating to the Early History of the Dominion

of Canada, (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1911), p.xii

Anglo-Azorean Partnerships 1480s-1500s

Grant by Henry VII to

Richard Ameryk and other

Bristol merchants to

partner with “Portuguese”

Azoreans from Terceira in

1480 to discover “new

lands to the west”.

The “sea-going farmer of Terceira, Joao Fernandes Lavrador…and Francisco

Fernandes, probably a kinsman, and Joao Goncalves…together with three English

merchants of Bristol, joined in a petition to the king [Henry VII] for letters-patent of

discovery…on the same day, March 19, 1501, Henry VII issued letters-patent, creating

what [historian] Williamson calls ‘the pioneer corporation of the British Empire.’

Upon it the Gilbert patent of 1578 and the first Virginia Charter [which established

Jamestown] were modelled. And since the document of 1501 is patterned on the

Portuguese donations to would-be discoverers, Joao Fernandes and his

friends are, in a sense, the initiators of English imperial policy.”

- Samuel Eliot Morison, Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century, pp. 51,66

Brothers Corte Real in America in 1499?

Dighton Rock

“Between the years 1499 and 1502, the

Corte-Real brothers, Gaspar and Miguel,

discovered areas in North America that

correspond to parts of Newfoundland and

regions still farther north.”

- Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the

Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World in the

Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of Minnesota,

1977), p.464

Flemish-Azorean Gaspar Corte Real at

Conception Bay, Newfoundland 1500-1501

Gaspar Corte Real

“Gaspar Corte-Real, son of Joao Vaz Corte-Real, was a man

valiant and adventurous and ambitious to win honor, whence he

proposed to go and discover lands on the north side [of the

American landmass] because to the soiuthward he held that

others had already discovered much; and so doing on his own,

through the favor he had with the king, whose squire he had been

when [the king was known as the] Duke of Beja, he equipped one

ship with a good complement of people and everything

necessary, and departed from the port of Lisbon at the

beginning of spring, [in the] year 1500. On this voyage he

discovered, on that north side, a land that was very cool and

with big trees…after he discovered this land and coasted

along a good part of it he returned to the kingdom [of

Portugal], and set sail again in the year 1501, wishing to

explore further this province.”

- Damiao de Gois, Cronica do felicissimo Rei D. Manuel, parte I, ch. 66 (Coimbra, 1926 ed., I, 146)

quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, Portuguese Voyages to America in the Fifteenth Century, (New

York: octagon Books, 1965), p.70

Half-Fleming Manuel Corte Real Lands in MA

Dighton Rock carvings transcribed:

The Corte Reale family “was descended

from a Burgundian noble, Raymond de la

Coste, who had fought at the side of King

Afonso Henriques, Portugal’s first king, in

the taking of Lisbon from the Moors in

1147.”

- Francisco Fernandes Lopes, The Brothers Corte Reale,

(Lisboa: Agencia Geral do Ultramar, 1957), p.10

1st Map of Columbus’ Discoveries– By a Fleming

This map was drawn by “a Flemish cartographer in the employ of the Portuguese” and accur-

ately depicts the Yucatan peninsula, the southern coast of Greenland, and New-

foundland “exactly correct relative to the longitude of the easternmost end of the Indies”. - J.R. Enterline, Erikson, Eskimoes & Columbus, pp.232-234

“…Appears to be indebted to [the globe made by Martin] Behaim for much of its

information on geography and trade.” – Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press, 1998), p.24

1st Settled N. America- Land of Corte Reale1500

“This land [Newfoundland] is discovered by order of the very excellent prince Dom

Manuel, King of Portugal; which land is believed to be a point of Asia…and according

to the opinion of the cosmographers it is believed to be the point of Asia.“

- George F.W. Young, Miguel Corte-Real, (Taunton, MA: Old Colony Historical Society, 1970), p.34, n.31

The island

was labeled

alternately

“Terra Nova”

and “Corte

Reale”

Catching Codfish & Furs Near ‘Terra Nova’

Map by Petrus Bertius

(of Flanders), 1597

showing Newfoundland

– known as the Land of

Corte Reale.

“The Azorean Portuguese (=descendants of Flemish immigrants), at least,

aspired to colonize either Newfoundland itself or some adjoining islands.”

- David B. Quinn, North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements, p.359

745 miles from Portugal, 1,022 miles from Newfoundland, 1422 miles From Greenland

Azoreans From

Terceira Settle in

Islands Off

Newfoundland and

Labrador in 1520…

“Successful European settlement in

North America was always heavily

dependent on the resources that

prospective settlers discovered.”

- Shannon Ryan, The Ice Hunters: A History of

Newfoundland Sealing to 1914, (St. John’s,

Newfoundland : Breakwater Books, 1994), p.25

Flemish Sailors From the Azores such as Joao Fernandez (Jan Hendrick) Pilot for the Cabots

“Joao Fernandes [Jan Hendriksz], whose title was labrador or landowner in

the Azores, sailed to Greenland [in the 1480s] and later [1490s] served as navigator for

John Cabot. A 1534 map [shown above] shows Labrador already named

after Fernandes ’because he who gave the direction was a labrador of the

Azores, they gave it that name’.”

- Norman Herz, Operation Alacrity, p.16

Their Legacy in America: Livestock

“The Portugals [sic] about 30 years past [circa 1550s] did put into the same island [Sable

Island, just off the coast of Newfoundland] both meat and swine, to breed, which were

since exceedingly multiplied. This seemed to us a very happy tidings to have on an

island lying so near into the main [island – Newfoundland], which we intend to plant

upon, such store of cattle, whereby we might at all times conveniently be relieved of

victual, and served of store for breed.”

- Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 1583

-Marq De Villiers, et.al., Sable Island: The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic,

(Bloomsbury, 2006), p.21

The Flemish Connection to Columbus (1400s)

Behaim’s 1492 Globe

“The first known terrestrial globe

was made by the Nuremberg

merchant Martin Behaim, who

produced his so-called ‘eredglobus’

in [August]1492 as a result of his

sustained commercial

activities…whilst based in Lisbon

throughout the 1480s….Behaim’s

globe was covered with a profusion

of commercial notes on market-

places, goods worth purchasing,

local trading practices and the

movement of commodities.”

– Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the

Early Modern World, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press,

1998), p.24

Martin Behaim & Columbus - Toscanelli

“This globe [Martin Behaim’s 1492] exhibits features in common with the so-called

Toscanelli Map for the Atlantic region.”

-E.L. Stevenson, “Martin Waldseemuller and the Early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography of the New World” , Bulletin of

the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1904), pp. 193-215; American Geographical Society Stable URL:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/198810 .Accessed: 06/05/2012 10:50, p.197

Toscanelli’s 1457 Mapamundi

Behaim’s Globe ca 1492

Columbus Influenced by Toscanelli

“You must not be surprised if I call the parts where the spices are west, when they

usually call them east, because to those sailing west, those parts are found by

navigation on the under side of the earth.” Toscanelli to Columbus ca 1481 – C Columbus & CR Markham, The Journal of Christopher Columbus (During His First Voyage, 1492-3), p. 5

Inventio Fortunatae – Columbus’ Inspiration?

Columbus requested a copy of the Inventio Fortunata – and shared info w Cabot

“Your Lordship's servant brought me your letter. I have seen its contents and I

would be most desirous and most happy to serve you. I do not find the book

Inventio Fortunata, and I thought that I (or he) was bringing it with my things,

and I am very sorry not [to] find it because I wanted very much to serve you.

I am sending the other book of Marco Polo and a copy of the land which has

been found [by John Cabot].”

John Day was an English merchant in the Spanish trade. He wrote this letter in Spain between December 1497

and January 1498

Reproduced from James A Williamson The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII.

(Cambridge University Press) 1962, 212-214. http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/johnday.html

The Earliest Claim of Sailing West to Asia…

“Beyond this land of Ireland are to be found neither lands nor other islands

towards the setting sun. And some say that if a ship was steered in a direct line for

a long distance the ship would find itself in the land of Prester John. And

others say that it is the edge of the lands of the western coast.” - Margaret Wade LeBarge, Medieval Travelers: The Rich and the Restless, (1982) p. 11

“The importance of The Travels lay[s] in a single yet startling passage which set the

book apart from all other medieval travelogues. Mandeville claimed that his voyage

proved for the first time that it was possible to set sail around the world in

one direction and return home from the other.” - Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.

Columbus Learned From the Flemish-Portuguese

“The enterprise of Christopher Columbus, without any new concept

thought up by him, can only be seen as an episode in the whole system of

Portuguese attempts toward the west.”

-Almeida, Historia de Portugal, II, pp. 181-182 quoted in Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the

Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580, Europe and the World in the Age of Expansion, Volume I, (St. Paul: University of

Minnesota, 1977) , p.166

Before Cotton, Sugar: Flanders-Madeira-Portugal 1470s

“By the 1470s Florentine merchants

such as Benedetto Dei were trading

deep into the interior of West Africa

with Portuguese consent; and by

1479 Flemish merchants like

Eustache de la Fosse were estab-

lishing trading links with the Port-

uguese feitorias in the Gulf of

Guinea.

As a result, by the end of the fifteenth

century a third of all sugar production

coming out of Madeira was being

exported to the Low Countries.”

- Jerry Brotton, Trading Territories: Mapping the Early

Modern World, (Ithace, NY: Cornell University

Press, 1998), p.65

Columbus Believed Azores = Antilles

“Antilia has always been synonymous with the Isle of the Seven Cities. Nobody as yet

has traced this name farther back than 1452, when the Treve-Velasco expedition, as we

have seen, went out to search for the Seven Cities and found Corvo and Flores [in the

Azores]. Next, Paul Toscanelli’s letter of 25 June 1474 to Canon Martins of Lisbon,

on which Columbus based his great enterprise, states, ‘From the island of Antilia,

which you call the Seven Cities’ to ‘the most noble island of Cipangu [Japan] it is 50

degrees of longitude.’ The same year. D. Alfonso V granted to Fernao Teles ‘The Seven

Cities or whatever islands’ he may find in the Atlantic north of Guinea. The story first

appears in writing on the 1492 globe of Martin Behaim, who must have

picked it up in Portugal or the Azores.”

– Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1971), pp.98-99

Columbus’ map - sourced

from Toscanelli - with

Portugal (#6), the Azores

(#4, #5) and the mythical

isles (#1, #2, #3)

highlighted.

Flemish Isles/Azores – Columbus’ Inspiration?

“On Corvo Island [above] there was a natural rock statue of a horseman pointing

westward. Columbus is said to have seen this on one of his early voyages, and to

have taken it as meant for him…with Newfoundland only 1054 miles distant.”

-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942),

pp.57-58

“The discovery of the Azores had

an immense psychological

influence on discovery…The

crossing to a new world was now

more than one-third

accomplished.”

- Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery

of America: The Northern Voyages, (NY: Oxford

UP, 1971), pp.95-96

Ferdinand Van Olmen – Columbus’ Inspiration!

According to Columbus’ son, Ferdinand…

“On a voyage to Ireland they sailed so far northwest that they saw land to the west of

Ireland; this land, the Admiral [Christopher Columbus] thought, was the same that a

certain Fernao Dulmo [Ferdinand Van Olmen of Flanders] tried to discover. I relate this

just as I found this in my father’s writings, that it may be known.”

-Ferdinand Columbus & Benjamin Keen, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

University Press, 1992), p.27

Columbus Had Early Contact With Flemings

“In 1429 the eleven-year-old Domenico, Cristoforo’s father, was entrusted to a Flemish

weaver, Gerardo di Brabante, who made him enter the weaving guild. Ten years later

his papers define him as «woollen clothes weaver». Cristoforo himself worked with his

father until he was twenty years old. In an document, in which he is mentioned as a

witness, he defined himself as a «lanaiolo» (wool worker).”

http://www.tigulliovisit.it/EN/Dettaglio_personaggi.aspx?cid=25&tp=4 downloaded March 23, 2012

Columbus Had Early Contact With Flemings

Columbus’ life-changing sea voyage left Genoa in May, 1476 on a “Flemish urca” flying

the flag of the Duke of Burgundy [also the Count of Flanders] and bound for Flanders,

via Lisbon, the Azores, and Bristol, England. “There is known to be a lively trade

between Lisbon, the Azores, Bristol and Iceland at this time.”

-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942),

pp.23-25

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

Columbus’ annotated copy of Pierre d’Ailly’s

world map printed at Leuven in 1483 which

appears in De imagine mundi et alii tractatus,

(Leuven: Johannes de Westfalia, 1483).

-Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps: 1472-1500, (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1987), p.87.

“The Imago Mundi of Pierre d’Ailly is claimed to have been practically the sole source

from which Columbus obtained the ideas behind his project of discovery. The marginal

notes on the Columbina Library copy of the Imago Mundi are supposed to reveal the

steps in the formation of his plans.”

-George E. Nunn, “The Imago Mundi and Columbus,” in The American Historical Review, Vol 40, No.4 (July, 1935),

pp.646-661 Oxford University Press Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/1842417, p.661.

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

“It was in fact an Antwerp edition [of Marco Polo’s Travels, above] from circa 1485 that

Polo’s Genoese successor, Christopher Columbus, read and carefully annotated in

preparation for his own historic voyage.”

– Benjamin Schmid, The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670, (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006), p.9

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

“Columbus added to his own

navigational problems by carrying

both Flemish and Genovese

compasses, and while the

Genovese needle, or wire, was set

in line with the north point of the

[compass] card, the Flemish needle

was probably offset to the east of

north by three quarters of a point

(8.4 degrees) as was the custom .”

- Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps, (New York:

Bonanza, 1949), p.133.

“Northern Europeans, particularly the Flemish, were not so casual [about navigation].

They not only wrote about these irregularities but published charts with true sets of

losscodrones; one set for Italian compasses and one for Flemish compasses. The

Flemish compass lines gave the correct variation.”

-Christopher Columbus, The Log of Christopher Columbus, ed. & trans. By Robert H. Fuson, (Intl Marine Pub, 1991), p.42

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

Flemish Bells – Gifts and Curse

“was part of a falconier’s equipage, and was

tied to the legs of trained hunting birds.

Columbus brought a of them to the West

Indies as trade goods on his first voyage, but within a few

years the trinkets took on a sinister cast. Adult Indians were

required to fill [the Flemish bell] with gold every three

months, and give it to the Spaniards as forced tribute.”

-Zvi Dor-Ner, Columbus and the Age of Discovery, (New York: WGBH Foundation, 1991),

1st ed., p.215

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

Returning From 1st Trip

Columbus’ first landfall in

1493 – the Azores (and

prayed in a church with

an “old Flemish triptych

that still adorns the altar”

-Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston:

Little, Brown & Co., 1942), p.332

Drafts a letter in the Azores to Ferdinand & Isabella…

Columbus’ Epistola

In Leuven “Dirk Martens ran one of the most admired [printing] presses of Northern Europe.

Martens would publish among the first editions of Columbus’s Epistola in 1493.”

– Benjamin Schmid, The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670, (New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006), p.8

Columbus’ Epistola Printed by Flemings

“Only a relatively small number of copies of this edition have been printed and they are

not available through the trade. In this respect this book resembles the 1471 editions of

Gerardus di Lisa [Gerard van de Lys] (who was of Flemish origin) and the 1473 editions

of the printer of Aalst [Dirck Martens]: both seemed more interested in a cultural rather

than [a] business enterprise.” -Dirk Maarten, first printer “north of the Alps” , Karel V, Octroy vor dierick mertens om te moegen printen alderhande

Boecken…Brussels, February 8th, 1518/1519, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussel, Rekenkamer nr.636, fol.317 recto.

Renewal of the 1513 charter. In Herman Liebaers, ed., Alosti in Flandria anno MCCCCLXXIII, (Brussel: Aalst Dirk

MartensComite, 1973), p.90

Columbus’ Voyage Connected to Flemings

On His Fourth Voyage, in 1502…

“Columbus says he had with him ‘ciento y cincuenta personas’ [150 people]. The rolls

mention only 140 persons, eight of whom were Genoese, [and] two Flemish.”

- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), p.693

Did Amerigo Vespucci Claim Credit For Flemish Discoveries?

The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(a)

“Other influential local seafarers similarly

came to Columbus’s aid [in recruiting

mariners and providing ships for his 1st

voyage]. Juan Nino of Moguer

[Andalusia, Spain] was the owner of

the Nina, one of the two ships that filled

out the royal requisition. He sailed as the

vessel’s master, while his brother,

Peralonso Nino, served as pilot on the

Santa Maria. A third Nino brother sailed

on the voyage as an apprentice

seaman.”

- Zvi Dor-Ner, Columbus and the Age of Discovery, (New

York: WGBH Foundation, 1991), 1st ed., p.116

The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(b)

With the Ninos Brothers in 1499 as Pilot for the voyage:

Jean Martin [who was] “Flemish – born in 1465. [He] settled in Moguer [Spain – where

the Ninos brothers lived]. [Martin was the] Pilot of the [ships] Nino and

Guerra in the expedition of 1499 [to the New World].”

- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), p.723

[By the late 1490s] “new expeditions

began to set out for the New World…The

first of these was one led by Peralonso

Nino of Moguer, which left Palos for the

‘Pearl Coast’, the north coast of South

America, at the beginning of May 1499.

The second was that which left Cadiz

later that month, directed by Alonso de

Hojeda, in the company of the

Cantabrian Juan de la Cosa and the

Florentine who had been living in Seville,

Amerigo Vespucci.”

- Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish

Empire, (London: Phoenix, 2004), paperback ed., p.212

The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(c)

With the Ninos Brothers in 1499…

“Sailed from the bar of Saltes (Palos [Spain]) early in the summer of 1499. They had

only one small craft of 50 tons (60 of today), manned by thirty-three men…[and]

remained all the time on the north coast of South America, between Chuspa, Paria, and

Curiana…their expedition lasted about eight months....This was the most prosperous

voyage which had yet been undertaken, and their bringing to Spain 150 marks

in weight of pearls exercised a great influence over subsequent voyages.”

- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America, (New York, 1892), pp. 678-679

The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(d)

Amerigo Vespucci Sailed Just

After Ninos to the Same Place &

Returned Just a Few Days Later

“They [i.e., Guerra and Nino]

returned to Castile; and within a

few days the fleet in which was the

deponent [viz.: Hojeda’s squadron]

also returned to Castile, and their

the crews of both fleets met, and

related to each other the events of

their voyages.”

- Henry Harisse, The Discovery of North America,

(New York, 1892), pp. 676

The First? Fleming to America After Columbus(d)

“The second of these independent journeys, that

of Hojeda, la Cosa and Vespucci, was the most

interesting, though it is obscure in detail…

[Hojeda and la Cosa were veterans]. Vespucci,

on the other hand, had not been to the Indies

before [1499]…

[after returning] Vespucci wrote again to Lorenzo

[Medici, his employer], saying:

‘We arrived at A new land which…we observed

to be a continent.’”

- Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire,

(London: Phoenix, 2004), paperback ed., pp.214,216

Amerigo Vespucci

Flemings Disseminate the Idea of “America”

Vespucci Amerigo’s Account of a “New World” Printed by Flemings

“Columbus’s reluctance was Vespucci’s opportunity. If the Almirante espied ‘many

islands’ off the coast of Cathay, the future piloto major ‘discovered a continent…new

regions and an unknown world….The Mundus Novus and Lettera of Vespucci

marked the true literary debut of America. Printed an astonishing sixty times between

1503 and 1529 – more than twice per year on average over the course of a quarter

century, and nearly three times as frequently as Columbus’ Epistola…An Antwerp

edition appeared within a year or so of the Florentine original.” -Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670,

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) , p.12

Waldseemueller names the new world after Vespucci in 1507

Vespucci Relied on Earlier Flemish Books

“The first Antwerp ‘Vespucius’ appeared circa 1505, followed by a vernacular

edition circa 1506. Jan van Doesborch, publisher of the Dutch-language version, next

put out a provocatively titled De novo mondo (ca. 1510) that included a one page

precis of Vespucci’s ‘Letter on his Third Voyage’…with a single-page abridgement of

Vespucci’s chapter on cosmography …extracted from the 1507 Cosmographie

introductio of Martin Waldseemueller. Van Doesborch reissued this hybrid work in

1522, now bearing the misleading English title Of the newe landes and of ye people

found by the kynge of Portygale. Both of these works were presumably based

on the more aptly named Flemish work of 1508, Die reyse van Lissabone.” -Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670,

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) , pp.13-14

Salacious picture of

cannibalism in Vespucci’s

1505 edition

The 1st Map to Label “America” Believed

Vespucci’s Claims & Used Flemish Sources

“The Portuguese influence was greater than that of Spain in determining the general

appearance of the newly-discovered lands on the maps which are now known ...”

Duke Rene of Lorraine, through his Ducal Secretary Lud, sponsored Waldseemueller.

Waldseemueller, according to Lud, utilized Portuguese maps (Cantino Map) to create

his map and make the determination that the new continent should be called “America”.

E. L. Stevenson, “Martin Waldseemuller and the Early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography of the New

World”, Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1904), pp. 193-215: American

Geographical Society; http://www.jstor.org/stable/198810 .Accessed: 06/05/2012 10:50) , pp.203-204

Waldseemueller

utilizes

Portuguese

maps to decide

the New World

be called

“America”

1508 Map by Joannes Ruysch Reinforces Native of Antwerp/Utrecht – Sailed with the Labrador & Cabot

“In my judgment [Ruysch is] a most exact geographer, and a most painstaking one in

delineating the globe, to whose aid in this little work I am indebted, has told me that he

sailed from the South of England, and penetrated as far as the fifty-third degree of north

latitude, and on that parallel he sailed west toward the shores of the East, bearing a little

northward and observed many islands.”

- Marcus Beneventatus – a key source for Mercator

1st widely printed map that relied on

modern data

1st to incorporate discoveries of

Newfoundland, etc.

1st to suggest a northwest passage to

Asia

Connected to Azorean/ Portuguese

Reference: Inventio Fortunatae

The oldest continuously named

geographic place in Canada – named

by Ruysch in 1508

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalieu_Isl

and)

Mercator – 1st to Label “North & South America”

“Mercator’s map of

1538, naming North

America and South

America for the first

time.”

- Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of

Maps, (New York, 1949), under

relevant picture before p.160

Mercator’s 1538 Map

New York City Library

The First Flemish Emperor of the World – Charles V –

His Contribution to the Discovery & Settlement of America

Charles V ca 1519

The Year 1500: The Age of Discovery Began The

Same Year As The Birth of The First Global Ruler

The World’s First Ruler of a Global Empire was born in Flanders

-Born near Gent (on the road near Eeklo, East Flanders)

-Grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (who sent

Columbus to the New World in 1492)

-Great-great-grandson of Isabella, the Duchess of Burgundy

(who colonized the Azores Islands with 1000s of Flemish

settlers from Franc of Bruges between the 1450s & 1470s)

-Count of Flanders and Holland before he was King of Spain

-Raised primarily by Hadrian of Utrecht – only Dutch Pope

“When he came of age in 1515, Charles V ruled the

largest empire the world had ever seen.”

Paul Arblaster, A History of the Low Countries, (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 112

1516 Became King of Spain

– Grants First Netherlandish Ownership in

America – Lord of Wynandaele

“In 1517…Adolf of Burgundy [from Wynandaele, W.VL.] escorted Charles V from the

Netherlands to Spain, where he was to be crowned king of Aragon and Castile. For his

services Adolf was awarded the island of Cozumel off [of the] Yucatan…when his

ships finally sailed from the Netherlands in 1527 they never got further than

Spain.”

– Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland, p.1

Charles V 1519 Wynandaele, West Flanders

Flemings Flock to Spanish America

“De aanwezigheid van Vlamingen tijdens de kolonisatie van de noordelijke regionen van

Zuid-Amerika heeft ons verschillende en interessante getuigenissen opgeleverd. Aan de

expedities van Lerma naar Santa Marta, alsook deze van de Duitsers naar Venezuela,

namen enkele Vlamingen deel. Een van hen was soldaat van Federmann, stichter van

Santa Fe de Bogotá. Ook een vrouw, Isabel de Malinas – de enige van haar geslacht die

we konden identificeren – participeerde in het migratieproces naar de Nieuwe Wereld.

Een clericus, de jezuïet Theobast, heeft ons enkele feiten overgeleverd over zijn lijden

tijdens de grote oversteek en het adaptatieproces in de Zuid-Amerikaanse territoria. ” – Eduardo Dargent Chamot, Vlamingen in koloniaal Zuid-Amerika, Oorspronkelijke titel: Presencia Flamenca en la

Sudamérica Colonial Vertaling: Igor Antonissen 2010 http://www.viw.be/PDF/Vlaminingen%20in%20koloniaal%20Zuid

-Amerika.pdf, accessed June 2, 2012, p.20

1520s-1530s: Charles V’s Flemings in N. America

“The same kind kinds of artisans had also accompanied Francisco de Monteyo on his

first expedition into Yucatan in 1527, along with the usual professional men – merchants,

physicians, a couple of priests, and a pair of Flemish artillery engineers.”

- M. Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, pp.36-37

Charles V

ca 1519

“Burgundy counselors of the young emperor –

Franciscans from the Ghent convent – went over to

America and settled in Mexico after 1523.”

Pieter van Ghent “was accompanied by two other

Flemish Franciscans: Johann Van den Auwera (Juan

de Aora); and Johann Dekkers (Juan de Tecto), from

Ghent himself as well, confessor of Charles the Fifth.”

“This little Flemish band laid the bases for the gigantic

‘spiritual conquest’ that the evangelization of Mexico

and Central America was to become.” - S. Gruzinski, Images At War: Mexico From Columbus to Blade pp.70-71

Magellan’s Flemings and the

First Circumnavigation of the World

Flemish Influence on Magellan

“Of all the great voyages of the Age of Discovery, Magellan’s circumnavigation

of the globe has good claim to be the greatest.” - Jack Turner, Spice: The History of a Temptation, (New York: Vintage, 2005), p.32

Magellan’s Flemish Roots

“Although Magellan never set foot in it [the

city of Ghent], the name of this city (and its

district in Flanders in the Burgundian

Netherlands) keeps cropping up in his

[Magellan’s] story like a fateful thread in the

fabric of history. Magellan himself was

descended from a Burgundian crusader

who had settled in Portugal. The Magellan

name seems to have been derived from an

old family name in Ghent.”

- Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine,

1994), p.314, n.18

Ferdinand Magellan

Flemings Were Specialists on Iberian Ships

“Portuguese kings imported Flemish and

German gunners and gun-founders as well

as guns…The gold, ivory, and black pepper

of West Africa and the spices of the Far East

were easily exchangeable in Antwerp for

Flemish and German guns…Thus Portugal

[and Spain] remained largely dependent on

foreign guns as well as foreign gunners.”

- Carlo M. Cipolla, European Culture and Overseas Expansion,

(Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 40

15th century

culverin

Flemings With Magellan

“On September 20th, 1519, they left San Lucar, carrying, officers and men, forty from the

Basque country and one hundred and two from various parts of Spain, forty=three

Portuguese, twenty-five men from Italy, seventeen Frenchmen, four Germans, five

Flemings, six Greeks, two Irishmen, one Englishman, a native of Mallorca,

one of the Azores, and six coloured men.”

- Mairin Mitchell, Elcano The First Circumnavigator, (London: Herder, 1958), p.51

Spices

The Five Flemings With Magellan

Roldan (Roland) de Argot – Brugge – Gunner on the Concepcion

Pedro (Pieter) de Bruselas (van Brussel) - Gunner on the Concepcion

Anton Flamenco (de Vlaming) – Able Seaman on the Santiago

Juan (Jan) Flamenco (de Vlaming) – Cabin Boy on the Santiago

Pedro de Urrea – Flanders – Servant on the San Antonio

- Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine, 1994), pp. 257, 258, 262, 263, 267-8

Magellan’s

Flagship the

Victoria

1519-1523: The Pacific 1st Seen by Roland van Brugge1 Magellan’s Circumnavigation: Actively Mandated by Charles V, Financed by de Haro

“Roldan de Argote, a Flemish gunner of [Brugge, in Magellan’s] fleet, climbed a

mountain (later named after him), sighted the ocean, and reported it to the

Captain General [Magellan] who ‘wept for joy’.”

- S.E. Morison, The European Discovery of America, p.392

Straits of

Magellan

and mtn of

“Roldan” –

the “ugliest

man in the

world”

1519-1523: Magellan’s Circumnavigation Reported by

Maximilian Transylvanus of Brussels On October 24, 1522

After making the 1st sighting of the Pacific in

1520, under Magellan, Roldan (Roland) van

Brugge was one of 33 who survived (out of

more than 200) to circumnavigate the globe

and return to Spain in 1522.

To the right, the publication of the circumnavigation by

Maximillian Transylvanus (of Brussels) in January, 1523.

“In spite of his name, Transylvanus was not

from Transylvania. He probably was raised in

Flanders. A secretary to Charles V and married

to a niece of Cristobal de Haro, he was well

positioned to acquire knowledge of the Magellan

expedition. When the crew of the Victoria arrived

in Valladoild following their successful circumnavigation, Transylvanus with his

mentor, Pietro Martire, questioned them closely about the events of the voyage.” - Tim Joyner, Magellan, (Camden, Maine: International Marine, 1994), p.349

The Impact of Magellan’s

Circumnavigation of the World

New World Conquered in the name of

Charles V

“Let us not forget that it

was in the name of a ruler

born in Ghent and who was

the Count of Flanders that

Cortes conquered faraway

Mexico.”

– Serge Gruzinski, Images At War:

Mexico from Columbus to Blade

Runner (1492-2019), (Durham &

London: Duke University Press

2001), p.70

“Last Days of Tenochtitlan - Conquest of Mexico by Cortez”

1899 by William de Leftwich Dodge

Charles V Sends Ships to Map America’s

Coastline

“Nowe to come to Stephen

Gomes, which by the

commandmente of the

Emperor Charles the Fyfte

discovered the coast of

Norumbega [in 1524].”

- Charles Deane, ed., Documentary

History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2,

Containing a Discourse on Western

Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by

Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge,

Massachusetts: John Wilson and

-Son, 1877), Google e-book; accessed

May 21, 2012, , p.24

“The conditions of life aboard the India [i.e., West Indies] ships were much the same as

elsewhere among Spanish seamen in the New World. The ships were filthy, crowded,

often unseaworthy, and inadequately manned. The prevalence of shipwreck was

frightful, and buccaneers abounded. The profits were between 200 and 300 per

cent, but the casualties also were enormous.”

-Paul S. Taylor, “Spanish Seamen in the New World during the Colonial Period,” The Hispanic American Historical

Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nov., 1922), pp. 631-661; Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2506063

.Accessed: 01/05/2012 08:54. p.647

1524: Magellan’s Circumnavigation Inspires French

A “gossipy account of the

voyage was published in

French translation that year.

This helped to stimulate royal

support of Verrazano’s project

which was intended to

achieve a similar result – to

find a trade route to the

East Indies by a

northwesterly route, Spain

and Portugal having laid

claim to routes by the

southwest and the

southeast.” - Samuel J. Hough, The Italians and the

Creation of America, (Providence, Rhode

Island: Brown University, 1980), p.38

Charles V & Newfoundland

Charles V ca 1540

“Juan de Garnica, his Majesty’s [Holy

Roman Emperor Charles V’s] aposentador,

went by his Majesty’s order…and hired a

caravel to be despatched to the Cod

Fisheries or Newfoundland.”

– Letter dated July 18, 1541, found in Biggar,

Collection of Documents, p.411

1540s-1550s: Charles V First Organized

Mapping of the North American Coast

“The printed world map

with which Sebastian

Cabot had some

connection put the

discoveries on [the] public

record in 1544. It now

became possible to draw

with some conviction the

profile of eastern North

America from the tip of the

Florida peninsula to

Labrador.”

– David B. Quinn, North America

From Earliest Discovery to First

Settlent, 1612, (New York: Harper

& Row, 1977), p.553

Sebastian Cabot’s Map of Newfoundland

was printed at Antwerp in 1544

The Dutch (& Flemish) Revolt

By 1550 Charles V Had Gained the Globe…

…And, By 1550 Charles V Had United the

Netherlands

The Netherland of William of Orange had: “No North and No South”

– Hugo De Schepper, ‘Belgium Nostrum’, 1500-1650, (Antwerpen: De Orde Van Den Prince, 1987), p1

1555: Charles V, Phillip II, Prince Orange

Oktober 25, 1555 - In een ontroerende rede verhaalde de oude keizer, steunend op de jonge

Willem van Oranje, hoe hij steeds had gestreefd "om voor het welzijn van Duitsland en de

andere rijken te zorgen, om voor de vrede en de eenheid van het hele christendom”

…And, In Tandem, By 1550, Antwerp Had …

“The Kings of Spain and Portugal organized their colonial trade on a monopolistic basis,

and, in principle, foreigners were excluded… But neither Spain nor Portugal could do

without the services and the capital which only the large, international firms could supply.

Thus, the treasures from overseas eventually reached Antwerp. The city’s deep

involvement in the East Indian and West Indian trade acted as a stimulus to her

whole economy, commercial and industrial.” -Pierre Jeannin, Merchants of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paul Fittinghof, (New York: Harper

& Row, 1972), pp.22-23

…Become The Center of Global Trade…

“’The Netherlands,’ as Henri Pirenne

remarked, ‘are the suburb of Antwerp’”.

And the rest of the world “its periphery.”

-Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th

Century: The Structures of Everyday Life, Vol. 1, (New

York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 504 and Vol. 3, p.39.

Quoting Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, III, 1907,

p. 259

“Antwerp…was the centre of the entire

[sic] international economy” in the 16th

century.”

Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The Perspective of the World, Vol. 3,

(New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p.143.

1516 – 1585:

The Prominence of Antwerp

Insert map on Antwerp’s

Economic prominence

here

“The establishment of the Portuguese spice trade at Antwerp [1502?] was the final stage

of a movement which had been steadily drawing merchants and merchandise to the

banks of the Scheldt. Only now did the term ‘world market’ acquire its full significance.

Antwerp brought North and South together.“

Pierre Jeannin, Merchants of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paul Fittinghof, (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p.22

Map of Antwerp

Showing the Beurs,

etc. circa 1580s

1516 – 1585:

The Prominence of Antwerp

Insert map on Antwerp’s

Economic prominence

here

“Antwerp was beyond a doubt by far the most important exporting centre in the Low

Countries [in the 16th century]. At 4,257,200 guilders [for 8 mos in 1545], its recorded

exports accounted for almost 75 per cent of the total for the whole of the Low

Countries, valued at 5,702,500 guilders. Compared with Antwerp, the share of the other

ports was negligible. In Amsterdam, the second most important port, the recorded

exports were valued at no more than 354,600 guilders, just 6 per cent of the total.”

Cle Lesger, The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange: Merchants, Commercial Expansion and

Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries c.1550-1630, p.27

Map of Antwerp

Showing the Beurs,

etc. circa 1580s

The Reformation Starts in Flanders

“Father Martin Luther of the order

of St. Augustine, supporter of old

and damned heresies and

inventor of new ones.”

– from the Second Proclamation by Charles V

against heretics, 1521.

- 1st tracts of Luther’s 95 Theses printed @ Antwerp in 1519; 23 editions of Luther’s

works issued at Antwerp by 1522

- 1st Laws against Protestant beliefs issued in Brussels in 1521.

The Reformation Starts in Flanders

But By 1550 He Lost Netherlanders’ Souls…

The 1st Protestant martyrs are burned at Brussels in1523

Hendrick DeVoes & Jan Van Esschen

(2 Augustinian monks from Antwerp)

To combat the heresies, Charles V appointed the only Dutch speaking Pope, Hadrian VI, in 1522...

Beeldenstorm Begins in Steenvoorde (1566)…

“Wherever these iconoclasts,

armed with sticks, axes and

burning torches, ran from

one one church to another

everybody fled…the next

day all the churches looked

as if the Devil had been at

work for some 100 years.”

– Abraham Ortelius to Emanuel

Van Meteren, 27 August, 1566

Left: ‘Beeldenstorm’ by

Frans Hogenburg of

Antwerp – whose art was

used in his friend Van

Meteren’s Histoire.

“Heresy grows here [in the Netherlands] in proportion to the situation in our neighbors’ lands.”

– Margaret of Parma to her brother, Philip II, May, 1561.

…And Spreads Throughout the Netherlands

“We assure you, Sire,

that in your Netherlands

there are more than

100,000 men holding

and following the religion

[of Calvinism]… and

none of them is

proposing rebellion.”

– Guy de Bres to Philip II, in the

Confession of Faith, 1561.

As Flanders Slipped Closer to Anarchy…

“In Flanders all is war and turmoil” – Desiderus Erasmus to Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, last Cardinal Protector of England

The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1356 to 1534 (1523-1524), Volume 10 (Collected Works of Erasmus)

[Hardcover] Desiderius Erasmus (Author), Alexander Dalzell (Translator), R.A.B. Mynors (Translator), p.170

Spanish troops

slaughter Flemish

Protestants

…Triggering An Armed Response, Which Led to

Excessive Taxation, Which Led to Revolt…

“The Duke of Alva, the governor for the Spanish Hapsburg [rulers – i.e., Philip II] in the

Netherlands, introduced a system of unified taxation in 1569. According to his plans,

three sorts of taxes were to be introduced: a 1 per cent tax (hundredth) upon all property,

a 5 per cent tax (twentieth) upon all transfers of real estate, and a 10 per cent tax (tenth)

that was to become a general sales tax….the Spanish governor [Alva] decided to

impose the taxes after all in 1571. This step washed out all possible compromises and

surely precipitated the outbreak of the Revolt – a war that was to last almost 80 years

followed.”

- ‘t Hart, et.al., A Financial History of the Netherlands, pp.13-14

The Duke of Alva

November 4, 1576: Spanish Soldiers Sack Antwerp

“Hierdoor was onder alle gezindten in de Lage

Landen een sterk anti-Spaanse stemming ontstaan.”

http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/koss002text01_01/koss002text01_01_0025.php

November 8, 1576: Pacification of Ghent

Map of Low

Countries

Showing (in

green) the

area unified

by William of

Orange under

the

Pacification

of Ghent.

1585 the Fall of Antwerp…

Antwerp’s three major exoduses in the 1500s (1525-1535; 1567-1576; 1583-1589) drained it of the

elite. England, the northern Netherlands and western Germany were the largest beneficiaries.

“Wealthy immigrant merchants joined the exodus from Antwerp and settled mainly in

Middleburg and Amsterdam.“

- ‘t Hart, et.al. A Financial History of the Netherlands, p.52

Philip Marnix,

Mayor of Antwerp,

Spymaster for

William of Orange

…and the Exodus of Flemings…

…Was Amsterdam’s [& London’s] Gain. Amsterdam’s “population soared; reckoned at about 30,000 [in 1585]…it had mounted to 105,000

by 1622.… the large part in that increase contributed by Antwerp and other towns of Brabant and

Flanders.” – Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, pp.16-17

“The chamber of assurance [maritime insurance] was set up in 1598; the [V.O.C.] was

chartered in 1602; a new bourse [modeled on Antwerp’s] was begun in 1608,

and…the exchange bank [Wisselbank] was founded in 1609.”

– Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, p.17

Map of

Amsterdam

ca 1600

…Making the 17th C the Dutch “Golden Age”

“De omvangrijke trek vanuit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden heeft een positieve rol gespeeld

in de ontwikkeling van de Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden en deze tot de

belangrijkste en meest rijke land van Europa te maken.”

– Roelof Vennik, Migratie van Vlamingen en Walen naar de Noordelijke Nederlanden voor 1700,

www.ngv.nl

The Franco-Flemish Diaspora

“Huguenot” is a Flemish Term

O.I.A. Roche, in his book The Days of the Upright, a History of the Huguenots, writes

that "Huguenot" is

"a combination of a Flemish and a German word. In the Flemish corner of France, Bible

students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called Huisgenooten,

or "house fellows," while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eidgenossen, or

"oath fellows," that is, persons bound to each other by an oath. Gallicized into "Huguenot,"

often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and

triumph, a badge of enduring honor and courage.”

Franco-Flemish Involvement in the Dutch Revolt

“These fierce Huguenot privateers were under the command of a succession of daring and

sometimes reckless leaders, the best-known of whom is [the Fleming] William de la Marck,

Lord of Lumey, and were called "Sea Beggars", "Gueux de mer" in French, or

"Watergeuzen" in Dutch. In the last half of the 1560s the “Sea Beggars” were formed into an

effective and organized fighting force against Spain. In 1569 William of Orange, who had now

openly placed himself at the head of the party of revolt, and granted letters of marque [for

privateering] to a number of vessels manned by crews of desperadoes drawn from all nationalities.

Eighteen ships received letters of marque, which were equipped by [the Prince of

Orange’s brother] Louis of Nassau in the French Huguenot port of La Rochelle,

which they continued to use as a base. By the end of 1569, about 84 Sea Beggars

ships were in action.”

Flemings Fled to La Rochelle, …

“To the north and west of the port [of La Rochelle], the old parish of Saint Barthelemy

was chiefly inhabited by foreign merchants and wealthier local gens de justice. Near

the harbor, in rue Chef de Ville, congregated Dutch, Flemish, and German merchants

with commercial operations in La Rochelle. In their honor, Rochelais [inhabitants of

La Rochelle] called the main street intersection in the vicinity the ‘canton des

Flamandes’.”

-Kevin C. Robbins, City on the Ocean Sea: La Rochelle, 1530-1650: Urban Society, Religion, and Politics on the

French Atlantic Frontier, (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p.54.

…AND From There to Ft. Caroline, Florida…

“Deposition de Jehan d’ Menin [Johannes van Menen], mariner, natif de la Rochelle…”

[Jehan Menin] “gave a firsthand account” of the massacre at Ft. Caroline by the

Spanish. One of only 50 survivors [perhaps the only Flemish one] In 1564 –

his family were Protestants from the West Flanders town of Menen.

- DB Quinn, North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements, p.260

Menen, W.VL. La Rochelle Ft. Caroline, Florida, 1564

Another Landfall of Flemings in Continental U.S.

“It is September 14, 1566, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and a large

Spanish ship, with a Flemish crew, a contingent of Spanish soldiers, and three Jesuit

missionaries aboard, having been blown out to sea twice by hurricanes and storms, sits

tranquilly off-shore by the northern coast of Florida, right near the future Georgia border,

waiting for the proper moment to send an exploratory team to the beach in their

one remaining boat.“

- Raymond A. Schroth, The American Jesuits: A History, (New York: NYU Press, 2007, p.3

Flemings in France Fished For Cod

“In 1526, a ship left the harbour of Brouage to deliver its cargo to the nephew of the

major Genoan merchant Jaspar Centurisme in Anvers [Antwerp]….By 1546, this fishery

had become so important that voyages to the ‘Land of the Cod’ (Newfoundland) were

considered commonplace.”

-Nathalie Fiquet, “Brouage in the Time of Champlain: A New Town Open to the World,” pp. 33-42 in Raymond Litalien &

Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English ed., Kathe Roth trans., (Montreal: McGill University

Press, 2004), p.35

LaRochelle’s Fur Trade In Canada

“La Rochelle…was the point of departure for almost half of the ships sent to Canada.”

-Bernard Allaire, “The Occupation of Quebec by the Kirke Brothers,” pp. 245-257, in Raymond Litalien and Denis

Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University

Press, 2004), p.245.

LaRochelle-Antwerp-Canada Trade Triangle

“The embroideries [listed by Etienne Bellenger for his fur trade in Canada] came from

Flanders…The fact that large quantities of [Bellenger’s] trade items came from northern

countries where furs were very popular suggests that these items were loaded for La

Rochelle at Anvers [Antwerp], a major European fur-trading centre at

the time.” -Laurier Turgeon, “The French in New England Before Champlain,” pp. 98-112, in Raymond Litalien and Denis

Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University

Press, 2004), p.106.

Beaver Peltries Pull Merchants to North America

“The natural resource which drew these merchants to the coast of America was the

beaver. Current fashion in Europe required a steady flow of pelts for the hat-making

industry.” - Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds./trans., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country,

1634-1635, pp. xiii-xiv

“Trade goods valued at one livre when they left Paris bought beaver skins that were

worth 200 livres when they arrived back there…Each side thought the other was

overpaying, and both in a sense were right, which is why the trade was such a

success.”

– Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, (New York: Bloomsbury

Press, 2008), p.44

Because the Prices of Beaver Hats Were High…

“Between 1580 and 1620, the price of a

plain beaver hat [in Paris] was around 100

sols tournois, while plain (wool) felt hats

were rarely priced at more than 30 sols

tournois. By the 1650s, plain beaver hats

were worth almost 300 sols tournois, while

the price of felt hats was about 50 sols

tournois….Between 1580 and 1615,

decorated hats, both wool and beaver, had

parallel rises in price, but in the 1620s, the

price of decorated beaver hats exploded,

reaching peaks of 700 to 800 sols tournois,

while the price of a decorated felt hat

remained below 75 sols tournois.”

– Bernard Allaire, “The European Fur Trade and the Context of

Champlain’s Arrival,” pp. 50-58 in Raymond Litalien & Denis

Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English

ed., Kathe Roth trans., (Montreal: McGill University Press, 2004),

pp.52-53

Flemish Protestants in France Financed Trade…

Jacques de Peyster, born at Gent in 1596, became a banker at Rouen, where he died

in 1655. His wife Catherine de Lanoye, was incidentally, the daughter of Josse de

Lanoye and Sara de Wannemaker of Antwerp. Another, Jean de Peyster, was a banker

at La Rochelle. The rest of the family was scattered thru Haarlem, Utrecht, England,

Ireland, and even Greece! - Henry De Peyster, “The Pre-American Ancestry of the De Peyster Family”

in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, pp. 210-216 in Vol LXX (July, 1939) and pp. 313-331 of

Vol.LXXI (October, 1939) for the detailed written backdrop with supporting documentation. Or, for a quick look at the

simple connections, see http://www.frostandgilchrist.com/getperson.php?personID=I11518&tree=frostinaz01

“Another piece of evidence of this economic

interlacing was the presence in French port towns

on the Atlantic of ‘Flemish neighborhoods’.

There [was] an international trade network and an

international Protestant network, even though the

Calvinists and Lutherans often belonged to

distinct networks. For example, there were many

Protestants in Brouage, a major salt port for the

Baltic fisheries, where the members of the van

Liebergen family lived.” – Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and

the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien & Denis Vaugeois, eds.,

Champlain: The Birth of America, 1st English ed., Kathe Roth trans.,

(Montreal: McGill University Press, 2004), pp.239-240

LaRochelle Merchants Realize Profits 10x on

Beaver Pelt Trade in Canada in 1583

“He broughte home a kinde of mynerall matter supposed to hold silver, whereof he gave

me some; a kinde of muske called castor; divers beastes skins, as bevers, otters,

marternes, lucernes, seales, buffs, deere skinnes, all dressed, and painted on the

innerside with divers excellent colors, as redd, tawnye, yellowe and vermillyon, all which

things I sawe; and divers other merchandise he hath which I saw not….

-Charles Deane, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2, Containing a Discourse on

Western Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John

Wilson and Son, 1877),Google e-book; accessed May 21, 2012, p. 26

The Profitability of the Beaver Fur Trade:

Invest 40 Earn 440!

“…But he told me he had CCCC. and xl. [i.e., 400 and 40] crowns for that in Roan

[=Rouen], which in trifles bestowed upon the savages, stoode him not in fortie crownes.”

-Charles Deane, ed., Documentary History of the State of Maine. Vol. 2, Containing a Discourse on

Western Planting, Written in the Year 1584, by Richard Haklutyt (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John

Wilson and Son, 1877), Google e-book; accessed May 21, 2012, p. 26

Following Fish, Fur, & Flemings:

The Flemish Connection to English Discovery (1000s-1600s)

The English Followed the Fish, Fur & Flemish

“The very first record of North

American cod brought back to

Europe is thru “an English ship…with

an Azorean pilot, [who] came home

to Bristol with…North American cod

in 1502.”

- Sicking & Abreu-Ferreira, Beyond the Catch:

Fisheries of the North Atlantic, p.125

“Fishing was a business enterprise;

so was the subsidiary fur trading

which accompanied it.”

- David B. Quinn, North America From Earliest

Discovery to First Settlements, p.348

Martin Frobisher: The First Englishman to Sail for the New World

Relied Upon Mercator & Jan de Langhe of Ieper

Sir Martin Frobischer, “also turned to Mandeville for

advice when he set out on on his voyage to discover

the North-West passage. Not only did his ship’s library

contain a copy of Mercator’s world map…but it also

contained a copy of [Jan de Langhe’s] The Travels [of

Sir John Mandeville].”

-Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John

Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 277-278.

The First Book on America in English: printed at Antwerp (1511)

“This text is the first English book containing the word America.”

-Edward Arber, ed., The First Three English Books on America, (London, 1883) Bibliolife reprint,1992, p.vii

“This [book] is not really of the new lands. It is mainly about Prester John.” -George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,

1928), p.269

Author Pietro Martire

(“Peter Martyr”) had

been Queen Isabella’s

personal chaplain,

collaborated with

Maximilian

Transylvanus of

Brussels, and was an

advisor to Charles V

on the Magellan

voyage decision

One Year Later, at Rupelmonde Near Antwerp Gerardus Mercator Was Born 500 Yrs Ago: March 5, 1512

“Maps codify the miracle of existence. And the man who wrote the codes for the maps

we use today was Gerard Mercator. Mercator was ‘the

prince of modern cartographers’, his depictions of the

planet and its regions unsurpassed in accuracy, clarity and

consistency. More recently he was crowned by the American

Scholar Robert W. Karrow as ‘the first modern, scientific

cartographer’. Mercator was a humble man with a universal

vision. Where his contemporaries had adopted a piecemeal

approach to cartography, Mercator sought to wrap the world

in overlapping, uniform maps…

He participated in the naming and the mapping of America,

And he devised a new method – a ‘projection’ – of con-

verting the spherical world into a two-dimensional map.

He constructed the two most important globes of the

sixteenth century, and the title of his pioneering ‘modern

geography’, the Atlas, became the standard term for a book of maps.”

Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet, (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), p. xii

England’s Interest Started With Dee/Hackluyt

“Hackluyt was thus one of the engineers of English colonization in America. If we omit

the plan of 1563 to preempt French Florida for English uses, we may date the first

project in 1578, when Frobisher planned a settlement in the frozen north. The details of

this project were laid down by Hackluyt. The second project is of the same year,

when Gilbert planned a settlement in Newfoundland.” -George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,

1928), p.53

England’s interest in America did not begin until the year 1577 – the year Mercator gave

Dee info and Abraham Ortelius , creator of the Atlas, toured England .

Ortelius Van Meteren Hackluyt

John Dee Plagiarized and Falsified…

“So far as we know, Dr. Dee did not gather reports, and his geography remained at best

secondhand and academic.” – George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society, 1928) p.37

“The world map that Geraldus Mercator (a native of Flanders)

published in 1569 had an insert showing just such a polar

region with its terrifying ‘Indrawing Seas’. Mercator said his

source for this and the story outlined above was the written

account in the ‘Belgic language’ by one Jacobus Cnoyen of

Herzogenbusch. Cnoyen himself may have gotten the story

about the eight Greenlanders while on a 1364 business trip to

Bergen, a Staple of the Hanseatic League. Mercator gave an

account of it all [the Inventio Fortunatae ] in a letter to the English

mathematician and occultist John Dee, who presumably was not

himself able to read Cnoyen’s ‘Belgic language’; Dee then wrote

his own version of the story as told in Mercator’s letter. Dee’s manuscript (later

damaged by fire) incorporating the Cnoyen-Mercator information was dated June 8,

1577. Just three years later, as [Professor] Taylor reconstructs the sequence of

connections in her article ‘A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee’, Richard

Hackluyt also referred to Cnoyen’s story.”

- Kirsten Seaver, The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North Americaca A.D. 1000-1500, pp.133-134

Mercator Sparks English Belief in Claim to No.America

“Mercator’s abstract (which is mainly in Flemish) is therefore the only surviving record

of the contents of the Itinerario.” – Skelton, The Vinland Map, p.180

“And this matter of Discovery in hand, and chiefly of these most Northerly Countries and

Iles, hath caused me [John Dee] (since the last yere [i.e., 1576] to send into divers

places beyond the sea, and to men there in our age rightfully [esteemed, to wit the ]

honest Philosopher and Mathemetician, Gerardus Mercator and to that learned

Geographer Abrahamus Ortelius whose company also (syns my first lettres sent over [to

Flanders].”

- E.G.R. Taylor, “A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, p.56 in Imago Mundi, XIII, (1956), ed. Leo Bagrow, (‘s Gravenhage), pp.56-68

“Late in 1577…Dee was summoned to Windsor, where he ‘declared to the Queen her

title to Greenland.’…Gilbert himself came to consult Dee 1577, the year of his own

patent [to set up colonies in North America]. In 1578, probably to justify the grant, Dee

drew up a paper on the Queen’s title to North America….The paper itself seems not to

have been presented to the Queen until 1580, by which time Dee was thoroughly

enmeshed in Gilbert’s web.”

-George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society,

1928) p.48

Mercator – 1st Empirical Maps

“The Fleming Mercator empirically discovered the projection technique

which made possible decisive improvements in marine maps.”

-Pierre Jeannin, Merchants of the Sixteenth Century, translated by Paul Fittinghof, (New York: Harper & Row, 1972),

p.110

L: Very first part of the world

empirically mapped: Flanders

The Flemish Role in the First English Colonies in America:

Roanoke & Sable Island (1583-1585)

Mercator – 1st to Map w/Navigational Grids

On this wall map of 1569 Mercator wrote a dedication to mariners of his method of map projection

for long distance navigation by using loxodromes as straight lines. The Mercator projection

was most suitable for plotting courses at sea. Hondius, working w/ Edward Wright,

Conformed this process to practical use in 1594.

English Had No Clue of What/Where of America

“As late as 1583 there had been no certain knowledge in England of the coast of

Newfoundland, despite the long experience offshore of [English] deep-sea fishermen,

not to mention John Cabot’s landfall made there, or thereabouts, three generations

earlier.”

– Richard Hackluyt, Voyages and Discoveries: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and

Discoveries of the English Nation, ed., Jack Beeching (New York: Penguin, 1972), p.18

Mercator, Keizer Karel and the Northwest Passage -Mercator utilized information from Maximilianus

Transylvanus of Brussel (who interviewed survivors

of Magellan voyages).

-Mercator utilized information supplied by the

Flemish-Azoreans, the Corte Reales (voyages from

Azores to Newfoundland 1480s-1502).

-“Against the Arctic gateway to the Moluccas,

Mercator engraved a reference to the Corte Reales:

‘Arctic straits or Straits of the Three Brothers, by

which the Portuguese tried to go to the East to travel

to the Indies and Molucca’. Thus, the north-west

passage [to Asia across the Arctic] existed

because navigators had tried to find it.” (And it had

a printed existence because globe-makers had tried

to plot it.) To substantiate their conviction that the

Corte Reales had pushed past the Arctic to Asia,

the globe-makers created a stubby peninsula part-

way down the Asian coast, which Mercator labeled

‘Promontorium Corterealis’.”

- Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped

the Planet, p.84

John Dee & Richard Hackluyt – Heavily

Influenced by Abraham Ortelius in 1577

One example of Flemish innovations adopted by

or utilized by the English is the Atlas. The very

first Atlas was created by Abraham Ortelius in

1570, at the suggestion of Gerard Mercator,

Ortelius’ friend and collaborator…

“The idea of publishing an atlas in the form of a uniform collection of maps with

accompanying texts, engraved specifically for this purpose, and bound as a book,

seems to have come from Ortelius’; contacts with Aegidius Hooftman, an Antwerp

merchant. When Hooftman asked him to supply a number of maps covering Europe in a

convenient format, he assembled a set of 38 maps in a book form[at].” - Marcel P.R. van den Broecke, Ortelius Atlas Maps: An Illustrated Guide, (Westrenen, Tuurdlijk, The

Netherlands: HES Publishers, 1996), p.13

Abraham Ortelius: Cosmographer to the King of

Spain Develops Atlas For an Antwerp Merchant

“’Nothing pleases me more than…to state clearly what first

led Ortelius to think of compiling his ‘Theatrum’.... I was in

1554 [at the age of 16] apprenticed to Aegidius Hooftman,

the well-known merchant of Antwerp. There I became

acquainted with your relative Emanuel van Meteren…We

often spoke of Abraham Ortels, who was a relative of van

Meteren…Having a taste for history, and more especially

for geography, he [Ortelius] endeavored to gain a

livelihood by selling the best maps he could purchase…As

the unrolling of the large maps of that time proved to be

very inconvenient, I suggested [to Hooftman ca 1569] to

obviate this difficulty by binding as many small maps as

could be had together in a book which might be easily

handled. Hence the task was entrusted to me, and through

me to Ortelius.’”

- J.Rademacher to J. Cool, Middleburg 25 July 1603 in Marcel P.R. van den

Broecke, Ortelius Atlas Maps: An Illustrated Guide, (Westrenen, Tuurdlijk, The

Netherlands: HES Publishers, 1996), pp.13-14

Mercator – 1st to Map a Feasible Northwest Passage “Mercator cites his authority for his delineation of the northern regions: the Itinerarium of a

Flemish traveler named Jacobus Cnoyen… this work was called the Inventio Fortunata,

which also, (ironically, in light of its title) is lost. Ruysch cites the same sources, and …Behaim was

working from the Inventio Fortunata also.” - Chet Van Duze “The Mythic Geography of the Northern Polar Regions“, pp.2-3 Cnoyen’s source was a priest, a “fifth generation

Brusselensis” with an astrolabe who arrived at the court of the King of Norway in 1364 from Greenland; as Mercator tells John Dee

(in a letter dated April 20, 1577).

“[John] Dee was in fact much wrapped up in the northwest idea during these dozen

years of experimenting, dealing with it both as a promoter and as an unofficial

geographer royal. ”

-George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society, 1928),

p.48

The Connection Between Gilbert, Raleigh, Dee,

and Van Meteren…

“[John Dee] was closely associated with Raleigh, who took

Dee’s place in the ‘Fellowship of New Navigations

Atlanticall and Septentionall’ that set off to colonize

America in the mid-1580s.” – Benjamin Woolley, The Queen’s Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee,

Adviser to Queen Elizabeth, I, pp.279-280

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in his patent to the North American

coast [granted by Queen Elizabeth I, on June 11, 1578],

“relinquished latitudes above 50 degrees north to Dr.

John Dee, though he kept Newfoundland inside his

own sphere of influence.” – David B. Quinn, North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements, pp.362-363

Emanuel Van Meteren was the only non-English member of the ‘Fellowship of

New Navigations Atlanticall and Septentionall’

“The intermediary [between the English and the ‘Dutch’] was Emanuel van Meteren,

dean of the [Netherlandic] colony in London although he was naturalized [as] an

Englishman.”

– George Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, (New York: American Geographical Society, 1928), p.142

An Azorean Fleming Shows English to America

“Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who with the backing of Sir

Francis Walsingham the Secretary of State was

planning a colonising expedition to the east coast of

America from 1578, also needed Spanish charts. He

gained the services of a Portuguese pilot Simon

Fernandez…The only chart by Fernandez now known

survives as a copy…Its legend written in a 16th century

hand reads: ‘The counterfet of Mr Fernando Simon his

sea charte which he lent my master at Mortlake. Ao

1580. Novemb. 20. Fernando Simon is a Portugale,

and borne in Tercera beyng one of the Iles called

Azores.’ The master at Mortlake was the philosopher

and geographical advisor to the Queen [Elisabeth I]

John Dee. The chart appears to have been one of

Dee’s main sources for his map of North America,

1580…which he prepared for Queen Elizabeth as

evidence of England’s right to territories north of

Florida.”

– Helen Wallis, North Material on Nautical Cartography in the British Library, 1550-

1650, (UC Bibliotheca Geral, 1984), p.195

Flemish-Azorean Symon Fernandez Guides the 1st English

Settlement in the U.S. to Roanoke, 1584

“The pilot [to Roanoke, the first English

colony in what became the U.S.], Simon

Fernandez [a native of Terceira in the

Azores], has had more experience in the

[West] Indies than almost anyone in

England.”

–Lee Miller, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony,

(New York: Penguin, 2000), p.64

The First New England – Looking for Path to Asia

“Humboldt observes ‘that the more it became gradually recognized that the newly-

discovered lands constituted one connected tract, extending from Labrador to the

promontory of Paria, the more intense became the desire of finding some passage

either in the south or at the north.’ To find this waterway was the fixed purpose of a

number of the explorers, and this at an early date.”

-E.L. Stevenson, “Martin Waldseemuller and the Early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography of the New World” , Bulletin of

the American Geographical Society, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1904), pp. 193-215; American Geographical Society Stable URL:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/198810 .Accessed: 06/05/2012 10:50, p.202

The First New England Was in California

Before it was called “California” by Europeans it was called “Nova

Albion” = New England – thanks to Sir Francis Drake’s visit in 1579

The First Flemish Influence in California

The first contemporary woodcut prints purporting to show the first meeting

between the Europeans and Native Americans at Drakes Bay in 1579, were by

the Flemish engraver Theodore DeBry

The First Flemish Influence in California

The first map of Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation was printed

at Antwerp in 1581 by Nicola Van Sype

The First Flemish Influence in California

The first printed account of Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation was by

Antwerp native Emanuel Van Meteren, in his 1593 “Histoire”

The First Flemish Influence in California

“Nova Albion” - ‘discovered’ by Sir Francis

Drake in 1579 – mapped by Judocus

Hondius of Wakken, Flanders circa 1595

“Sir Francis Drake” painted by

Judocus Hondius ca 1581

Olivier Brunel Links Pelts & Protestants [Olivier Brunel] “sailed north for the English. Then he vanished. However Brunel had failed, he had

not been a failure. It was he who made the White Sea Trading Company of the Dutch a success; he

was the first Dutch Arctic navigator. Others were to follow along the path he had blazed.” – Jeanette Mirsky, To the Arctic! The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times, p.37

…in the Northeast for Muscovy, Furs, Cathay

- 1555 - John Dee, Sebastian Cabot & Henry Hudson Sr. form Muscovy Co.

- 1560s-1580s – Olivier Brunel of Brussel – Flemish émigré to England – works as fur

trader at Narva, Russia

- 1570s-1580s – Olivier Brunel, imprisoned by Russians, thanks to English intrigues,

including a Thos Hudson. Sent via Ob R. overland from Muscovy to trade with the

Chinese

-1580s – Brunel back in Netherlands and informs Plancius of NorthEast route to

China

Brunel & The Search For a North East Passage “It was due to the efforts of one man that the Dutch were aroused to take up the search for

the Northeast Passage….[That man] was Oliver Brunel. He was intelligent, enterprising, and

adventurous, and, while these qualities brought success to the Dutch White Sea Trading Company

from its very start, they also marked him out for an amazing career. He learned the native language

in order to deal directly with the hunters, and his drive and initiative soon made him such a

formidable rival to the English traders that they decided to get him out of their way. They denounced

him as a spy…Somehow he was paroled and put in the custody of the Stroganov family…As their

agent he made his famous overland trip [to trade with China]….Years passed. Brunel studied

and planned for the day when he would be sent to find the Northeast Passage….To that end his

whole life had been shaped….Balthazar de Moucheron, a wealthy Brussels merchant, financed

Brunel’s expedition of 1584.”- J Mirsky, To the Arctic: The Story of Northern Exploration from earliest Times to

the Present, pp.35-36

Flemings Joined Drake, Gilbert, Hawkins &

Raleigh

“All four of Adolf Van Meetkercke’s sons joined and

officered in the English army in the Netherlands in the

1580s-1590s.Baldwin, Adolf’s second son, was

knighted by Sir Francis Drake at Cadiz in 1596 for his

heroism against the Spaniards. The Van Meetkerckes

were not only co-religionists but friends of Emanuel

Van Meteren, and his cousin Abraham Ortelius.”

http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com quoting D.J.B. Trim, “Protestant

Refugees in Elizabethan England and Confessional Conflict in

France and the Netherlands, 1562-c.1610”, pp.72-73, in Randolph

Vigne and Charles Littleton, eds., From Strangers to Citizens: The

Integration of Immigrant Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial

America, 1570-1750, (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2001),

pp.68-79.

The World According to Ortelius 1587

World map by Abraham Ortelius in 1587. Note the implied Northwest

passage over America to Asia – and an equally viable Northeast passage.

Flemish Roots of Dutch/English Navigation…

In 1584-85, Lucas Waghenaer pulled navigational traditions

together in the text, views, and hydrographic charts of his

Spieghel der Zeevaerdt.

Translated into English in 1588 by Ortelius/ Van Meteren’s

cousin Daniel Rogers, The Mariner's Mirrour became the

Bible for Dutch & English nautical mapping and charting for the

next 150 years…

Waghenaer’s book was based upon the translation of ‘Arte de

Navigacao’ by Pedro Medina by Merten Everaert of Brugge

and Michiel Coignet’s ‘Nieuwe Onderwysinghe op de

principaelste punckten der Zeevaert’ – both published in

Antwerp in 1580.

Waghenaer’s book was printed in Amsterdam by the

Brabander Cornelis Claesz. from Haarlem– the same printer

who worked with Hondius and printed the nautical charts that

Petrus Plancius used for the V.O.C. and which in fact may

have been stolen by Willem Usselinckx from the Iberians!*

-Cornelis Koeman, “Flemish and Dutch Contributions to the Art of Navigation”, p.499 &

- *J.K.J. de Jonge, Opkomst van het Nederlands gezag in Oost Indie 1595-1610. Deel I, p.168.

Hackluyt’s Purchas & Van Meteren’s Histoire

“Hackluyt discussed plans for North-west Passage ventures, contemplated in the Netherlands, with

Abraham Ortelius in London.”

– D.B. Quinn, The Hackluyt Handbook, Vol. I (London: The Hackluyt Society, 1974), p.268 [quoting Taylor, Hakluyts, II,

p.279]

Richard Hackluyt’s

Principal Navigations (L)

borrowed from Ortelius

And from Van Meteren’s

Histoire der Nederland

(R)

Cousins: Ortelius-Van Meteren-Rogers

“’That great Daniel [Rogers], the envoy of the most glorious Elizabeth Queen of England, no less

remarkable for his literary prowess than for his courtesy.’”

- J.Rademacher to J. Cool, Middleburg 25 July 1603 in J.A. Van Dorsten, Poets, Patrons, and Professors: Sir Philip

Sidney, Daniel Rogers and the Leiden Humanists, (Leiden: University Press, 1962), p. 75

[i]

Close Anglo-Flemish Cooperation Esp. in Cartography – Bruneel, Plancius,Mercator, Ortelius, Dee, and Hakluyt

English explorers depended on information transmitted to them by John Dee and Richard Hakluyt.

Dee and Hakluyt were in direct and continuous correspondence with Emanuel van Meteren in

London, Van Meteren’s cousin Abraham Ortelius at Antwerp and Gerard Mercator of

Rupelmonde in Duisberg. Cartographers, book sellers, and printers were (at least in the

Netherlands) all members of Sint-Lucasgilde…

Mercator

Ortelius

Sint-Lucasgilde

John Dee Richard Hackluyt

The Connection Between Gilbert and Raleigh

“Sir Humphrey Gilbert was fourteen years older than his half-brother, Ralegh, and of much more

consequence. He had been at Eton, Oxford, and the Court, and been knighted on active service.

His family’s ancient and noble seat at Compton Castle near Torquay had been a second home to

the young Walter in his holidays….The brothers were determined to put their country back where

she used to be, in the middle and most important part of the map.... England could harry other

navies and outstrip them in the race for ‘rich and unknown lands, fatally and it seemeth by

God’s providence, reserved for England.’ So Gilbert wrote with Ralegh’s help, in an urgent

attempt to convince the Privy Council that there was a North-West Passage through the Arctic

Ocean to Cathay and India; then that North America was ‘of all other unfrequented places,

the most fittest and comodius for us to meddle withal’. As a still better notion, he told them

‘How to annoy the King of Spain…fall upon the enemy’s shipping, destroy his trade in

Newfoundland and the West Indies, and possess both regions.’ …[p.21] America was

waiting for him, and to him America was everything.”

– Margaret Irwin, That Great Lucifer: A Portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh, pp.19-21

The Anglo-Flemish Diaspora

The Westkwartier Was Devastated, So…

“The country is so depopulated…one

sees daily people from the country

[in Flanders] going to England with

their families and the tools of their

trade.”

– Christopher Dassonville to Granvelle, January

15, 1565

At left, the

“Westkwartier”.

“The bosgeuzen …guerilla war in the Westkwartier of Flanders was co-ordinated by the

Dutch churches in Sandwich, Norwich, and London.”

– D.J.B. Trim, ”Protestant Refugees in Elizabethan England and Confessional Conflict in France and

the Netherlands, 1562-c.1610”, in From Strangers to Citizens, p.69

Flemings Fled Flanders…

Left, “Fleeing

Flanders” a 19th

century painting

glamorizing the

Flemish

Protestants’

departure for

England, France,

& Holland/Zealand

“During the 1566 rebellion in the Netherlands, in which returned exiles are known to

have played an important role, the involvement of Englishmen is often overlooked.” .”

– D.J.B. Trim, ”Protestant Refugees in Elizabethan England and Confessional Conflict in France and

the Netherlands, 1562-c.1610”, p.69

For Nearby Places Especially the English Cinque Ports

“Some [Flemings] managed to bring their money with them [to England], all

brought their skills and their reformed religion.”

- John Parker, Van Meteren’s Virginia, 1607-1612, p. 8

…to England (& Later their children and grandchildren settled in…)

L: the towns in England in the Flemish

diaspora; Below: the path across the

North Sea/Channel was not far.

“The people [English] are not so hard-working and industrious as the Netherlanders.

…The most laborious, difficult and skilled work [in England] is chiefly done by

foreigners.” Emanuel Van Meteren, native of Antwerp, Dutch Consul in London (1582-1611), and

resident of London since 1550, writing about 1575.

Many Settled in England’s 2nd Largest City,

Norwich – Where the Pilgrims Started From

Robert Brown, founder of the Brownists [the denomination of America’s Puritans], “first

preached at [the Dutch-language church at] Norwich in 1581, where the Dutch

had a numerous congregation.” – John Chambers, A General History of the County of Norfolk, p.1188

Many Settled in England’s 2nd Largest City,

Norwich – Where the Pilgrims Started From

“The Dutch exile churches in the vicinity of

Norwich had played a role in shaping the

radical Separatism of Robert Browne in the

closing decades of the sixteenth century.

Browne eventually fled England to form an

exile community of his own in Middleburg,

where in 1582 he published tracts that led

to the association of his name with the

schismatic ‘Brownists’ from whom Robinson

and Bradford were at pains to distinguish

their own congregation. John Robinson too

had his first clerical post in Norwich, a

situation that may have familiarized him

with Dutch religious practices and perhaps

to a limited extent with their language.”

- Douglas Anderson, William Bradford’s Books, p.18

…&Used England As Their Base For Privateering

“Privateering furnished a training ground of experience in something which was of vital

importance to the Dutch.”

-Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, p.8

Den Brielle, 1571

…& Led the Fighting in the Dutch Revolt

“The leader of the Dutch Revolt, William of Orange, saw piracy and privateering as the only way to

both raise money for the cause and inflict damage on the enemy’s weak points. Like guerilla war

leaders up to our own day, the Prince hoped that his pirates could sow sufficient discontent

throughout the Low Countries to weary Spain and win the war. First, the Prince issued letters of

marquee to legitimize the “robberies and piracies being committed”. But he strictly

demanded a tithe of one-third of all spoils to further fund the rebellion.”

-Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, p.8.

De Ontzet van Leiden

(The Relief of the Siege

of Leiden, 1574)

Jamestown – Refuge for Flemish Refugees

Jamestown was the first English settlement in the New World to thrive. Curiously, the heaviest

regions of Flemish immigrants in England (left map) were also the source of many of the emigrants

to Jamestown and New England. Inevitably, then, some of these “English” colonists to

Jamestown and New England had Flemish roots.

Jonas Cabeljau (Cabbelion, Cabelliauw), zoon van Abraham, afkomstig Gent, door Sweden; geb. 1577, beg.

Rotterdam Spuivaart 6-11-1632, j.g. van Metston (=Maidstone) in Engelandt, wonend te Leiden (1599), doopget.

te Amsterdam (1604) dan wonend te Rotterdam, komt in veel akten te Rotterdam[1] voor als lakengrossier (1608),

coopman (1606..1632), coopman van meede (1615), laeckencooper (1519), reder (1619), sluit een

compagnieschap met Abraham van de Poel voor de fabricage van grauwe pampieren (1630), belender aan de

Nyeupoort (1616, 1623), woont op de Delfsevaert (1621), op de Spoeyevaart (1623, 1630), doopget. te Rotterdam

(1618), voogd over Lysbet en Guido Blauvoet, kinderen van Maerten Blauvoet en Magdalena

Malebranck (1620), huw. get. te Amsterdam (1629), doopget. te Leiden (1628), otr./tr. Rotterdam geref. 11-7/17-

8-1599 (met attestatie van Leijden),[2] Susanna van Quickelbergh(e), geb. 1578/79, ovl. na 1649, volgens

Ref[3] ov. Rotterdam 26-3-1645, j.d. van Francfort, wonende in de Hoefsteech (1599), poorteres van Rotterdam,

woont te Rotterdam (1636), vermeld in akten (1633..1649) na de dood van haar man,[4] wiens activiteiten zij als

coopvrouw (1636, 1637) kennelijk voortzet, eigenaar van een papiermolen in Velp, eigenaar van de hofstede

"Vossenburch" te Ouden Bosch, eigenaar van een tuin, erf en speelhuisje met beplanting, gelegen aan

de Cingel buiten de Goutsepoort, woont in de Hoochstraet (1637..1645), te Rotterdam (1646), dr. van

Steven Stevens van Quickelberg (de jonge), zijdewever, en Jkvr. Aldegonde Maelbrancke,

te Brugge. - Cabeljau Stamboom,

Flemish? English? Dutch? German? Swedish? Flemish Refugee Trails Took Them Through Multiple Countries

Henry Hudson & the Flemish

Vlamingen en Nederlandse ontdekkingsreizen

• Olivier Brunel - 1584?: Brussel afkomstig – collaborator and friend of Plancius, Mercator & Ortelius

• Willem Barentsz - 1594: Plancius’ student (and user of his patented maps and navigational tools).

• Cornelis Nay - 1594: Barents’ subordinate (and user of his patented maps and navigational tools).

• Willem Barentsz - 1595: Plancius’ student (and user of his patented maps and navigational tools).

• Cornelis Houtman - 1596-1597: brother Drederik worked w Plancius to develop 12 new constellations (aided sailing)

• Willem Barentsz - 1596-1597: Plancius’ student (and user of his patented maps and navigational tools).

• Jacques Mahu - 1598-1600: Antwerpen afkomstig

• Olivier van Noort - 1598-1601: financed by the Maggellan Co – financed by P Van der Hagen of Antwerp & J van der Veken of

Mechelen

• Joris van Spilbergen - 1602: Antwerpen afkomstig

• Willem Jansz - 1605-1606: sailed under Jacob van Neck of Antwerp, a Plancius student

• Henry Hudson financed recruited and employed by Plancius, Van Meteren, and Dirck Van Os

• Hendrik Brouwer - 1611: under the command of Jan Pieterszn Coen of Brussel

• Adriaen Block - 1613-1614: sailed under the financing of Aert Vogels of Antwerp and with involvement from Plancius

• Dirck Hartog - 1616: Sailed under Carpentier of Antwerp; followed Mercator’s/Ortelius depiction of a Terra Australis

• Jacob Le Maire en Willem Cornelisz Schouten - 1615-1617: Antwerpen afkomstig

• Jan Carstensz - 1623: Verkent de kust van Nieuw-Guinea en Kaap York schiereiland. Willem Joosten van Colster

• François Thijssen - 1626-1627: Volgt de zuidkust van Australië.

• François Pelsaert - 1628-1629: Antwerpen afkomstig

• Matthijs Quast - 1639: No direct Flemish connection

• Abel Tasman - 1642-1643: followed Mercator’s/Ortelius depiction of a Terra Australis

• Maarten de Vries - 1643: No direct Flemish connection

• Abel Tasman - 1644: followed Mercator’s/Ortelius depiction of a Terra Australis

• Hendrick Hamel - 1653-1666: No direct Flemish connection

• Simon van der Stel - 1685: No direct Flemish connection

• Willem de Vlamingh - 1696-1697: Of Flemish ancestry…

By the end of the 16th century, searching for a NE or NW Passage was “the only thing of the world

that was left yet undone.” - John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages, v.12, p.511

“Among the greatest cartographers”

“As can be seen from the

legends on his Worldmap,

he [Plancius] held the

view, common in his day,

that the climate of the

polar regions was very

favourable and that there

was an ice-free sea at the

North Pole.” - Johannes Keuning, “XVIth Century

Cartographers”, p.

“Even if we had only this one map of Plancius, it would be already sufficient to range

him among the greatest cartographers of the XVIth century… They are the oldest

Dutch charts of the outer-European seas and coasts. Plancius was the first to

place them at the Dutch seamen's disposal. Probably they were all published

between 1592 and 1594.”

-Johannes Keuning, “XVIth Century Cartography in the Netherlands: (Mainly in the Northern Provinces)”

Imago Mundi, Vol. 9, (1952), pp. 35-60+62-63; Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd. Stable URL

:http://www.jstor.org/stable/1150011 , p.60

Plancius Develops a Solution to Longitude…

“In 1594 [September 12th, Plancius] was granted a patent [by the States General] for his

method to find longitude by means of the observed variation of the magnetic needle and

a calibrated scale to be used in combination with an ‘Astrolabium Catholicum’. One copy

of Plancius’ ‘lengtewyser’ has been preserved. It is the copy used by…

Heemskerk and Barents.”

- Cornelis Koeman, “Flemish and Dutch Contributions to the Art of Navigation”, p.496

Petrus Plancius – Koopman, Predikant & Geograph

“Space does not allow me to dwell here upon Plancius’s earlier cartographic

achievements – he was, in short, both the spiritual father and the able advocate of all the

earliest Dutch expeditions.. It was Plancius who, at the end of the sixteenth century, sup-

plied the Dutch fleets sailing to the East Indies with charts and navigation

instruments for their voyage and gave them instructions.” -Gunter Schilder, “Org.& Evol. of the Dutch East India Co.’s hydrographic office” Imago Mundi/

V28/#1/1976/p.61

“The earliest known [attempts to penetrate the

Portuguese possessions for trade in Brazil and Asia]

began when a consortium of Amsterdam merchants

and Petrus Plancius…united in the Compagnie van

Verre [in 1594]”. - Cle Lesger, The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange:

Merchants, Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the

Low Countries c.1550-1630, p.89

West Indies = America

“‘Scoops’ of trade secrets [from the Iberians] placed

Plancius (and the Dutch East India Companies

where he was central cartographer) at the most

forward edge of cartography as it was known.”

- J.K.J. de Jonge, Opkomst van het Nederlands gezag in Oost

Indie 1595-1610. Deel I, p.168.

The VOC en de ZuidNederlanders

“[Among the initial 1,143 shareholders who registered with the Amsterdam kamer in

August, 1602] there were 88 chief shareholders (‘grootaandeelhouders’), each of whom

invested more than 45% of the VOC’s capital. This group consisted of 38 immigrants

from the south Netherlands (total investment of 890,460 guilders) and 43

investors from the north Netherlands (total investment of 684,500 guilders.” - Henk den Heijer, De VOC en de Beurs, p.25

Top 8 Aandeelhouders in de VOC

Isaac le Maire…………….85,000 gulden

Pieter Lijnkens.…………..60,000

Jacques de Velaer……….57,000

Willem van Viersen………55,000

Dirck/Hendrik Van Os……47,000

Jaspar Quinget…………...45,000

Jan Jaensz. Kaerel………33,000

Reinier Pauw……………..30,000

Louis de le Beecq………..30,000

Elias de Raet……………..30,000 -Gustaaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de

Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, p.224

-Italicized names = Vlamingen/Brabanders

The VOC: “A Passage to China by NE or NW”

“The Dutch East India Company had been incorporated in 1602, and as the armed

opposition of the Spaniards and Portuguese was a source of great expense and some

loss, the Company resolved again [following the voyages of the 1580s and 1590s] to try

to find ‘a passage to China by northeast or northwest,’ as stated by [Emanuel]

Van Meteren [of Antwerp].”

- Dingman Versteeg, New Netherland’s Founding, p.1

Pepper

1598: 1st Voyage to Asia – Funded & Led by Zuid Nederlanders!

-Financed by John Van Veecken (of Mechelen) and Pieter van der Haegen (of Antwerp)

-Led by Jacques Mahu and Simon Cordu of Antwerp – attempts the Magellan Strait

-Reaches Japan (de Liefde) – the famous Will Adams of the book/movie “Shogun”

-Discovers the Falkland Islands (Sebald de Weert)

-Generates large profits an compels cooperation

Emanuel Van Meteren, Petrus Plancius, Jodocus Hondius, &

Dirck Van Os – Four Flemings for Hudson

Henry Hudson is credited with discovering the land that became New Netherland. Yet, it

was four Flemings – Plancius from Dranouter, Hondius from Wakken, and Van

Meteren and Van Os from Antwerp – who recruited, employed, guided, and

Financed Henry Hudson’s historic 1609 voyage.

Van Meteren Plancius Hondius

1605-1607 – Hudson explores for Northeast Passage 2x - fails, out of work…

Van Os

Emanuel Van Meteren & Hudson

Van Meteren

-Born Antwerp 1535; emigrated to London 1550; 1st cousin of Daniel

Rogers (QE I’s spy/diplomat) and Ortelius; Dutch Consul in London

1583-1612

-Van Meteren finds, recruits, and vouches for Hudson;

-Relies upon good friend Richard Hackluyt (whose writings catalog

and inspire the English voyages of exploration 1550s-1620s)

-Earlier (1594) had been the go-between for a proposed Anglo-

Netherlandic voyage of exploration for a Northeast passage (cf George

Bruner Parks, Richard Hackluyt and the English Voyages, pp. 146, 253, 260)

-Contributed intelligence gleaned from Hackluyt in England to

Plancius for use by Willem Barentsz’ voyages (1595-96)

-Wrote the first and definitive account of Hudson’s voyage

“He formed a wide acquaintance among both Englishmen and Netherlanders, giving and receiving

information, and doing favors of all sorts, like many a counsul before and since.”

- John Parker, Van Meteren’s Virginia, 1607-1612, p. 9

Petrus Plancius

Plancius

-Born Dranoutre (near Ieper)

1552; preached in Brussels;

esteemed theologian; leader of

the Contra-Remonstrants

-Gathered intelligence about fur

trading in Russia and the

overland route between

Muscovy and Cathay from

Olivier Bruneel (Brusselaer, who

lived in Russia 1560s-1580s)

-Co-investor with Dirck van Os

(future head of Amsterdam

kamer of the VOC) 1580s-1600s

in overseas trading ventures.

-Regular correspondent with

Van Meteren, Ortelius, Hondius

-Father-in-Law of Englishman

Matthew Slade (member of

the Pilgrim’s congregation in

Amsterdam and spy for

English Ambassador)

-Patent holder of various

navigation tools

-Collating various compass

(true north) recordings from

returning mariners to

academically assist in

creating master cartographic

record (for pilots)

-Creates ALL of the maps for

the VOC ships

Jodocus Hondius

Hondius

-Joost de Hondt was born October 14, 1563 in a small East Flemish village out-

side of Gent called Wakken. This was shortly after the death of another native of

Wakken, the Lord of Wakken, Adolf of Burgundy (awarded Yucatan as a pos-

session by Charles V in 1517).

-Flees Gent for London when Alva’s armies approach (1584)

-Marries into the family of Pieter De Keere (creator of “Leo Belgicus”)

-Member of the “Dutch” Church at Austin Friars w/Emanuel Van Meteren.

- Paints Drake’s portrait (1581) and maps his 1579 voyage to US West Coast

-In 1587 Hondius created the earliest copper engraved map of the world made in

England - a significant development for cartography and especially because it

focused on the polar regions (and the possibilities of a “Northwest Passage”).

- It is likely no accident that many of Hondius’ English friends – such as Sir Francis Drake and Richard Hackluyt –

were aggressively pursuing just such a route to the Indies.

- In 1589, Hondius engraved and printed a map of “New Albion”, where Sir Francis Drake established the first

English settlement in California in 1579. Hondius used Drake’s own journals as well as relying on other eye-

witness interviews. Later, Hondius painted portraits of Drake and other English explorers.

- Hondius created the gores of the first English globe in 1592: the Wright-Molyneaux. The map of this globe,

reprinted in Richard Hackluyt’s “Principall Navigations” established a new cartographic style (leaving unexplored

portions blank). This method enabled seafarers to better chart the areas for which cartographers had

imperfect information. It was Hondius' globe that guided first Queen Elizabeth and King James in their

global sea plans against Spain.

- Maps Drake’s “New Albion” in 1595 for Drake

The VOC: Run by Dirk Van Os (Antwerp Exile) From Home!

-Active participant in overseas trade – often with Petrus Plancius

-Native Antwerpenaar who emigrated to the “United Provinces” after 1585

-Head of the VOC Amsterdam Kamer

-The VOC Amsterdam Kamer dominates the VOC

-Therefore Van Os de facto head of the VOC

-Approx ½ of all major shareholders (and 8 of the top 10 investors) are Zuidnederlanders

-Directors of the VOC are overwhelmingly Zuidnederlanders

-The VOC Huis in Amsterdam is Dirck and brother Hendrick’s home

-Creates the Amsterdaamsche Wisselbank in 1609 to facilitate trade finance

Hudson & de Halve Maen

“Hudson’s ship’s name clearly was inspired by the half-moon medallion worn by the

Dutch privateers. Called “sea beggars” (watergeuzen), they were often financed by

leading Dutch merchants. They [the watergeuzen] had played a leading role in the Dutch

revolt against the Spanish…and enjoyed folklore status for the damage they

inflicted on Spanish property, at sea and on land.” – Douglas Hunter, Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World,

p.60

This medal, silver cast & tooled likely by Antwerpenaar

Jaak Jonghelinck , is called the “half moon of Boisot”. It

was worn by the “Dutch” maritime rebels called

Watergeuzen or Sea Beggars, fixed to their hats, as they

fought a turning battle of the war - the relief of Leiden in

1574. (That battle inspired a practice that came to be

called “Thanksgiving” by the Pilgrims.) The medal was

named after the commander of the Sea Beggars, the

Brussels-born Admiral Lodewijk van Boisot.

“On the first Dutch voyages to the Hudson…the northwest route, however, was taken.

Taking advantage of the Labrador current, ships sailed by way of Newfoundland….the

voyage to the Hudson [River] was regarded as an extension of the route to

Newfoundland.”

Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company, p.19

Compass Rose - Flemish

Van Meteren: 1st Report on Hudson’s Discovery

The very first

printed report of

Hudson’s 1609

voyage was in the

Antwerpenaar

Emanuel Van

Meteren’s 1611

edition of his

Geschiednis.

For the English, Hudson’s voyages “reignited interest

in proving the Northwest Passage, with four voyages

sent out between 1612 and 1616.” – Douglas Hunter, Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the

Voyage That Redrew The Map of the World, p. 276

The Voorcompagnieen

Hudson “Discovers”, Antwerpenaars Develop

“Van de dertig kooplieden die direkt na de ontdekkings-reis van Hudson in 1609 invest-

eerden in de handel met Nieuw Nederland, waren er twalf uit het Zuiden

afkomstig.”

- O.Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden en de op, p.218

Nieuw Nederlandt & Beaver Peltries

“According to preliminary explorations, there was every indication of an unlimited supply

of this furbearing animal [beavers] in what was soon to be called Nieuw Nederlant (New

Netherland).”

Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds./trans., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country,

1634-1635, pp. xiii-xiv

Antwerpenaars 1st on Hudson River

“Arnout Vogels, Leonart Pelgrom and Francoys Pelgrom, merchants, chartered the ship

‘St. Pieter’ of 60 lasts (120 tons) on May 19, 1611…the ship was manned by 13 souls

and carried three passengers or supercargos for the merchants. The ship, victualled for

seven months sailed with a load of goods [worth fl2950] to Terra Nova, to carry on trade

at places appointed by the supercargo. If trade should prove insufficient the

crew was to help with fishing.”

- Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company, p.20

“On July 26, 1610, probably some time after the arrival of definite reports of Hudson’s

voyage in Holland, Vogels chartered the Hoope of about 100 lasts [ca 200 tons],

skippered by Sijmen Lambertsz Mau from Monnikendam. Mau contracted to convey

‘wares and merchandise’ to the ‘West Indies, and nearby lands and places,’ and to trade

here and there on the coast at the direction of the mate and supercargo, both of whom

were appointed by the charterer [Arnout Vogels of Antwerp].” - Van Cleaf Bachman, Peltries or Plantations, p.4

The Vlaamse Voorcompagnieen

“By August 1613 [Arnout] Vogels [of Antwerp] and his associates, who about this time

began styling themselves ‘the Company of lands situate[d] between Virginia and

Nova Francia,’ had obtained some sort of patent or authorization from the Stadhouder,

Prince Maurits…[other traders] protested the granting of the patent, and by his

letter of 23 September 1613, Prince Maurits nullified the privilege and admonished both

parties to reach a settlement. The competitors met in the presence of the

learned geographer-domine Petrus Plancius…”

- Van Cleaf Bachman, Peltries or Plantations, p.7

Nieuw Nederlandt

October 11,1614 ‘”The States General of the United Netherlands to all

to whom these presents shall come, greeting.

Whereas Gerrit Jacob Witsen, former burgomaster of

the city of Amsterdam, Jonas Witsen and Simon

Morissen, owners of the ship called the Little Fox

(het vosje), Captain Jan de Witt, master; Hans

Hongers, Paul Pelgrom, and Lambrecht van

Tweenhuysen, owners of the two ships called the

Tiger and the Fortune, Captains Adriaen Block and

Hendrick Christiaensen, masters; Arnoudt van

Lybergen, Wessel Schenk, Hans Claessen, and

Barent Sweetsen, owners of the ship Nightengale,

(Nochtegael), Capt. Thuys Volckertsen, merchant in

the city of Amsterdam, master; and Pieter

Clementsen Brouwer, Jan Clementsen Kies, and

Cornelis Volckertsen, merchants in the city of Hoorn,

owners of the ship the Fortune, Capt. Cornelis

Jacobsen Mey, master, have united into one

company, and have shown to Us, by their petition,

that after great expenses and damages, by loss of

ships and other perils, during the present year, they,

with the above named five ships, have discovered

certain new lands, situated in America, between New

France and Virginia, being the seacoasts between 40

and 45 degrees of latitude, and now called New

Netherland…Given at the Hague, under our seal,

paraph, and the signature of our Secretary, on the

11th day of October, 1614.”

- E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, pp.74-76

Flemish New Netherlander: Hans Hontom (a)

• Born in Antwerp in 1583;

• Fur trader for Jabach-Hontom Family;

• Trades in Paris-La Rochelle-Rouen-

Amsterdam-Muscovy-Canada-Nieuw

Nederland;

• Like Aert Vogels – same Lutheran

church;

• First arrives in Nieuw Nederland in

1610 as a Supercargo for Aert

Vogels;

• Later, sails for self as well as

Raepmaker (Director of the W.I.C.);

“The coast of New Netherland is like that of Flanders”

Vol. 1, p. 179 E.B. O’Callaghan, General Index to the Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of

New York, (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1861)

Flemish New Netherlander: Hans Hontom (b)

• Fights w/ Adriaen Block (1611-1614); dispute patched up by Petrus Plancius

• Develops a reputation for cruelty to the natives (mutilates Mohican Chief genitalia

after beavers delivered in 1613 – reputation for excessive cruelty)

• Brother Willem also captains voyages to NN into the 1620s;

• Indians avoid trading with Hontom; final return on Soutberg (arrives 16 April, 1633 –

listed as a “merchant”)

• Dies in knife fight w/ Cornelis Van der Voorst, Dir. of Pavonia, April, 1633

• Son (Hans Jr. – born 1619) becomes WIC clerk in 1640s

Flemish Connection – Hans Thijs • Hans Thijsz of Antwerp married to Catharina Boel (b.1570, d of Augustijn Boel) of Antwerp (JMM-AAA153 /5)

• HT marries CB 1584 and moves w f-in-law Augustijn 1st to Ebling then Danzig to sell chamois /leather (HT does jewelry)

• HT's partner is Guillaume Van Rensselaer - HT jeweler - profession dominated by Flemings & Brabanders

• HT sells Antwerp home to Rubens 1611 - HT related to Van Welys?

• HT's 2 younger bros moved to La Rochelle in 1593 (Gelderblom HT CG p.613) they sell 1/2 of leather bought in Danzig to

Middleburg (an imp hub in the La Rochelle trade)

• HT & Boel start selling dressed elk hides in 1594 - yields 49% gross returns (Gelderrblom p613n20)

• HT/Boels had 10 tanners in Amsterdam that treated the hides into chamois

• HT/Boels began importing more hides but also (in the 1590s) from Russia, Sweden, France & 'Terra Nova'

• HT began working with a Van Os in 1598

• HT decided to get out of the biz in 1599 and had a residual from relatives in La Rochelle and Rouen that he offloaded hides to

(margins down to 5% by then) until 1602

• HT from 1589- also did jewelry biz - sold father's output from Frankfurt in Poland and then in Amsterdam

• HT sold 25% of all turnover to Duchess of Prussia 1589-1595 >8,600 florins

• HT did all biz w 3 Antwerp goldsmiths - Pieter Bakelrot of Antwerp -largest 2/3s of all biz from HT 1596-1603

• Paulus Boel sold HTs jewelry for him in La Rochelle (Gelderblom p622)

• HT's agents sold his jewelry in Archangel, Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bourdeaux, Constantinople, Hamnburg,

Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, La Rochelle Rouen,

• HT also sold on the side grain, salt, ginger, spices - gradually became a larger part of his biz

• EG HT worked w Antwerp merchant Jan van Lier who lived in Paris - JVL sold jewelry for HT since 1598 and together bought

cognac at La Rochelle for resale in Amsterdam to Antwerp merchant Thibault de Pickere (Gelderblom p624).

• HT trained as a jeweler in Antwerp in 1570s (Gelderblom p.633n90)

• Hillegond van Bijler (1598-1627) was a first cousin [thru her father Jan/1538-1605; emigrated 1585] to Willem van Wely (1579-

1653) thru his mother Geertruijt (1557-1615). Willem van Wely was a son-in-law [thru wife Maria] of Jan van Valckenburg of

Antwerp; Willem was a brother-in-law (thru his wife's sisters) to Marcus van Vogelaer (married to Margerita, 2nd ), Jacob Cats

(married to Elisabeth, 3rd), Arnout Cobbaut (born at Oudenaarde in 1555; married to Anna, eldest), and attorney Fabiaen van

Vliet (married to sister Susanna, youngest); and Lucas van Valckenburg (married to Susanna Coymans) and Marcus van

Valckenburg (married to Catherina Quingetti). (JMM-AAA), p.58). Kilaen's 2nd marriage was to his wife's 1st

cousin once removed, Anna Van Wely (Willem's oldest brother Jan's daughter). Willem van Wely's younger sister

Theodora's (1588-1637) husband was Jacques L'Hermite. Another younger sister (Cornelia, d 1625) married

Geuurt Aerssen van Krieckenbeeck. [Venema pp.320-321].

“The last independent Dutch voyages to Nieuw Netherland before the W.I.C. took over

occurred in 1621-1623. These were in small partnerships, authorized by the States

General. The prominent partner in these voyages was Petrus Plancius, participating in

New World trade literally up to his death [May, 25, 1622, age 70 years].”

– E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, Vol. I, pp.94-95

Flemings Trade at New Netherlands Before WIC.

Flemings in the Founding and Expansion

of the “Dutch” American Colonies

Leadership to Amsterdam From Antwerp by 1600

“The overwhelming preponderance of the greatest gateway in the region: formerly

Antwerp, but now Amsterdam”

- Cle Lesger, The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange: Merchants, Commercial

Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries c.1550-1630, p.99

The Twelve Year Truce 1609-1621 (a) Allows The Flemish Traders to Exploit NN

“Between 1585 and 1620 the Amsterdam merchant community grew from less than 500

people to about 1500. The immigration of Antwerp merchants alone increased the city’s

capital stock by an estimated 50%.”

-Gelderblom/Joncker, FRVOC, p.20

The Twelve Year Truce 1609-1621 (b) Allows The Flemish Traders to Exploit NN

“In een memorie uit het jaar 1629 constateren Amsterdamse kooplieden ‘dat wij door onse

mesnage ende beslepentheyt gedurende de Treves alle natien uut het waeter gevaren, meest alle

negotien uut andere landen hier getrocken en gansch Europa met onse schepen bedient

hebben.’”

-Van Dillen, Van Rijkdom en Regenten, p.20

The Twelve Year Truce 1609-1621 (c) Allows The Flemish Traders to Exploit NN

“In 1609 it was not a peace but a truce that was concluded, which presupposed the continuation of

the [80 Years’] war.…leaders like [Johan] Oldenbarnevelt were willing to consider a peace on the

basis of the status quo , that is, on the basis of the abandonment of the Southern Netherlands….In

1618 the war party took over …among the victors of 1618 [were] the true Calvinists and

the colonial trading interests” - J.W. Smit, “The Netherlands and Europe”, in Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia, p.20

Gomarus of Brugge, Arminians & Dordrecht

“De West-Indische Compagnie was de schlepping van het Contra-Remonstrantisme”. - Pieter Geyl, Geschiednis van de Nederlandse stam, (Amsterdam, 1949), Vol. I, p.484.

Usselinkcx & the Crusade Against Spain (a) The first publicly-traded company engaged in state-sponsored terrorism!

Willem Usselinckx, 1568-1648

As Van Meteren said, Willem Usselinckx was “a man

well informed of trade and conditions in the West Indies.”

-Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild

Coast: 1580-1680, p.35.

“Intelligent en welsprekend, begaafd met een levendige fantasie, overtuigd Calvinist en

hater van de Spaanse monarchie, heft hij zijn leven lang telkens weer nieuwe plannen

ontworpen om de Spaanse machtspositie in Amerika te ondermijnen.”

- J.G. Van Dillen, “De West-Indische Compagnie, Het Calvinisme en de Politiek,” in Tijdschrift voor

Geschiednis, 74, Aflevering 2 (1961), p. 145.

Usselinkcx & the Crusade Against Spain (b) The first publicly-traded company engaged in state-sponsored terrorism!

“Door een openlijken oorlog”

- W.R. Menkman, De Geschiednis van de West-Indische Compagnie, p.44

“It is then evident that when money is to be raised,

people must be offered something that will move

them to invest, in which God’s honor will help in

some cases, the destruction of Spain in others, and

for some the welfare of the fatherland, but the

leading and most powerful motive will be the profit

that each man may make for himself.”

Willem Usselinckx, as quoted in Van Brakel, De Hollandsche

handelscompagnieen, p.33 (Leger, Amsterdam, p.149).

Usselinkcx & the Crusade Against Spain (c) The first publicly-traded company engaged in state-sponsored terrorism!

“De meeste middelenwaer mede den Koningh van Hispangnien

de gantsche Weerelt, ende insonderheyt Christenrijck, soo vele

Jaren in roeren heft gehouden, ende dese Gheunieerde

Provintien soo machtich bestreden, zijn voornementlijck hem

toe-ghekommen uyt de over-ricke Landen van America: Wat

groote schatten van Goudt ende Silver hy uyt die ghewesten

jaerlijcks heft ghetrocken is alle de Weerelt ghenoegh bekent.”

Johanne De Laet, Historie ofte Jaerlijck Verhael van de West-Indische Compagnie,

(Leyden: Bonaventeur en Abraham Elsevier, 1644), p.1.

“According to the plan [that Willem Usselinckx devised], the Dutch [speaking] colonists

[in America] would convert the Indians to Calvinism, arm them,….and initiate them in[to]

the techniques of modern warfare.”

Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville:

University of Florida, 1971), p.35.

Establishes the Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie

(W.I.C.) in 1621

“’Take up your task,’ said Their High Mightinesses, ‘with the help of God, that has never failed us.’” With that

command, Beginning July 1, 1621, for a period of 24 years (with the potential option for renewal), the WIC was

given a territory over which to operate – essentially the entire Atlantic, from the west coast of Africa to the

eastern seaboards of North and South America. The WIC was permitted to wage war, make treaties, raise

armies and navies, impose taxes in its overseas territories, establish forts and cities, build infrastructure, and

operate trading monopolies in certain goods. For the first eight years the W.I.C. was exempt from all

duties into and from the Netherlands. The WIC, in short, as one Dutch historian noted, was

established as an “instrument of war”.

- Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, p.87

The Amsterdam Kamer of the

W.I.C. Controls Nieuw

Nederland.

More Than Half of Shareholders of

the Amsterdam Kamer of the W.I.C.

are Zuid Nederlanders

(mainly from Antwerp):

Bartilotti, Godijn, Blommaert, de Laet,

Uyttenhove, van Valckenburgh,

Pauw, etc.

However,

“Van de 12 kooplieden die tijdens

het Twaalfjarig Bestand begonnen

met handeldrijven op Nieuw-

Nederland kochten er twee in 1621

en 1622 aandelen in de

Amsterdamse kamer van de W.I.C.

Arnout van Liesbergen en Samuel

Godijn investeerden elk f 6.000.”

- O.Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden, p.238 n271

NB: Gelderblom neglects to mention Plancius…

“Van tien Zuid-Nederlandse Afrikahandelaren die

tussen 1609 en 1621 handel dreven op Afrika,

kochten er ook slechts drie een aandeel in de

msterdamse kamer v an de W.I.C.; Samuel

Blommaert legde vanaf augustus 1622

verschillende kleine sommen in, die in totaal een

aandeel van f 6.600 opleverden; Hans Rombouts

investeerde veneens in augustus 1622 f 3.000;

Eenzelfde bedrag, f 3.000, werd door Frans

Jacobs Hinlopen in juli 1622 ingelegd; Lucas van

de Venne, Hans Franx, Guillam van der Perre,

Nicolaes Balestel, Gerrit van Schoonhoven,

Adriaen, Marten en Guillam van Papenbroeck

komen in het capitaalboek niet voor.”

- O.Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden, p.238n271

“Zoo was het nu tijd, dat alle ghetrouwe lief-hebbers des

Vaderlandts, haer uyterste beste souden doen” - De Laet’s Niewe Werelde ofte Beschringhe van West Indien – 15/11/1624

The successful marketing of the W.I.C.

is in very large part due to the dedicated

fund-raising and extensive writing by

Johannes De Laet of Antwerp –

published by the #1 publisher of the

Republic at Leyden (but from Leuven)!

1st Published Map of New

Netherland 1625

1st to mention (in print) the

term “Nieuw Nederlandt”

in Niewe Werelde ofte

Beschringhe van West

Indien

by the Antwerpenaar

Johannes De Laet

Establishes Rationale for Nova

Belgica/Nieuw Nederlandt

Flemings in Nieuw Nederland

Nova Belgica/

Nieuw Nederlandt

“When after the armistice of twelve

years (1609-1621) the Dutch resumed

the war against Spain, and in 1629 the

Dutch army occupied North Brabant and

part of Flandres [sic], many of this

refugee element settled in the newly-

liberated regions, in the hope that South

Brabant and the remainder of Flandres

[sic] would soon follow. This hope was

never realized, and after 1648, when

the territorial borders of the Dutch

Republic were finally determined, a

percentage of those disappointed

Brabant and Flemish people came to

America.” – Louis P. De Boer, “Pre-American Notes on Old

New Netherland Families,” in Genealogies of New

Jersey Families,

Vol. I, p.37

Overview of Flemings in New Netherland

•Came from all parts of historic Flanders, Brabant and Limburg

•Predominantly Calvinists (but also Anabaptists, Lutherans & Catholics)

•All professions: W.I.C. officials, sailors, traders, farmers, preachers, soldiers

•Arrived in New Netherland before, during and after Netherlands’ rule (1614-1664)

•Although >10% of the population of the United Provinces were of Flemish origin, New

Netherland’s Flemish may have been between 3% and 15% of total (guesstimates)

•Overlooked: many of the “Dutch” in NN were actually children or grandchildren of

Flemish immigrants

•Easily assimilated yet had a disproportionate influence

Nova Belgica/

Nieuw Nederlandt Claims

“New Holland, which the Dutch call

in Latin Novum Belgium – in their

own language, Nieuw Nederland,

that is to say, New Low Countries –

is situated between Virginia and

New England.”

- Fr. Isaac Jogues, S.J., 1646, in Jameson, Narratives of New

Netherland, p.259

What Was The Flemish Population of Nieuw Nederland?

All Colonies Later Part of the United States

of Which in Nieuw Nederland

of Which Flemings

• Year Population

• 1625 1,980 ca 150? ca 20?

• 1628 ------ ca 270 ca 30?

• 1630 ------ ca 300 ca 35?

• 1640 ------ ca 500 ca 60?

• 1641 50,000

• 1650 ------ ca 1500 ca 150?

• 1664 ------ ca 9,000* ca 500?

• 1688 200,000 (* “waarvan dan nog 3,000 Engelsen

• 1702 270,000 waren” - Dillen, Van Rijckdom, p173)

• 1715 435,000

• 1749 1,000,000

• 1754 1,500,000

• 1765 2,200,000

• 1775 2,400,000 By 1775 the “Dutch” population of

America was ca 80,000

NB: Study of 900 WIC soldiers’ showed 1/3 had known origins of which roughly

3 % were “Zuidnederlanders” from outside of traditional Walloon areas

Although Flemings Married Other Flemings Too in

Nieuw Nederland

"On July 1, 1644 Pieter Linde of Belle in Flanders, surviving husband of

Else Barents, contracted for marriage with Martha Chambert, of Newkirk

in Flanders, widow of Jan Manye. Said marriage was solemnized on 10

July 1644, the bride being here called Martha Ekomberts, widow of

Jan Monmye.“

Genealogies of New Jersey Families, p.941

Flemish Origins of Nieuw-Nederland Surnames (a)

• 1610-1629: Hontom, ‘t Kindt, and Vogels (all Antwerp) + others…

• 1620-1629: Van Brugge (Brugge), Van Hoboken (Hoboken), Provoost (Turnhout), and

Bogaert (unknown Flanders), Thienpont (Oudenaarde), & Verhulst (Hulst);

• 1630-1639: Van Antwerpen (Antwerp), Van der Linde (Belle/Bael), de Pauw (Gent),

Bidloo/Bedlow (Maldegem), Loockermans (Turnhout)

• 1640-1649: Joosten (Aalst), Vincent (Aecken), Boel, Ten Eyck & Melijn (Antwerp), Verbrugge

(Brugge), Beekman (Deinze), Van der Voort ( Dendermonde), Nagel (Limburg)

• 1650-1659: Van Coster (Aecken), Schoof, Van Antwerpen & Van Cleef (Antwerp), de Mille,

Verbrugge Stephenszen, & Tibout (Brugge), Farmont & Vander Linden, (Brussel), Van

Damme (Damme), de Beauvois & Van Sycklin (Gent), Follenaer (Hasselt), Cobus

(Herenthals), Meynaerts (Ieper), Willays (Kortrijk), Couverts & Corbesye & Mettermans

(Leuven), Evertsen (Lokeren), de Sille (Mechelen), Bedlow/Bidloo (Maldegem), Van

Langevelt (St. Laurens), Thomaszen (Straboeck).

• 1660-1669: de la Warde, Harsingh, Paulussen & Verelle (Antwerp), Aerts & Cocquyt (Brugge),

Journay & Stilteel (Duynkercken), Rombout (Hasselt), Van Hoboken (Hoboken), Kortryk

(Kortrijk), Van Leuven & Vanschure (Leuven), Evertszen (Lier), Journee (Mardyk)

Vanderbeke (Oudenaarde), Van Pelt (Overpelt), Pieters (Sluys), Doske, (Tongeren),

Loockermans, Muller & Van der Baest (Turnhout), Abrahamsen (Zandvoorde), Enjart &

Parmentier (Flanders);

• 1670-1679: Schampf (Antwerp), Jacobs (Brugge), Croucheron (Zele)

NB: Flemish immigrants continued to arrive even after 1670s – e.g., Jan

Pietersz Bebout, b Thielt 1647, arr Nieuw Nederland before 1690…

Flemish Origins of Nieuw-Nederland Surnames (b)

• Aalst 1640-1649: Joosten

• Aecken 1640-1649: Vincent; 1650-1659: Van Coster;

• Antwerp 1610-1619: Hontom, ‘t Kindt, and Vogel; 1620-1629: Provoost; 1630-1639: Van

Antwerpen; 1640-1649: Boel, Ten Eyck & Mellijn; 1650-1659: Schoof, Van Antwerpen & Van

Cleef ; 1660-1669: de la Warde, Harsingh, Paulussen & Verelle; 1670-1679: Schampf.

• Bael/Belle 1630-1639: Van der Linde

• Brugge 1620-1629: Van Brugge; 1640-1649: Verbrugge; 1650-1659: de Mille, Verbrugge

Stephenszen, & Tibout; 1660-1669: Aerts & Cocquyt; 1670-1679: Jacobs.

• Brussel 1650-1659: Farmont & Vander Linden

• Damme 1650-1659: Van Damme

• Deinze 1640-1649: Beekman

• Dendermonde 1640-1649: Van der Voort

• Duynkercken 1660-1669: Journay & Stilteel

• Flanders 1620-1629: Bogaert ; 1660-1669: Enjart & Parmentier

• Gent 1630-1639: de Pauw ; 1650-1659: de Beauvois & Van Sycklin

• Hasselt 1650-1659: Follenaer; 1660-1669: Rombout

• Herenthals 1650-1659: Cobus

• Hoboken 1620-1629: Van Hoboken; 1660-1669: Van Hoboken

• Hulst 1620-1629: Verhulst Source: NY Geneological & Biographical Journal, original research

Flemish Origins of Nieuw-Nederland Surnames (c)

• Ieper 1650-1659: Meynaerts;

• Kortrijk 1650-1659: Willays; 1660-1669: Van Kortryk

• Leuven 1650-1659: Couverts & Corbesye & Mettermans ; 1660-1669: Van Leuven &

Vanschure

• Lier 1660-1669: Evertszen;

• Limburg 1640-1649: Nagel

• Lokeren 1650-1659: Evertsen

• Maldegem 1630-1639: Bidloo/Bedlow

• Mardyk 1660-1669: Journee

• Mechelen 1650-1659: de Sille

• Oudenaarde 1620-1629: Thienpont; 1660-1669: Vanderbeke

• Overpelt 1660-1669: Van Pelt

• Sluys 1660-1669: Pieters

• St Laurens 1650-1659: Van Langevelt;

• Straboeck 1650-1659: Thomaszen

• Tongeren 1660-1669: Doske

• Turnhout 1630-1639: Loockermans; 1650-1659: Cobus; 1660-1669: Loockermans, Muller &

Van der Baest

• Zandvoorde 1660-1669: Abrahamsen

• Zele 1670-1679: Croucheron

First Flemings in Nieuw Nederland Before 1614

“In the year 1609, before any Christians had been there, as was testified by Hudson,

who was then employed by the said Company [VOC], to find a northwest passage to

China…your High Mightinesses afterwards granted a charter to divers merchants to

trade exclusively for peltries there, where…before the year 1614, one or more small forts

were erected and garrisoned with [our] people for the protection of said trade.”

- E.B. O’Callaghan, A History of New Netherland, p.165

Land in Zicht! Nieuw Amsterdam – 1633 by Johannes Vingboon (son of David from Mechelen)

“The town lyeth about 40. deg. Lat. Hath good air, and is healthy, inhabited with severall

sorts of trades men and merchants and mariners, whereby it has much trade, of beaver,

otter, musk, and other skins from the Indians…For payment [they] give wampen

[wampum] and… manufactures brought from Holland.” – “Description of the Towne of

Mannadens in New Netherland as it was in Sept: 1661,” in JF Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland,

p.423

First Flemish Residents in Manhattan - 1624

“Probably two thirds of the inhabitants of

New Netherland, called 'Dutch,' were

from the southern or Belgic part of the

seventeen provinces -- Flemings who

spoke Dutch and Walloons whose speech

was French.”

- Milo Nellis, History From America’s Most Famous

Valleys: The Mohawk Dutch and The Palatines, Chap. V

First Government in New York Established – by Verhulst

in 1625

“The legendary tale of the Dutch

purchase of Manhattan from the Indians

is unrelated to the founding of the town

of New Amsterdam, or, New York City.

Contrary to popular legend, the signing

of the deed for Manhattan cannot be

considered ‘New York City’s birth

certificate’. That founding began with a

deliberate decision, in 1625, of a

governing council led by second director

Willem Verhulst – seated in a fort on

Governor’s Island – which selected

Manhattan Island as the permanent,

principal place of settlement….This was

the official year of birth of New York City

as imprinted on the City Seal.”

– Jaap de Koning, “The mutually Exclusive Birth

Years of the State of New York and the

City of New York”, de Haelve Maen,

Vol LXXXI, Number 4 (Winter, 2008),

p.73

Flemings in Nieuw Amsterdam 1640s

Flemings in Nieuw Amsterdam 1640s Below Wall St

Flemings in

Nieuw

Amsterdam 1664

Flemish Settlers

Occupied Key

Brouweries and Homes

in Nieuw Amsterdam in

1664

The Importance of the Flemings in Nieuw Nederland

Joannes De Laet

1581 Antwerp -1649 Leiden The Antwerpenaar was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin and English (at least). He is

viewed as the father of comparative linguistics.

• De Laet was born in Antwerp, educated at Leiden, and married (first) in England.

• He was a protégé of Emmanuel Van Meteren with whom he spent time in London.

• De Laet was a prolific correspondent – see, for example, his correspondence with John Morris [cf, J.A.F.

Bekkers, Correspondence of John Morris With Johannes De Laet (1634-1649), (1971)

• He was also a successful scholar and a recognized authority on the voyages to America (his published work

was printed in multiple languages and ran through several revised editions between 1625 and 1640).

• De Laet was also a successful merchant who invested in overseas trading ventures.

• De Laet was a chief fundraiser for the W.I.C. (he is credited with developing the first IPO “roadshow”) and

became a Director of the W.I.C. (Dutch West India Co.) from 1620 thru his death in 1649.

• De Laet was also an ardent Protestant and participated in the Dordrecht Synod as the elder representative for

Leiden and as such was viewed as an orthodox Calvinist.

• In his key role as a Director in the Amsterdam Kamer of the W.I.C. De Laet authored the document that

sought approval from the States General to colonize New Netherland.

• De Laet was one of the most prolific Patroons (sponsors of colonization) in Nieuw Nederland : he authored

the tract seeking approval from the States General for colonization.

• De Laet’s daughter eventually became a settler in New Netherland after De Laet’s death in 1649. As far as I

am aware, there is no published biography on De Laet in any language.

“The slumbering conflict with the co-directors about the sovereign rights and administration of Rensselaerswijck may have bothered

him [Kiliaen van Rensselaer]. It had been started by De Laet, who had joied the partnership later than the others and

who nowclaimed that the co-directors had equal rights over the colony, while he, Kiliaen, had taken his duties as

feudal lord so seriously, andprovided for good order in administration, jurisdiction, and religious life.

- J.Venema, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, p.284

“De Laet combined a commercial spirit with religious zeal and a vast knowledge of

many subjects.” Cornelis Ch.Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean, p.30.

Colonization of Nieuw Nederland Proposed by De Laet

“A committee had been appointed which devoted a considerable part of the summer [of

1638] to the matters and interests referred to them, and at length submitted, through

Johannes De Laet, one of the Directors of the company, to the States General, a paper,

entitled, ‘Articles and conditions drawn up and concluded by the Amsterdam chamber,

with the approbabtion of their High Mightinesses, the States General of the United

Netherlands, in accordance with the authority of the XIX, whereby the respective

countries and places in New Netherland, and circumjacent thereto, shall henceforth be

resorted to , traded with, and inhabited, according to such form of government and

police as may at present, or shall hereafter be established there by the

company or their deputies.” - August 30, 1638

- E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, pp.192-193

Flemings at Rensselaerswijck)

•Hans Hontom (Commissary) of Antwerp (1614; 1626-1633)

•Joannes Dijckman (Vice Dir & Commissary) 1652-1655

•Johann De Deckere Vice Director 1655-1656

•Johannes La Montagne (Vice Dir & Commissary) 1656-1664

•Johannes Provoost (son of David) – clerk under La Montagne then

Secretary 12 Nov 1664-8 Aug 1665, & 1673-1675 - Antwerp

•Dirck van Schelluyne (Notary Public Beverwijck) 1660-/Town Clerk 1665-1668

- Unknown

•Ludovicus Cobus (Secretary) 1668-1673 – Herenthals

•Robert Livingston (Secretary) 1675-1721 (mother: “Mary Flanders”

Wife is daughter of Annetje Loockermans of Turnhout)

Samuel Blommaert

(Aug 21, 1583 Antwerp – Dec 23, 1651 Amsterdam)

- Born at Antwerp to Lodewijk Blommaert & Maergrether Hofnaegel

- Father, Schepen of Antwerp & Commander of Fort during the Siege;

- Maternal grandfather from an influential family;

- Raised in London; studied in Staden (VL), Den Haag, Wien

- Voyage to Benin 1602

- Joined V.O.C. 1603 (to East Indies under Steven van der Hagen)

- In East Indies 1604-1610

- 1611 returned to Netherlands (with 633 diamonds)

- Marries into wealthy/powerful Reynst family in 1612 (and has 12 children!)

- Rumored to be involved in smuggling to Africa (VOC territory) in 1616

- Became one of the largest investors in the W.I.C. in 1621

- W.I.C. Amsterdam Kamer Director 1622-1629 ,1636-1642, 1645-1651

- 1628 patroon of Rensselaerswyck (New York) w/ fellow Antwerpenaars Samuel Godijn, Johannes De Laet

- 1629 patroon of Zwaanendael (Delaware) w/ fellow Antwerpenaars Samuel Godijn, Johannes De Laet

- Joined with Usselinckx and Pieter Minuit to establish New Sweden in 1630s (munitions factory, copper)

- 1636 Consul for Sweden in Amsterdam

- Lived on the Keijzersgracht and buried at Westkerke in 1651;

- Signed Van Meteren’s Amicorum Album

Samuel Godijn

(1561 Antwerp – Sep 29, 1633 Amsterdam)

• Born at Antwerp

• Lawsuits against Isaac LeMaire and Dirck Van Os 1595

• Lived at Middleburg with other Flemish refugees in 1597

• Traded with Spain (until prohibition) in indigo, woods, etc.

• Married Anneken Anselmo (daughter of famous Brugge merchant/diplomat) in 1602

• Invested 3,000 guilders in the V.O.C. in 1602

• Became heavily involved in whaling in 1619 (10 investors; 2 ships sent to North River)

• Lived on the Keizersgracht in 1622

• Director and investor in de Noordsche Compagnie

• An early and sizable investor in the W.I.C.

• Strong advocate of colonization at Nieuw Netherland (with Blommaert, Burgh, & Van Rensselaer)

• 1628 patroon of Rensselaerswyck (New York) w/ fellow Antwerpenaars Blommaert, and De Laet

• 1629 patroon of Zwaanendael (Delaware) w/ fellow Antwerpenaars Blommaert, and De Laet

• Zwaanendael was also intended to be a whaling station (whaling implements sent with the colonists)

• Zwaanendael destroyed by Indians by 1633

• Had many points named after him (Godijn’s Bay, Godijn’s Kill, Godijn’s Burg, etc.)

• One daughter (of his 11 children) married Hendrick Trip

• One of Godijn’s descendants was Lady Diana

Blommaert, De Laet & Godijn – Patroons of “Zwaenendael”

(State of Delaware)

“Tuesday the 19th June, 1629…The

Heer Samuel Godyn having here-

tofore given notice here [at Amsterdam

Kamer] that he intended to plant a

colonie in Nieuw Nederland, and that

he also to that end had engaged two

persons to proceed thither to examine

into the situation in those quarters,

declares that he, now in quality of

Patroon, has undertaken to occupy

the Bay of the South River [Delaware],

on conditions concluded in the last

Assembly of the XIX, as he hath like-

wise advised the Director Pieter Minuet,

and charged him to register the same

there.” -E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, p.479 Map by Johannes Vingboon,

son of David Vinckboons of Mechelen

“The colonie of Zwanendael consisted, at this time [1632], of thirty-four

persons.”- E.B. O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland, p.479

Flemings at Albany (Ft Orange/Beverwijck/Willemstad)

•Hans Hontom (Commissary) of Antwerp (1614; 1626-1633)

•Joannes Dijckman (Vice Dir & Commissary) 1652-1655

•Johann De Deckere Vice Director 1655-1656

•Johannes La Montagne (Vice Dir & Commissary) 1656-1664

•Johannes Provoost (son of David) – clerk under La Montagne then

Secretary 12 Nov 1664-8 Aug 1665, & 1673-1675 - Antwerp

•Dirck van Schelluyne (Notary Public Beverwijck) 1660-/Town Clerk 1665-1668

- Unknown

•Ludovicus Cobus (Secretary) 1668-1673 – Herenthals

•Robert Livingston (Secretary) 1675-1721 (mother: “Mary Flanders”

Wife is daughter of Annetje Loockermans of Turnhout)

Director Generals (Governors) of Nieuw-Nederland

• 1621-1624 : Adriaen Jorissen Thienpont – from Oudenaarde

• 1624-1625 : Cornelis May - Hoorn

• 1625-1626 : Willem Verhulst – from Hulst (de "meest Vlaamse stad" )

• 1626-1631 : Pieter Minuit – Walloon?

• 1632-1633 : Bastiaen Janssen Crol - Unknown Origin

• 1633-1638 : Wouter van Twiller - Nijkerk

• 1638-1647 : Willem Kieft - Amsterdam

• 1647-1664 : Peter Stuyvesant – Friesland (wife Antwerpenaar)

• 1664-1673 - English occupation

• 1673-1673 : Cornelis Evertsen de Jongste – Vlissingen; and

• 1673-1673 : Jacob Binckes – Friesland

• 1673-1674 : Anthony Colve – English; family from Brugge via England

Mayors/Councilors/Schepen of Nieuw-Nederland • 1641-1642 : “Twelve Men” – includes 2 from Antwerp & 1 from VL

• 1643-1645 : “Eight Men” – 2 Antwerpenaars & 1 married to Turnhouter

• 1645-1653 : “Nine Men” – Bruggeling, Turnhouter & 1 married to a Turnhouter, descendants of

Deinze, Antwerp

• 1653-1674 : ”Mayors” – descendants of Bruggelings, Gentenaars, Deinze, and 1 married to a

Turnhouter

• 1656-1674 : ”Schepen” – Turnhouter, descendants of Antwerpenaar, Bruggeling, Gentenaar,

Deinze, and 1 married to a Turnhouter

• 1623-1674 : ”Schout-Fiscaal” – Fleming, Mechelenaar, descendants of Antwerpenaar,

Deinze, and 2 married to Antwerpenaar/Turnhouter

• 1633-1674 : ”Notaris” – Herenthals

• 1633-1674 : ”Schoolmasters” – 2 Antwerpenaars, & descendant of

• 1628-1674 - ”Predikanten” – descendants of Genetenaar, and 1 married to Antweerpenaar

Flemish Ministers in Nieuw-Nederland

• The following is a list of Ministers of this church, their births, deaths, and

lengths of service:

• Jonas Michaelius, b. 1577, served from 1628 to about 1633

• Everadus Bogardus, b. ca. 1607, d. 1647, served from 1633 to 1647

• Johannes Backerus, served from 1647 to 1649

• Joannes Megapolensis, b. 1603, d. 1670, served from 1649 to 1670

• Samuel Drisius, b. 1620, d. 1673, served from 1652 to 1673

• Wilhelmus Van Nieuwenhuysen, b. 1645, d. 1681, served from 1671 to

1681

• Henricus Selyns, b. 1636, d. 1701, served 1682 to 1701

• Gualterus du Bois, b. 1666, d. 1751, served from 1699 to 1751H

• Henricus Boel, b. 1689, d. 1754, served from 1713 to 1754

Drisius, Selyns, Du Bois, and Boel were all descended from Flemish emigrants

Cornelis Melijn, Patroon of Staten Island

1600 Antwerp -1663 Hartford

• Born at Antwerp, baptized Catholic, engages in fur trade

smuggling

in Canada with Flemish emigres from La Rochelle in 1630s

• Trades in New Netherland in 1638 and with Kilaen

Rensselaer and Hans Hontom (another Antwerpenaar thru

whom connected?)

• Partners with a Flemish nobleman and purchases

patroonship rights for Staten Island

• Emigrates with family, settlers in 1641 (loss of ship to

Dunkirk pirates)

• Invited to become one of the “Eight Men” in 1643

• Leads fight against corrupt Director General Kieft 1644

Cornelis Melijn & the Braeden-Raedt

1647

• Pens admonition against undemocratic rule called “Braeden Raedt”

• Loses children, fortune to Indian attacks; banished by Stuyvesant;

• Receives rights from States General in 1650;

• Attacked by Stuyvesant loyalists – arms 150 Raritan Indians

• Sells back patroonship to W.I.C. for 1500 guilders in 1659

• Relocates to Hartford 1657; still owns home @ Broadway &

Stone

• Although dies in New England, children live in Nieuw

Nederland

Maria Van Rensselaer

Daughter-in-law of Kilaen Van Rensselaer (1586-1643)

• “Van Bijler and Van Wely were so closely connected to people

who had left Antwerp and the Southern Netherlands after 1585.” (J. Vanema, Kilaen Van Rensselaer, p.64)

• Van Rensselaer worked amongst the Jewelers - dominated by Zuid-Nederlanders overwhelmingly from

Antwerp; related by marriage to many of the WIC directors (including Antwerpenaar Marcus De Vogelaer,

President of the Amsterdam Kamer of the WIC.

• “Van de 45 goud-en zilversmeden en diamantbewerkers die tussen 1578 en 1606 het poorterschap van

Amsterdam kochten, stamden er tien uit de Noordelijke gewesten, 31 goud-en zilversmeden en

diamantwerkers waren afkomstig uit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden.”O.Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden,

p.150, n.181

• Blommaert of Antwerp and another gentleman investor a spiegelschip for trade to Virginia & New Netherland

(Venema, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, p.283)

• Co-patroon of Rensselaerswijck with Antwerpenaars Samuel Godijn, Samuel Blommaert, and Joannes De

Laet.

• Some difficult relations with De Laet (Venema, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, p.284)

• Son Jeremias (thru wife Anna Van Wely, Antwerp roots), married Maria Van Courtlandt, daughter of Anneke

Loockermans of Turnhout

• Maria Van Courtlandt single-handedly (after husband’s premature death) ran Rensselaerswyck

• Maria became the ‘grand dame’ of Nieuw Amsterdam ‘society’

• Maria’s sons Stephanus and Johannes first native-born Mayors of New York City

• American descendants of Maria Van Rensselaer are more than 1 million

Annetje Loockermans – Flemish Mother of America (a)

• Annetje Loockermans – born March 17, 1618 and was baptized a Catholic in Sint-Pieterskerk in Turnhout.

• Sister of Govert, arrives ca 1641, marries Olaf Van Courtlandt in 1642

• “Flemish Mother of America” – establishes Sint Niklaas tradition in America

• Through her brother Govert’s wife, the noted and respected widow of Jan de Water, Adriantje, (who was a

niece of Gillis Verbrugge, head of the largest trading house in Amsterdam doing business in New Netherland

and her brother’s boss) connected to elite circles in Amsterdam.

• But in the end it was Annetje alone who carved herself a place as the leading lady of Nieuw Nederland.

• Annetje’s husband was a rising merchant known as Oloff Van Cortlandt. Van Cortlandt was a first-generation

Netherlander (his parents were Scandinavians), who had been a common WIC soldier for at least a few years

before striking out as a “freeman” [someone who was neither employed by nor contractually tied to the West

India Company]. Their first introduction may have come through Annetje’s brother Govert.

• By the early 1640s Van Cortlandt was a man destined for great things. “Oloff Stevensz van Cortlant" [8] had

been [the] store-keeper for the Company and deacon of the church [but not until after marrying Annetje

Loockermans in 1642]; later he was burgomaster of New Amsterdam.” It is difficult to know how much of Van

Cortlandt’s success can be attributed to Annetje. But perhaps like all good marriages, their strengths were

complementary and the sum of the two was greater than individually they could have hoped to accomplish.

• But Annetje did not need a marriage to further her family connections. If anything she already had a strong

network. Annetje’s brother, Govert’s wife’s sister (in other words, Annetje’s sister-in-law by marriage through

her brother Govert) had married Jacob van Couwenhoven. “Jacob van Couwenhoven had come

out in 1633 [on the same ship as brother Govert's first voyage] and resided at first at Rensselaers-

wyck; he was afterward of note as a speculator and a brewer in New Amsterdam.”

Annetje Loockermans – Flemish Mother of America (b)

• Incidentally, both Van Couwenhoven and Loockermans worked as agents for the Verbrugges. Nor were they

alone. “Family ties linked most of these factors to their masters in Amsterdam. Johannes de Peijster, dispatched

by the Verbrugges to New Netherland to assist Govert Loockermans, was described by Seth Verbrugge as ‘my

wife’s uncle’s sister’s son, of good background’.” So through Govert’s wife, Annetje was also connected to a

powerful Amsterdam merchant family (of Flemish origin).

• While Netherlandic society – and of course the norms of New Netherland itself – allowed a great deal more

equality between the genders, at the end of the day 17th century colonial society did make gender distinctions.

Later descendants, regardless of whether they echoed wishful beliefs or family lore, believed Annetje held first

place among the women of New Netherland. “There was an unwritten law among the Dutch women, that some

member of the family should be acknowledged as a leader, whose influence was unbounded and whose dictates

were obeyed without question. The sister of Govert Loockermans [Annetje Loockermans] was one of

these autocrats, and it was mainly due to her energy that her entire family emigrated to America.”

The Van Courtlandt Manor at Van

Courtlandt Park

Annetje Loockermans – Flemish Mother of America (c)

• For me at least, the documentary evidence of Annetje prodding Govert onto a privateering

vessel to cross the Atlantic (or, even more unlikely, taking ship for New Amsterdam before

Govert in 1633) does not exist. Still, Annetje was someone who at least among her descen-

dants is remembered as a person who got things done. For example, Annetje Loockermans

is credited by her myriad descendants as having been the driving force behind the first muni-

cipal improvements in New York City: the paving of the dirt streets with cobblestones. Her de-

scendants likewise credit her with other domestic innovations such as a space-saving folding

bed. Modest accomplishments to be sure but still indications of intelligence, drive and resource-

fulness.

• If snippets of information are any standard to go by, Annetje Van Cortlandt nee Loockermans was close to her

half-Flemish daughter, Maria Van Rensselaer nee Van Cortlandt. Both were married to men considered two of the

most powerful in New Netherland. Still, both women exerted influence in their own right as well as behind the

scenes. It may very well be, as a late 19th century descendant claimed, that Annetje Loockermans and her peers

“governed their husbands…” However, if they did, they showed exceptionally strong wills: neither husband ever

struck his contemporaries as 'hen-pecked' or weak-willed. While Annetje’s daughter Maria Van Rensselaer is

worthy of a bio in her own right, together, mother and daughter were clearly a force to be reckoned with. Jointly

they are anecdotally credited with helping to avert a bloodbath by convincing their husbands not to forward monies

to a useless battle against the mercenaries and English freebooters who captured New Netherland in 1664.

Govert Loockermans – Richest Man in NN

• Baptized in Turnhout July 2,1612

• Enters service of WIC in 1633

• Arrives in New Netherland on a prize

• Clerk for WIC Director-General

• Trades w/ Indians; Indian mistress –

• Possible father of Le Batard Flamand

• Fluency in several native languages

• Leaves service of WIC in1638 –

• Partners with David Provoost (of Antwerp) and Isaac Allerton (Mayflower)

• Trades guns and ammunition for beaver pelts – 2,000+ per year

• Marries a niece of the most powerful trading house in NN – from Brugge!

• In 1641 becomes agent for the Verbrugge Family – trades for beaver pelts

• 1642 sister Anneke marries Olaf Van Courtlandt

• 1643 participates in Vieft’s war – tortures Raritan Indian Chief’s son

• 1645-1647 – ally w/ Antwerpenaar Cornelis Melijn vs Stuyvesant

Govert Loockermans – Richest Man in NN

• 1644: “I strike for no man save the Prince of

Orange and those I serve!”

• 1647 murders Indian chief in Delaware

• 1647 Appointed to the Council of Nine Men

• Wanted by the English and Swedish authorities

• 1648/49 1st wife dies, remarries (on July 11th!)

• 1648 wealthy enough to loan Stuyvesant 12,000 guilders

• 1649 builds part of Wall Street’s wall

• 1655 – Appointed Schepen, Church Elder, respected by community

• 1656 helps build a key part of the new defensive perimeter: Waalstraat

• 1660s -Orphan Master, Interpreter, Lieutenant in the Militia, Godfather…

• Ca 1671, dies unexpectedly, intestate. Wealth estimated at >50,000 fl

• Heirs fight over inheritance for 27 years

• Named descendants today live in Delaware

The Flemish Influence on

The Young United States

Same Family – Dutch or Flemish?

Van Landeghem Family

Heylaert VanLandeghem

|

Cornelis Van Landeghem (d. 5-Nov-1515 – Meulebeke, West Flanders)

|

Mathys Van Landeghem (b. 1528, Meulebeke; d. 19-Nov-1599 – Roosbeke, W.F.)

|

Willem Van Landeghem (b. 1579 , Meulebeke; d. Oct., 1631 – Meulebeke, WF)

| \

| (brothers) \

| \

Willem Van Landeghem Michael Van Landeghem

(b.1622 Meulebeke (b. ca 1634 Meulebeke; marries Elizabeth Evans; d. 1676 –

d. 9-Jan-1670 Northumberland, VA)

Oostrozebeke, W.F.) (6 generations later, Bruno Van Landeghem emigrates to Mt. Clemens, MI, before 2-June, 1850)

–Peg Coucke, ed., Flemish Pedigree Charts, (Roseville, MI, 1991), pp.190-191 (James Moran Van

Landeghem Family Tree); and e-mail correspondence with Ellen Van Landingham Dawson,

March 26, 2012

Proposals Made for the United States That

Recognized Flemish Origins

Benjamin Franklin’s 1st Suggestion

for the Great Seal of the United

States Included “Vlaamse Leeuw”

(above the “DC”) http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2010/07/flemish-lion-

and-great-seal-of-united.html

“The Shield has Six quarters parti one,

coupé two; to the first it bears or, a rose

ennamelled Gules and argent, for

England; to the Second, argent a thistle

proper, for Scotland; to the third vert, a

harp or, for Ireland; to the fourth azure, a

flower de luce or for France; to the fifth or

the Imperial Eagle Sable, for Germany;

and to the Sixth or, the Belgic [i.e.,

Flemish] Lyon [sic Lion] Gules”

- Proposal to the Continental Congress, 1776

Other Flemish Influences: The Declaration of

Independence of the United States is Directly

Lifted From Flemish Authors "Of all the models available to Jefferson and

the Continental Congress, none provided as

precise a template for the Declaration as did

the Plakkaat," says Lucas, an expert on

historical rhetoric. "When you look at the two

documents side by side, you cannot avoid

noticing that the American Declaration more

closely resembles its Dutch predecessor

than any other possible model.“

- Professor Stephen Lucas http://www.news.wisc.edu/3049

“The rebellious States-General decided on 14 June 1581 to officially declare the throne vacant,

because of Philip's behavior, hence the Dutch name for the Act of Abjuration: "Plakkaat van

Verlatinghe", which may be translated as "Placard of Desertion." This referred not to desertion of

Philip by his subjects, but rather, on a suggested desertion of the Dutch "flock" by their malevolent

"shepherd," Philip [II]. A committee of four members – Andries Hessels, greffier (secretary) of the

States of Brabant; Jacques Tayaert, pensionary of the city of Ghent; Jacob Valcke, pensionary of

the city of Ter Goes; and Pieter van Dieven (also known as Petrus Divaeus), pensionary of the city

of Mechelen – was charged with drafting what was to become the Act of Abjuration. The

actual draft seems to have been written by the audiencier of the States-General,

Jan van Asseliers.“http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2011/07/symbols-of-liberty.html

Liberty Island – Formerly Bedlow Island

Isaac Bethloo, Van Calis in Vranckryck, en Lysbeth Potters, Van Batavia in Oostindien." (per marriage entry at Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam, marriage May 16, 1653 to Elizabeth de Potter

- cited in NYGB Record July 1941 p.222).

However, the family originally came from Middelburg, O.VL (Maldegem).

"The Bedlows were descendants of Isaac Bedlow (aka “Isaaq Bidloo”), of Bedlow's

Island (where the Statue of Liberty now stands), who came from Holland in 1639 as

private secretary to the Dutch West India Company."

per NYGBR#30 p.9 Olive Genealogy: 16 May [1653].

U.S. Elites Surrounded by Others of Flemish

Descent

Benjamin Franklin’s maternal grandfather (Pieter Foulgier) of Ieper origins; John Jay, 1st U.S. Chief

Justice and Elizabeth Schuyler, wife of Alexander Hamilton (George Washington’s Aide-de-Camp

and Founder of the Bank of New York, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the New York Stock

Exchange), both had ancestors from Turnhout (respectively, Jacobus Loockermans and Annetje

Van Courtlandt nee Loockermans). 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles was

through her mother descended from the Van Eppes of Lokeren (E. Flanders). 5th U.S. President

James Monroe’s wife, Elisabeth Kortright, was descended from Jan van Kortrijk.

The Founders of Washington DC and Maryland

Have Flemish Roots

George Washington in 1799,

shortly before his death, as painted

by American artist Gilbert Stuart

George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore,

Founder of Maryland

U.S.’ Founding Father Had Flemish Roots

“George Washington’s forefathers include Charlemagne, the “Father” of a united Europe.

More importantly here, George Washington could trace his ancestry to the “Father” of

Flanders: Baldwin ‘Iron Arm’.”

per http://www.kareldegrote.nl/charlemagne/George_Washington.htm cited in

http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com

L: George Washington’s

U.S. ancestry;

R:George Washington

in 1799, shortly before

his death, as painted by

American artist Gilbert

Stuart

Charlemagne-Baldwin Iron Arm-Mathilde of Flanders

George Washington’s ancestors include Mathilde of Bruges, wife of William the

Conqueror and the smallest queen in England’s history.

http://www.kareldegrote.nl/charlemagne/George_Washington.htm

Charlemagne, 742-814

Holy Roman Emperor

Mathilde of Flanders - Wife of

William the Conqueror –

Smallest Queen of England

Washingtons - Wool Merchants to Flanders

“Early on in their residence in England, the Wessingtons – as the Washington clan was

first known, after changing their name from de Hertburne sometime after 1183 AD[v] –

made their livelihood through raising sheep and the wool trade in the north of England.

After several generations the family Anglicized their Saxon name to Washington and

moved south and east, near the centers of wool and cloth production.”

See http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com

Sulgrave Manor – George Washington’s Ancestral Home

Maldon, England – Pilgrims & Flemish Protestants

“By the early 1500s the Washingtons were comfortably settled in southeast

England, in the town of Maldon.” - http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com

Sulgrave The road from

Maldon (lower left, just under

the "E" in Essex) to the Flemish

colony at Norwich (top center)

through the Flemish colony at

Colchester (mid picture) was a

well-travelled route for

Flemings, the Pilgrims and

George Washington's

ancestors’ home

Washington’s Ancestors Settle in Virginia, Near

Maryland

The Washingtons joined Anglo-Flemings like the Gannes of Sandwich,

England, the Van Landegems of Meulebeke, the Loockermans of Turnhout,

and others in Maryland and Virginia

Washington Grew Up With Subtle Flemish Influences in

His Daily Life

Cricket was invented in Flanders were it was

called “krik ketsen” [‘to chase a ball with a

curved stick' ] and brought to England by

Flemish Protestants. This was George

Washington’s favorite sport:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7919429.stm

“Flemish Bond” style of masonry

was used on Mount Vernon

Martha’s Son John Parke Custis Marries Nelly Calvert

George Washington’s stepson married a descendant of the First Lord

Baltimore, George Calvert, in 1774

Fatherless George Washington Adopted Stepson’s

(John Parke Custis’) Children

George and Martha Washington with their adopted

children/grandchildren Eliza and George Washington Parke Custis – the

children of John Parke Custis and Eleanor Calvert

Lord Baltimore’s Roots Were in Wervik

“In the exemplification of arms issued in

1622 by Richard St. George, Norroy king

of arms, to Sir George Calvert, it is stated

on the authority of Verstegan, the

antiquary and philologist, ‘that the said Sir

George is descended of a noble and

auntient [ancient] familie of that surname

in the earldom of Flanders, where they

have lived long in great honor, and have

had great possessions, their principall

and auntient [ancient] seat being at

Warvickoe [Wervik] in the said

provinces.’”

– William Hand Browne, George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert:

barons Baltimore of Baltimore, (1890), p.1

The family name Calvert/Calvaert may be an Anglicized derivation of the

Flemish name “Caluwaert”. See “Calvaert, Denis” entry in the Winkler Prins Encyclopedie van

Vlaanderen, (Brussell: Elsevier Sequia, 1973), Volume 2, p.92.

The 2nd Lord Baltimore is the 1st Proprietor of Maryland

Cecilius Calvert [named after Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster Lord Cecil],

2nd Lord Baltimore and Proprietor of the 1st English colony in America

where Catholics were permitted to practice their faith.

Other Flemings Settled in Maryland

First Dutch speakers in Jamestown arrived in May,1608 – perhaps sent by Emanuel

Van Meteren at the request of his friend John Smith (whose life they saved). Other

Anglo-Flemings arrived in the 1620s and throughout the 17th century.

Proprietary

Maryland in the

17th century

Stier Family of Antwerp Flees Napolean For Baltimore

The Stier Family are Direct Descendants of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-

1640) through Rosalie Stier’s maternal grandfather (Jean Egide Peters).

Their Castle at Cleydael, near Antwerp

George Washington Vouches For and Brokers Marriage

Between George Calvert (Step Daughter-in-Law Nelly

Calvert’s Brother) and Rosalie Stier, Daughter of Baron

Stier of Antwerp

From left to right: (left) George Calvert, Flemish American descendant of

George Calvert, First Lord Baltimore (Founder of Maryland), and uncle of

George Washington Parke Custis, George Washington's adopted son

and step-grandson; (center picture) Cleydael, the Stier family home near

Antwerp; and (far right) Rosalie Stier Calvert - wealthy, aristrocratic

Antwerpenaar, and Washington relative.

Antwerpenaar Rosalie Stier Was a Celebrity “Rosalie Stier traveled in elite circles: several members of the Stier

family were well known to Napoleon Bonaparte and to the Duke of

Wellington; the French foreign minister Talleyrand was a dinner

guest (and tried to sell them real estate); they frequently dined with

the French, British, Prussian and Dutch ambassadors and the

capitol’s “best people”. Rosalie was close friends with 5th U.S.

President James Monroe’s wife Elizabeth Kortright (descendant of

an immigrant from Kortrijk). George Calvert and Rosalie Stier’s

social circle included the U.S. Secretary of State – who would

personally carry letters between Riversdale, the Calvert’s plantation,

and the rest of the family back in Antwerp! The Calvert-Stiers

attended Francis Scott Key’s wedding; they received regular

personal financial advice from Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin;

they were neighbors of the nation’s most prominent doctor,

Benjamin Rush (and even sold him tulips); they hosted Vice

President Aaron Burr, as well as Thomas Jefferson (whom they

hated), Secretary of War Knox (for whom Ft. Knox is named after),

and even Cazenove (head of the Holland Land Company). They

were personally close to the Carroll family (Catholics who signed the

Declaration of Independence and a son of whom was the first

American Archbishop), and almost every distinguished person

whose physical path carried them through Washington DC.”

http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com

George Calvert and Rosalie Stier Honeymoon is at

Mount Vernon!

From left to right: (left) George Calvert, Flemish American descendant of George

Calvert, First Lord Baltimore (Founder of Maryland), and uncle of George

Washington Parke Custis, George Washington's adopted son and step-

grandson; (center picture) George Washington’s diary dated June 20, 1799

describing the Stier-Calvert honeymoon at Mount Vernon; and (far right) Rosalie

Stier Calvert - wealthy, aristrocratic Antwerpenaar, and Washington relative.

John Parke Custis & Nelly Calvert Children Are Closest

to Their Maternal Uncle’s (Flemish) Family:

George Calvert & Rosalie Stier

From left to right: (left) George Calvert, Flemish American descendant of

George Calvert, First Lord Baltimore (Founder of Maryland), and uncle of

George Washington Parke Custis, George Washington's adopted son

and step-grandson; (center picture) Riversdale, the Maryland plantation

home of Calvert's family; and (far right) Rosalie Stier Calvert - wealthy,

aristrocratic Antwerpenaar, and Washington relative.

George Washington Parke Custis – George

Washington’s Adopted Son – Raised With Flemish

Influences

George Washington Parke Custis grew up exposed to Flemish art,

Brussels sprouts, and Flemish terms like “aspaarpot ”

Famous Descendants of the Washington-Calverts

From L-R: Benedict Calvert founded the University of Maryland; George

Washington Parke Custis’ only surviving child, Mary Parke Custis,

married Robert E. Lee (pictured with their son Robert E. Lee Jr.).

Appendices

All of the Above I Claim for Flanders.

But I Won’t Claim…

That Belgium or Flanders Owns Manhattan…

“The Belgian Institute

for World Affairs has

revived its campaign to

reclaim the most

valuable chunk of real

estate in the world -

the island of

Manhattan….”

David Baeckelandt – Speaker Who Is This Guy Speaking Here Today?

• Son, grandson, and great-grandson of Flemish Immigrants to America

• MA in History (“Dutch Share of 17th C. Intra-Asian Trade” – U. of IL, 1988)

• Former Student of and Research Assistant for Professor Geoffrey Parker (author of

The Dutch Revolt, The Army of Flanders, Phillip II, The Spanish Armada, etc.).

• President & Board Member, Belgian Publishing Inc (Gazette van Detroit)

• Blogger on “The Flemish American” http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com

• Founder/Board member: Flemish American Heritage Foundation

• Past Board member: Belgian American Historical Society of Chicago

• Author of books and articles on Flemish Americans

• Member of “De Orde van den Prince” http://www.ovdp.net • Contact: debendevan@hotmail.com