The Invention of Ethnicity Putting the Dutch in Dutch America

Lionel Martina, 10641254

30-6-2014

Thesis supervisor: Prof. Dr. R.V.A. Janssens University of Amsterdam Master of Arts in History: American Studies lionelrmartina@gmail.com

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Contents

Contents ................................................................................................................................................. 2

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Chapter 1. The invention of ethnicity: How to put the Dutch in Dutch American................................. 9

What is ethnicity? ............................................................................................................................. 10

Are Dutch Americans ethnic? ........................................................................................................... 15

Chapter 2: Religion ............................................................................................................................... 20

New Netherland and the revolution era in New York ...................................................................... 20

A Protestant schism .......................................................................................................................... 23

CRC and RCA: Dutch Reformed with a difference? .......................................................................... 27

The Midwest ..................................................................................................................................... 30

New York State ................................................................................................................................. 31

Religious ethnicity ............................................................................................................................ 33

Chapter 3: Origins and goals ................................................................................................................ 35

The Dutch “Kolonies” ....................................................................................................................... 35

The Midwest: a homogenous plurality ............................................................................................ 37

Post-colonial New York State ........................................................................................................... 40

The Achterhoek trek to the United States ....................................................................................... 42

From Zeeuws-Vlaanderen to the United States ............................................................................... 43

Connected regions ............................................................................................................................ 45

E pluribus unum................................................................................................................................ 47

Chapter 4: Cultural Production ............................................................................................................ 50

The Field of Cultural Production....................................................................................................... 51

Cultural definition from outside ....................................................................................................... 52

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Cultural production from the inside ................................................................................................. 57

Tulip Festivals ................................................................................................................................... 60

Invented tradition and ethnicity ...................................................................................................... 62

Production, invention, and tradition ................................................................................................ 66

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 67

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 70

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Introduction

Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company bought the island of Manhattan for a few

beads and mirrors;1 at least, that was how I imagined the beginning of Dutch history in North

America. I probably would have remained blissfully unaware of the start of Dutch American history if

not for a trip to New York. I had told my friend, an American, that I really liked to read about history

and that I loved New York City, too. “Well,” he said, “if you want to combine these two things I can

recommend you a book. Why don’t you read The Island at the Center of the World. The Epic Story of

Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten Colony that shaped America. As the title suggests, it is about

the Dutch history of New York. You can kill two birds with one stone.” Because this was all the

recommendation I needed, I went to Strand Bookstore on Broadway the next day and bought the

book. I had finished the book before I flew back to the Netherlands two days later. Shorto’s

elegantly written book did not exactly lead to an epiphany, but it did open my eyes to the long

history of Dutch and North American interconnectedness. I already knew, for example, that many

New York names originated from the relatively short period of Dutch colonial history. I knew about

Broadway’s “Breedeweg” roots, as well as the linguistic roots of Brooklyn (Breukelen), Harlem

(Haarlem), Yonkers (jonkheer), cookie (koekje), and boss (baas). What I did not know, was that the

Dutch colony of New Netherland stretched into what is now New York State, New Jersey,

Connecticut, and Delaware. All this new knowledge made me wonder if there was even more to the

Dutch history in the United States.

The next step in this story is Saturday, November 11, 2012, when two worlds merged. This

was the day I, a Dutchman, married Carlyn, my American wife. This merger of two worlds was not

the first Dutch-American union, nor will it be the last. In a way, this was a continuation of business

as usual. As we know, the Netherlands and the United States have a long history of relations. This

relation stretches back to the days before there even was a United States of America, when Hendry

Hudson discovered Manhattan and the river that would bear his name, in 1609. From 1609

onwards, colonists from the Dutch Republic settled the American colonies together with their

English, French, Swedish, and Spanish counterparts. Those original colonizers were courageous men

1Of course, it was Peter Minuit who bought Manhattan in 1626 for the equivalent of sixty guilders. Willem Frijhoff and Jaap Jacobs, “The Dutch, New Netherland, and Thereafter (1609-1780s),” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), 31–47.

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and women, braving the wilds to build up a new life for themselves and their children.2 The colonies

vied for supremacy with the British, each other, and their Indian neighbors.3 In 1674, the direct

involvement of the Dutch in North America ended when the British took over control over

Manhattan and the colony of New Netherland. However, the British takeover did not signify the end

of Dutch presence in North America, as the Dutch colonists of New Netherland remained a

dominant group in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. This presence was most visible

in the Dutch religious institutions that were a part of every town with a population of Dutch

descent. However, the sheer weight of numbers and the passage of time lessened the Dutch

colonial presence and visibility.

Around 1847, this dwindling was about to be reversed. A combination of a potato blight and

a bad economic outlook strengthened certain Dutch in their belief that there was a Promised Land:

the United States. Again, the Dutch came to colonize the lands like their ancestors had done before

them. I wonder what these two groups, the older Dutch immigrants and the newer Dutch

immigrants, share and how they differ from each other. Although no two people are the same,

people often do share commonalities. What this question does raise, however, is in how far we can

speak of a Dutch ethnicity in the American context. Are there Dutch Americans and if so, what

constitutes a Dutch American?

When speaking of hyphenated Americans, the term “ethnicity” comes to mind. It can be

defined as a duality of where a person is born, of his or her heritage, and how others see that

person. It is my thesis that there is a distinct Dutch American ethnicity, and that it was originally

built upon religious beliefs. These beliefs encouraged Dutch Americans to build and strengthen

religious connections with other Dutch Americans. By strongly identifying with their own, Dutch

Americans formed a distinct ethic group with the United States. Although religion was a very distinct

marker of Dutch American ethnicity in the 19th and early 20th century, Dutch immigrants were not

the only immigrants with whom religion played a major role. We only have to think about the

Catholic immigrants from countries like Ireland and Italy, or the Jews from Eastern Europe that came

to the United States in great numbers. The Dutch were predominantly Protestant, but Protestantism

2 Of course, not all inhabitants of the colonies went out of their own volition. I am aware of the fact that the African slaves and the indentured servants saw their “adventure” in a completely different light. However, it does say something that people were willing to leave everything (how little it might be) behind to start anew in a strange, wild land. 3 Some argue that the battles with the Indians continue until the present day. As an example, the current debate

about the offensive and derogatory nature of the name of the Washington Redskins comes to mind.

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in its different forms was the religion with the largest following in the United States. Therefore, you

would expect that this religion was not a marker with which Dutch ethnicity can be distinguished.

Nevertheless, what set Dutch Protestants apart from other Protestants was their Calvinism. To keep

true to their Calvinist beliefs, they formed their own institutions to support the one “true religion.”

This “Cement of the Churches,” as Hans Krabbendam calls it, would prove a strong bond for Dutch

Americans.4

One of the reasons the Dutch immigrants were able to maintain such strong bonds is that

they tended to cluster together. This clustering in a relatively small geographic area set them apart

from the British and French colonists, who settled in larger areas.5 Dutch clustering is not a new

phenomenon, since it already started in the 17th century as evidenced by settlements in what is now

New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.6 The immigrants that made the trek from the mid 19th

century continued this tendency for clustering in regions such as New York, Michigan, and

Wisconsin. For this new wave, clustering began before they even left the Netherlands. Leading up to

the immigration, potential immigrants founded so-called Immigration Societies that came to

colonize a distinct part of the United States. These immigration patterns led to Dutch Americans

settling in the old New Netherlands colony on the Eastern Seaboard, in the new American Midwest,

and in upstate New York. The latter two groups are commonly grouped and studied as one distinct

group because they immigrated in the same time period. However, unlike their immigrant brethren

in the Midwest, Dutch immigrants in upstate New York and in Wisconsin originated from more

religiously plural regions and came to the United States for a better life with no real intentions of

transplanting Dutch society. This history made these immigrants more pragmatic and less dogmatic

than their contemporaries, molding their identity slightly differently than the rest of the Dutch

American ethnic group.

Ethnic groups, themselves, can be perceived and defined from both inside and outside of the

group by looking at cultural production. There are two main flavors of cultural production, small-

scale and large-scale. In short, small-scale production is culture, such as literature and art, produced

for a small group, while large-scale production is culture accessible to the masses. Cultural

4 “Cement of the Churches” is the title of Chapter 4 of the book. Hans Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon: Dutch

Immigration to America, 1840-1940 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009). 5 Of course, what also played a role is that the French and British sent more colonists to North America than the

Dutch. This also led to those colonists settling in a larger area. 6 In that area, New York (New Amsterdam) and Albany (Beverwijck) were the main Dutch settlements.

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production of Dutch Americans from outside the ethnic group took the form of large-scale

production. Washington Irving’s book about Dutch New York, A history of New York, from the

beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty, is the first example of outside production in

relation to Dutch Americans. This book was shortly followed by a book by Edmund B. O’Callaghan,

History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch. Unlike Irving’s book that portrayed gruff

caricatures of Dutch Americans, O’Callaghan used factual information to detail Dutch colonial

history in the United States.7 O’Callaghan inadvertently set the stage for “Holland Mania.” Holland

Mania was a period during which everything Dutch was valued in the United States and the period

led to a new appreciation of Dutch Golden Age art. Dutch masters like Rembrandt and Vermeer

depicted the idealized, clean, and frugal Protestant work ethic that Americans valued. This

appreciation was a response to the rising immigration from regions that were not “white” or

Protestant, like Italy and Eastern Europe. During Holland Mania, this perceived “Dutchness” was

used to define the American ideal against others. When the United States closed its borders with

the Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924, no new, unwanted immigrants were flooding America’s shores.

The Dutch were no longer necessary as a role model and were therefore discarded, and Holland

Mania had come to an end.

Despite the sudden abandonment of Holland Mania, Dutch Americans continued to produce

both small-scale and large-scale productions. For example, religion remained central for many Dutch

immigrant communities causing the small-scale cultural production of Dutch language church

services. Dutch language newspapers also continued cultural production, only shifting their focus

from inside one distinct community to reporting the happenings of all Dutch areas. Large-scale

production continued as well. A major example of large-scale production from inside the Dutch

American community is the so-called Tulip Festivals. These festivals not only celebrated the unique

immigrant view on Dutch ethnicity, but also give an indication of the strength of Dutch ethnic

identity in particular regions. Indeed, as Dutch immigrants went westward or became more

Americanized, Tulip Festivals followed suit. All in all, these festivals were places where invented

traditions, imagined communities, and cultural production all came together.

Because of the long connection between the Dutch and the United States, many discussions

could be started about the influence of the Dutch on American society. Although “influence” is

7 “Review of History of New Netherland; Or New York under the Dutch by E. B. O’Callaghan,” The North American

Review 62, no. 131 (April 1, 1846): 447–64., p. 449.

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difficult to measure, there have been many theories about the Dutch shaping American identity.

This thesis is not out to prove or disprove these theories. What I do want to explore is how Dutch

immigrants left an impression in the United States. This search led me along the paths that Dutch

immigrants to the United States have followed for centuries. First, after starting as localized

communities Dutch Americans eventually imagined a national ethnic identity. This ethnic identity

was largely shaped around the Calvinist religious heritage of the immigrants. These roots led to the

establishment of ethnocentric schools, churches, and newspapers. The Dutch immigrants also

tended to cluster within these established communities in an attempt to transplant Dutch society to

the United States. These communities eventually evolved and celebrated a now Americanized

version of Dutch ethnicity in the form of Tulip Festivals.

Perhaps due to all of these similarities in both small- and large-scale cultural production,

historiography tends to focus on only two groups of Dutch immigrants. These groups are the older

immigrants who settled in what had once been New Netherlands and the newer immigrants who

settled in the Midwest and upstate New York. However, if one looks closer into the details of their

individual ethnic roots, religion, choice of settlement, and cultural production, a small rift begins to

emerge. In this thesis, I aim to explore what the definition of Dutch ethnicity is and how that

definition can shift. Because only by analyzing small cultural differences can we fully understand the

true complexity of the Dutch American melting pot.

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Chapter 1. The invention of ethnicity: How to put the Dutch in Dutch American

Currently, 4.3 million Americans say they are of Dutch descent.8 The literal definition of ‘descent’ is

relatively straightforward, where ‘descent’ is tied to a biological lineage or an origin. However, the

definition of ‘descent' when put into relation with culture is ambiguous,9 and becomes even more

complicated when we use ‘descent’ to describe the construct of ‘ethnicity’. Werner Sollors explores

this ambiguity in his book Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture. For Sollors,

descent is a relation of substance, while consent is a relation of law. As he stated: “Descent language

emphasizes our position as heirs, our hereditary qualities, liabilities, and entitlements; consent

language stresses our abilities as mature free agents and ‘architects of our fates’ to choose our

spouses, our destinies, our political systems.”10

This leads me to the question of what makes an American a Dutch American. Firstly, what

definition does the U.S. Census Bureau use to determine a person’s descent? Interestingly, the U.S.

Census Bureau assumes it is a matter of consent. Under federal guidelines, what ethnicity and

descent a respondent has, is a choice. In the end, the respondent decides of what ethnicity, if any,

he is a part.11 Secondly, does Dutch ancestral history or choice define a Dutch American? If you can

only be a Dutch American by descent, what constitutes this descent? If being Dutch American is a

choice, what is this choice?12 To find out if being Dutch American is based on descent, consent, or

both, I will first define ethnicity in the context of this paper. What makes a person ethnic? Is it a

choice or simply a matter of ancestry? After defining ethnicity, I will delve into the specific markers

of Dutch American ethnicity. What makes a person Dutch American? Do religion, language, and

culture make someone Dutch American, or is there more to it? After I have discussed these different

8 U. S. Census Bureau, “Dutch Heritage in the United States,” accessed March 13, 2014,

http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_S0201&prodType=table. 9The Oxford Dictionary describes ‘descent’ as follows: The fact of ‘descending’ or being descended from an

ancestor or ancestral stock; lineage. “Descent, N.,” OED Online (Oxford University Press), accessed April 18, 2014, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/50722. 10

Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity.p. 6. 11

The U.S. Census Bureau uses the definition from the Office of Management and Budget to determine ethnicity. Quite surprisingly, the only ethnic distinction the federal government makes is ‘Hispanic or Latino’ and ‘Not Hispanic or Latino’. “Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity | The White House,” accessed June 4, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards/. 12

Of course, this is under the assumption that no such person as the Dutch American exists.

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markers, I will look into different groups of Dutch Americans. Are they similar or different? Is there

one distinct type of Dutch American, or are there more flavors to the Dutch American stew?

What is ethnicity?

As Werner Sollors suggests in The Invention of Ethnicity, “The forces of modern life embodied by

such terms as ‘ethnicity,’ ‘nationalism,’ or ‘race’ can indeed be meaningfully discussed as

‘inventions.’”13 Dutch American is the name for a specific group of people in the United States of

America. This specific group distinguishes itself from other Americans by using the prefix ‘Dutch’.

Therefore, one of the markers of ethnicity is how the group perceives its ethnicity. If I follow Sollor’s

definition, being Dutch American is also an invention. However, like most ‘ethnics’ Dutch Americans

most likely do not see themselves as inventions.14 One of the questions of this thesis is what else

makes an American “Dutch American.” In other words, how do we define Dutch in the American

context? Is it a matter of ethnicity, nationality, culture, religion, or a melting pot of all of the above?

The old Greek word “ethnikos” originally meant either “gentile” or “heathen” and signified

people who were “other” and not of the own group. The Greek context also implies that ethnics do

not possess citizenship rights. “Ethnics” were by definition not of the “polis” and could therefore not

possess the same rights as the citizens. The first definition, of a people that were “other” than the

reigning group, is also the definition we currently use when we talk about ethnicity.15 A second

marker of ethnicity, therefore, is in how far a person has citizenship rights. Interestingly enough,

although the root of the world goes back to ancient Greek, the use of ethnic in its current form is

relatively new. According to Sollors, the first use of the word “ethnicity” in its current form was in

1941 by W. Lloyd Warner and Paul Lunt.16 For Warner and Lunt, someone “was classified as

13

Sollors, The Invention of Ethnicity., p. xi. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge etc: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Anderson, Imagined Communities. In chapter 4 I will discuss the invention of Dutch American traditions in more detail. 14

See, for example, the essays celebrating Dutch American scholar Robert P. Swierenga’s 35-year career. For the authors, Dutch and American alike, being Dutch American is a tangible fact. Hans Krabbendam and Larry J. Wagenaar, eds., The Dutch-American Experience: Essays in Honor of Robert P. Swierenga (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2000). 15

Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity, p. 25. 16

Ibid, p. 23. The book in question is Warner, W. Lloyd, and Paul S. Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Community, Yankee City Series, vol. 1, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941).Warner was a member of the Second Generation of the Chicago School of Sociology, which came up under the tutelage of Robert E. Park and Ernst W. Burgess. One of Warner’s more famous contemporaries is Louis Wirth, who wrote the influential ethnic study “The Ghetto”, on communication and social maintenance. For an overview of the Chicago Schoool of Sociology and its

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belonging to a specific ethnic group if (1) he considered himself or was considered by the Yankee

community as a member of the group, and (2) if he participated in the activities of the group.”17

Warner and Lunt furthermore state, “The concept of ethnicity is not based simply on place of

birth.”18 If we follow this definition, the simple fact that a Dutch American was born in the

Netherlands does not make his or her ethnicity Dutch.19 In addition, the simple fact that a person

residing in the United States descends from Dutch ancestors does not make one Dutch American.

However, the question that remains is what else makes a person “ethnic” or “other”? A Yankee is a

native inhabitant of New England, which at the time was a synonym for White Anglo Saxon

Protestant (WASP). The Dutch immigrants were also white and Protestant, and apart from the

language at least outwardly indistinguishable from the WASPs.20 Sollors provides a definition for

ethnicity in Beyond Ethnicity; there, he writes that ethnicity is a construct. As a construct, ethnicity

appears to be natural and bound to descent, but at the same time, it is also rooted in consent and

acceptance.21 Ethnicity in this sense is a result of his or her heritage. As a child of Dutch parents, you

are automatically Dutch. However, if you are born of Dutch parents in the United States, part of

your Dutch ethnicity is defined by the acceptance of your Dutch roots. With Warner and Lunt in

mind, this acceptance has to be from both the ethnic group, itself, as well as from the “others”.

Without acceptance of these roots, you are just an American and not Dutch American. In short,

ethnicity is a choice, while at the same time also a result of descent/ancestry.

The author Horace Kallen is inexorably connected to the debate about ethnicity. His 1915

essay Democracy versus the Melting-Pot was a critique of the theories of the American melting pot

metaphor that were prevalent in his time. Kallen substituted the melting pot metaphor with his own

professors, see Wayne G. Lutters and Mark S. Ackerman, “An Introduction to the Chicago School of Sociology,” vol. 1996 (presented at the UCI-ICS Social Worlds Lab #96-1, Irvine, Cal., 1996). 17

Ibid., p. 23. Sollors also asks the question if Yankees are also ethnic, p. 24. His main conclusion, which I share, is that for the dominant group in a country all other persons who are not of that group is ethnic. This raises the question if the new immigrant Dutch were ethnic compared to the descendants of the colonial Dutch Yankees. 18

Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity, p. 23. 19

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "Yankee" is probably derived from the Dutch "Janke”. This would mean that by Lloyd and Lunt's definition Dutch Americans are not ethnic. However, in the United States “Yankee” usually refers to a White Anglo Saxon from New England, or WASP. “Etymology of ‘Yankee’,” Oxford English Dictionary, March 18, 2014, http://www.oed.com.proxy.uba.uva.nl:2048/view/Entry/231174?result=1&rskey=XxvoGc&. 20

At least according to one of the Dutch letter writers in Kathleen Anne DeHaan, “‘He Looks like a Yankee in His New Suit.’ Immigrant Rhetoric: Dutch Immigrant Letters as Forums for Shifting Immigrant Identities.” (Northwestern University, 1998). 21

Sollors, The Invention of Ethnicity., pp. x-xii.

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metaphor of an orchestra. America was like an orchestra, where different instruments came

together to create “a symphony of civilization.” These instruments were also a synonym for the

different ethnicities in the United States. In Kallen’s synonym, outsiders also defined ethnicity like in

the Greek “ethnikos,” or Warner and Lunt’s “Yankee.” Kallen further introduced new terminology to

the ethnic debate by referring to this symphony as “cultural pluralism.”22 From this idea came his

claim that “an Irishman is always an Irishman, a Jew always a Jew. Irishman or Jew is born, citizen or

lawyer, church-member is made. Irishman and Jew are facts of nature; citizen and church-member

are artifacts of civilization”. Therefore for Kallen, ethnicity was a given- a matter of descent, which

could not be changed.23 In his opinion, multiple ethnic groups enrich the nation by adding their own

tone to the symphony. By differentiating ethnicities, America is prevented from becoming a broken

record, repeating the same stanza repeatedly. In Kallen’s definition, ethnicity is also something that

is determined by the view outsiders have of a certain group. It is up to the listeners on the outside

to distinguish the different sounds of the ethnicities. However, as I have shown previously, the

question if ethnicity is a matter of consent or descent might not entirely fit Kallen’s music sheet.

There are also proponents of the theory that ethnicity is a matter of choice and consent.

If ethnicity is a matter of consent and acceptance as well, which type of consent makes a

person specifically Dutch American? Willem Frijhoff tries to answer this question in his essay

Dutchness in Fact and Fiction.24 One of his main concerns is how to define Dutch and Dutchness.25

For Frijhoff, Dutchness is primarily based on consent and secondarily on actual nationality. In order

to understand this consent, he places the Dutch ethnicity and nationality in a historical perspective.

For Frijhoff, the consensual definition of being “Dutch” starts with 17th century colonial New

Netherland. For the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic, citizenship was not determined by place of

birth alone, but was also something that could be bought, therefore implying consent. Citizenship

was tied to your place of residence and, with that, slightly reminiscent of the Greek “polis.” If you

22

Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity, p. 97. Kallen himself would not have spoken of ethnicity, since the word was not in use until the 1940s. Instead, Kallen talked about races and nations when writing about what we consider ethnicities. For clarity, I have translated Kallen’s terms race and nationality to ethnicity. 23

Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity, p. 183. Robert P. Swierenga was also part of the discussion in the 1970s and beyond on what constitutes ethnicity. He subscribed to Kallen’s definition of a pluralistic society, Robert P. Swierenga, “Ethnocultural Political Analysis: A New Approach to American Ethnic Studies,” Journal of American Studies 5, no. 1 (April 1, 1971): 59–79. 24

Willem Frijhoff, “Dutchness in Fact and Fiction,” in Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, ed. Joyce D. Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt, and Annette Stott (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 327–58. 25

Ibid. For instance his statement that “Dutch” is actually not a Dutch word. Since it is an externalist term, by definition “Dutch” is about the outside perception of the people of the Netherlands.

13

legally lived within the gates of a city or town (inside the “Poort”) you were of that city or town. If

you were not of that town, you could become a legal resident by paying for the privilege. If one can

become Dutch by paying for it, becoming Dutch is a choice.26 The colonists, many of whom were not

born in the Dutch Republic but came from elsewhere, transplanted this consensual form of

Dutchness to New Netherland. When the British took over the colony in 1674, a treaty between

Britain and the Dutch Republic protected the Dutch freedoms, property, and liberties. A major

example of these freedoms was the municipal government of New York. The military governor of

New York kept the New Amsterdam system of a chosen council of “Burgemeester” and “Schepenen”

(loosely translated as mayor and aldermen) in place. Another example is the monopoly on trade

with the Indians held by the town of Beverwijck, which transferred to its successor Albany.27 Those

are only two examples of how the former Dutch colonists, now under British rule, had their own

special status within the British colonies. Because of this special status, Dutchness became a badge

with which these citizens could defend their privileges against their neighbors and their new rulers.

Religion and language became markers of both “Dutchness” and Dutch identity in New York, with

which these colonists could mark their special status.28 “Dutchness” was a means to establish and

defend citizenship rights.

Therefore, I place the beginning of what I will call “Dutch ethnicity” in America at the colony

of New Netherland. Language, culture, and religion set those colonists and their descendants apart

26

A, unfortunately, incomplete record of the “Poorters” (citizens) of Amsterdam can be found in the Amsterdam City Archive. Stadsarchief Amsterdam, “Amsterdamse Poorters,” n.d., http://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/presentaties/amsterdamse_schatten/amsterdammers/poorters/index.html. A person born in Amsterdam was automatically an Amsterdammer, but not automatically a “Poorter”. This privilege could be bought and came with its own privileges. For a more extensive summary of “Poorters” and citizens in the 17

th century Dutch Republic see Maarten Prak, “The Dutch Republic as a Bourgeois Society,” BMGN - Low Countries

Historical Review 125, no. 2–3 (January 1, 2010): 107–39. 27

For more on governance and city rights after the transfer of power, see Simon Middleton, “The Waning of Dutch New York,” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Giles Scott-Smith, 2009; Simon Middleton, “The Idea of ‘Amsterdam’ in New Amsterdam and Early New York.,” ed. George Harinck and Hans Krabbendam (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2005), 45–54; Jaap Jacobs, “‘To Favor This New and Growing City of New Amsterdam with a Court of Justice.’ The Relations between Rulers and Ruled in New Amsterdam.” In Amsterdam-New York: Transatlantic Relations and Urban Identities Since 1653, ed. George Harinck and Hans Krabbendam (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2005), 17–29. These rights were all based on the Municipal Charter that the Dutch States-General implemented in 1653. In turn, this charter is the basis for New York’s City Charter. For more on the trade monopoly of Albany, see Bernard Mason, “Aspects of the New York Revolt of 1689.,” New York History 30, no. 2 (April 1, 1949): 165–80.p. 171-172. 28

Frijhoff, “Dutchness in Fact and Fiction”, pp. 346-349. De Jong also dedicates a chapter to the integration of the Dutch colonists in Colonial America (chapter 5), pp. 67-86. Gerald Francis De Jong, The Dutch in America, 1609-1974 (Boston, Mass: Twayne Publishers, 1975). His main conclusion is that the effects of the Dutch colonial period were minimal, but that this is not be confused with the stereotypes that Washington Irving helped spread, p. 86.

14

from the “English” that surrounded them. Even when the Dutch colonists were not actually born in

the Netherlands, they spoke Dutch among each other and predominantly belonged to the Dutch

Reformed Church. Culture in the discourse of 17th century New York is the public culture of the

Dutch Republic and, more specifically, its rights and privileges. This definition does not necessarily

mean the production of culture in literature, art, or folklore.29 The English takeover also marks the

beginning of a tradition of seeing the Dutch Republic as one of the foundations of modern

democracy. This shift in perception also lessened the importance of nationality in the idealized

Republic.30 Instead of placing importance on the place of descent, people regarded cultural,

linguistic, and religious diversity as the basis of this society. According to some theories, the Dutch

community was the seed of New York and, therefore, the basis of the United States, as we now

know it.31 Of course, claims about the origins of American culture are not solely for the Dutch. This

theory is one in a long line of theories on how American culture came into being. Frederick Jackson

Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” is one that comes to mind.32 The British, who gave the United States their

language among many other things, also need to be included in this discussion.33 However, since this

thesis is about Dutch Americans and their culture, I will not expand on these British theories. There

is debate if a small group of Dutch colonists is responsible for the later identity of a city or a country.

However, during the 17th and a large part of 18th century, there was a definite benefit for the

continuance of Dutch cultural identity. In the end, maybe with the exception of smaller towns in the

29

Simon Middleton, “The Waning of Dutch New York,” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Giles Scott-Smith, 2009. Middleton gives a very concise summary of how cultural Dutchness changed over the years after the English takeover. 30

Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 46. Anderson places the origin of the modern nation state in the period between 1776 and 1838. I am aware of the fact that nationality as such was not used in 17

th century Holland or

America, but found this the best word to describe a person coming from a specific country that is not part of the Dutch Republic. 31

Willem Frijhoff and Jaap Jacobs, “The Dutch, New Netherland, and Thereafter (1609-1780s),” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), 31–47, come to a similar conclusion. On maybe a less scientific basis, but definitely an enjoyable version of this story is Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (New York etc: Doubleday, 2004). 32

According to Turner, American’s struggle with the frontier in their own country formed American culture and traditions. He concluded that the first chapter of the United States closed when its borders stretched from ocean to ocean. Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921), http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22994., p 38. 33

The prime example of this theory is Fischer’s “Albion’s Seed”, in which Fischer claims that American culture originates in the folkways that were exported by the immigrants coming from distinct British regions. The book was a reaction to the frontier theory and the Germ Theory. The latter claimed that Germanic liberties were the root of American culture. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York etc: Oxford University Press, 1989).

15

Hudson Valley, the eventual assimilation of the colonial Dutch into the English and later the

American society went fast. The result was that by the end of the 18th century the former Dutch

colonists were a part of the American fabric.34 Dutch ethnicity had lost its function of being “other”,

and with that protecting the old privileges. With this loss of function, Dutch ethnicity had also lost its

distinction at the beginning of the 19th century. However, with the emergence of nation states and

large waves of immigration of “others,” Dutch ethnicity would not be dormant for long.

Are Dutch Americans ethnic?

According to the definition of Warner and Lunt, a person is ethnic if both he or she and the host

society think that he or she is part of another group. Ethnicity is a way of defining the “other” by

defining your own group, while at the same time being defined by others. This defining of the other

is not a 20th century American invention. If the founding of New Netherland and its colonization was

the first wave of Dutch immigration to the United States, the second wave starts around 1846. At

that time, the combination of a potato crop failure and a bleak economic future led many people on

the path of emigration. These Dutch emigrants had a few things in common. The majority of the

emigrants were Protestant, they were predominantly coming from a rural environment, and they

were of modest financial means. Most of the Dutch emigrants originated from the so-called “clay

provinces” of Zeeland, Groningen, and Friesland, and from the sand provinces of Gelderland and

Noord-Brabant.35 Since a lot of the immigrants came from rural communities, they also set out to

become farmers in the United States. Next to financial hardship and a dream of a better life, many

of these Dutch immigrants had another reason for immigrating to the United States. In 1834,

conservative factions had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church, which was the official state

religion in the Netherlands at the time. This secession led to an estrangement of the Dutch that

were still part of the “traditional” church. Although the Seceders were not actively persecuted,

mainstream Dutch society would not fully accept them until the end of the 19th century.36 However,

34

Middleton, “The Waning of Dutch New York.” 35

Hans Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet: Nederlandse emigratie naar Amerika 1840-1940 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006), 26-27. For a very extensive breakdown of the number of immigrants, their origins, their occupation, their social situation, religion, and much more, see Robert P. Swierenga, Faith and Family : Dutch Immigration and Settlement in the United States, 1820-1920 (New York etc: Holmes & Meier, 2000). 36

Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet: Nederlandse emigratie naar Amerika 1840-1940., p. 29. Also Robert P. Swierenga, “The New Immigration,” in Four Centuries of Durch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009)., 295-296.

16

the opportunity to buy land in the United States and to obtain more religious freedom was hard to

resist. It gave many Seceders reason to emigrate to the U.S. Furthermore, they emigrated with their

entire family, which was a result of their orthodox beliefs. This family style of immigration also

separates the Dutch Protestants (both Reformed and Seceders) from other immigrant groups at the

time.37

Another distinct trait of Dutch immigrants was that they emigrated in organized groups.38

This trait is not a specific trait of ethnicity. However, it is something that differentiated the Dutch

immigrants from other groups at the time. The Netherlands’ very liberal emigration policy was a big

reason for this. For the Dutch government, immigration was a way to release internal pressure.

These pressures could be economic, but were also religious. To facilitate immigration the

Netherlands allowed its citizens to form so-called “immigration societies”. These societies decided

where to emigrate, formed beachheads for immigrants, and informed potential immigrants of the

possibilities in the new land.39 Due to these factors, a big percentage of Dutch immigrants ended up

in immigrant colonies in the American Midwest. The choice for this region was logical at the time.

Because it was still frontier country, the Midwest offered a positive economic environment with

new farmland available in abundance.40 After the initial settlement phase, new arrivals would follow

their predecessors to these locations, since there was space available with the added benefit of a

likeminded community of compatriots. It is also telling that the Dutch immigrant came to colonize

an already existing nation. Reverend Scholte, who was one of the leaders of this new wave of

immigration, said on this point:

If Hollanders are scattered among a foreign population, they will be left too much to themselves, because they cannot in so short a time familiarize themselves with the language in which the Gospel is preached. Through colonization, those who will leave will be able to hear the Gospel in their native tongue during the first few years at least, and may thus receive that spiritual sustenance which will conform in them the faith, kindle them in love, warm them against the cravings of the flesh that militate against the spirit.41

37

Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet: Nederlandse emigratie naar Amerika 1840-1940. 145-147. 38

De Jong mentions the three most important emigration associations from Utrecht (Scholte), Arnhem (Van Raalte), and Zeeland (Van der Meulen). These associations would end up determining where the majority of emigrants emigrated. 39

Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet: Nederlandse emigratie naar Amerika 1840-1940. 45-47 40

Hans Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet, 48-49 41

De Jong, The Dutch in America, 1609-1974, p. 135. In his book De Jong used a part of the quote in Bertus Harry Wabeke, Dutch Emigration to North America, 1624-1860 (New York city, Netherlands information bureau, 1944),

17

Colonizing part of a country, staying together in tight knit communities and remaining faithful to the

Gospel, is something that set Dutch immigrants apart from their European contemporaries. Dutch

immigrants, especially those immigrating to the Midwest, saw themselves as colonists, which also

meant that they emigrated to stay permanently. A permanent stay was not what other immigrants

at the time had in mind when they moved to the United States. These other immigrant groups

consisted predominantly of labor migrants who intended to move to the United States for a short

period.42 The Midwest was, of course, not the only location of Dutch immigration. The Dutch that

settled in upstate New York, who are also part of my research, are a notable exception. Other Dutch

immigrants also stayed on the eastern seaboard in cities like Paterson and Albany, while others

moved even further west to Oregon and California. The majority of 19th century Dutch immigrants,

however, did settle in the Midwest.

Especially for the Dutch immigrants that immigrated to the United States between 1847 and

1860, a sense of national identity seems to have been missing. They were first and foremost

Protestant, possibly Seceder, from a specific province, region, or municipality.43 According to the

data, 75% of emigrants came from only 12% of the municipalities in the Netherlands.44 Therefore,

emigration was clearly a local affair.45 Another factor that says a lot about the ideas of the early

Dutch immigrants to the Midwest is how they named their new towns. Names like Overisel and

http://archive.org/details/DutchEmigrationToNorthAmerica1624-1860, p. 114. The colonization of Michigan and Iowa is discussed at length in the works of Van Hinte and Lucas. Jacob van Hinte, Netherlanders in America: A Study of Emigration and Settlement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in the United States of America, ed. Robert P. Swierenga, trans. Adriaan de Wit (Grand Rapids Mich: Baker Book House, 1985); Henry S. Lucas, Netherlanders in America: Dutch Immigration to the United States and Canada, 1789-1950 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; London, 1955). 42

For an example of how Eastern Europeans traveled the transatlantic routes, see Adam Walaszek, “Central Eastern Europeans in the Euro-Atlantic Migration System Before the First World War,” in Tales of Transit Narrative Migrant Spaces in Atlantic Perspective, 1850-1950, ed. Michael Boyden, Hans Krabbendam, and Liselotte Vandenbussche (Amsterdam University Press, 2013), 29–44. 43

Swierenga, Faith and Family, p. 156. Only 18% of Dutch emigrants between 1831-1880 was Catholic and only 1% was Jewish. Since 59% of the emigrants was Dutch Reformed and 20% was Seceder, for all intents and purposes “the Dutch emigrant” was a Protestant. 44

Robert P. Swierenga, “Exodus Netherlands, Promised Land America,” in A Bilateral Bicentennial: A History of Dutch-American Relations, 1782-1982, ed. J.W. Schulte Nordholt and Robert P. Swierenga (Amsterdam: Octagon Books, 1982), p. 133. This leads Swierenga to the conclusion that the Dutch immigrants in the Midwest were part of transplanted communities, a conclusion John Bodnar would repeat 3 years later. 45

The Dutch did not have a monopoly of localized emigration. Among many examples are the immigrants from 19th

century Central and Eastern Europe. Nominally part of empires like the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, or German empires, immigrants from these areas also identified more with region than country. Walaszek, “Central Eastern Europeans in the Euro-Atlantic Migration System Before the First World War.” However, as Swierenga has also noticed, the Dutch tendency to group together can be traced back to New Netherland colonial times, Swierenga, “Exodus Netherlands, Promised Land America.”, p. 133.

18

Zeeland in Michigan, South Holland in Illinois, and Friesland and Overijssel in South Dakota, tell

much about the roots and affiliation of their settlers.46 Furthermore, a majority of the emigrants

came from small rural villages and municipalities. A shift in places of origin to more urban centers,

such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht would only take place after the 1880s.47

The fact that the Dutch were emigrating from smaller communities is not something that sets them

apart when compared to other immigrant groups at the time. What does set the Dutch apart,

though, is their intent. Dutch immigrants did not go to the United States to earn money or make a

better future for themselves or their children. The Dutch moved to the United States to found

colonies of transplanted communities. These colonies were predominantly in the Midwest, but

there were also settlements in upstate New York, to which I will come back in later chapters. The

majority of immigrants did not move to the big urban centers where quick assimilation was the

norm, but instead clung together in those rural colonies. There, Dutch dialects prevailed and

assimilation was slower than in the big cities.48 The combination of moving to preplanned American

colonies originating in localized emigration is a defining trait of Dutch immigrants.

The religious organization of the Dutch was another factor that distinguished Dutch

immigration in the 19th century from the immigration of East and South Europeans. I call this

organization another ethnic marker, since it was a way to distinguish the Dutch from “others.”

Church services were in Dutch, as it was felt that the language was more suited to keep a proper

distance between the young and their elders. Dutch can be more formal than English can, and with

that construct a natural hierarchy between young and old. Where Dutch Catholic and Jewish

immigrants mostly joined existing American churches and temples, the Protestant Dutch of the 19th

century founded their own churches in the United States. Because religion played a central part in

their lives, founding a new church was one of the first things immigrants did upon arrival. This

church and its community then became the focal point of the surrounding country.49 It was via these

churches that the Dutch immigrants also stayed abreast of religious developments in the

Netherlands. Due to these relatively closed communities, the assimilation of Midwestern Dutch

46

Robert Swierenga also mentions this apparent lack of a Dutch national identity with the emigrants. Swierenga, “Exodus Netherlands, Promised Land America.” 47

Robert P. Swierenga, “The Delayed Transition from Folk to Labor Migration: The Netherlands, 1880- 1920,” International Migration Review 27, no. 2 (July 1, 1993): 406–24, doi:10.2307/2547131. 48

Robert Swierenga also emphasizes this tendency of Dutch immigrants to cluster and behave “clannish.” Swierenga, Faith and Family, pp. 78-79. 49

Hans Krabbendam, Vrijheid in het verschiet, 71.

19

immigrants was relatively slow and arduous when compared to their predecessors on the East coast.

In part, this delay was natural since they arrived at a different time. No longer were immigrants

pioneers on sparsely populated land, but instead they were moving into a nation that was already

formed. Furthermore, the fact that these immigrants clustered in likeminded communities, most

likely, did not help their assimilation. Since religion plays such an important role in the perception

people have about Dutch immigrants, I will research immigrant religion in more detail in chapter

two.

None of these characteristics by themselves constitutes an ethnic identity. Combined, they

are a strong indication of the “othering” that many 19th century Dutch immigrants felt necessary to

keep their identity and culture. At the time of the first wave of immigration from 1847, nationality

did not play a large part in defining Dutchness. The Dutch nation state, in which citizens exchanged

their local citizenship for a national one, had only just begun with the introduction of the

Constitution of the Bataafse Republiek in 1798.50 Therefore, immigrants were from Zeeland or

Gelderland, not per se from the Netherlands. In that way, Dutch Americans confirmed to Kallen’s

definition of being ethnic: they are their own instruments and, with that, the Dutch Americans add

their distinct sound to America’s symphony. However, at the same time, Dutch Americans do not

exactly fit Kallen’s ethnic definition. The simple fact that you are born Dutch makes you Dutch. At

the same time, consent and civilization are what make a church-member. Since religion is a big part

of the Dutch American makeup, this implies that a Dutch American is made as well. When we bring

Kallen’s definition to its logical conclusion, Dutch ethnicity is a result of both descent and consent.

50

Before this constitution, the Netherlands were more or less a collection of loosely allied provinces and “Generaliteitsgebieden” (the predominantly Catholic provinces of the South that were ‘governed’ by the Holland provinces). Hans Knippenberg and B. C. de Pater, De eenwording van Nederland: schaalvergroting en integratie sinds 1800 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1988). pp. 18-19. Their thesis is that a Dutch national identity did not exist until the second half of the 19

th century. It finally came to fruition in the second half of the 20

th century. The mere fact that

legally the Netherlands was one country since 1795 did not make it one in the hearts and minds of its citizens.

20

Chapter 2: Religion

One of the distinct markers of Dutch ethnicity in the United States is religion.51 When we look at the

dominant religion in the United States in the 19th century, this is somewhat surprising. After all, the

majority of Dutch emigrants were Protestant and they were immigrating to a Protestant nation. So

was Dutch religion as distinct from American Protestantism as we assume? If so, what was it that set

Dutch religion apart from ‘mainstream’ Protestantism in the United States? I furthermore want to

answer the question about the importance of religion for Dutch ethnicity in the United States. Were

the Protestant Dutch the same in the Hudson Valley, Upstate New York, and the Midwest, or did

these groups differ? In order to answer these questions, I will start with a brief overview of Dutch

religious history in the United States.52 Next, I will look into the role of religion in the three different

areas of Dutch settlement on which this thesis is focused. I have selected these areas because I think

their Dutch immigrants each have a distinctive Dutch flavor that merits further research. Because I

cannot cover the entirety of these areas within the scope of this thesis, I have made a selection of a

few communities within these areas. What these communities have in common, is that they share

immigrant groups that make comparison possible. The majority of the immigrants in these

communities originate from the Netherlands regions of the Achterhoek and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. For

the Midwest, these communities are Sheboygan and Alto in Wisconsin; for the Hudson Valley,

Albany, New York; and for Upstate New York, I have selected Clymer and East Williamson.53 The

common origins of their immigrants are also the reason for me to research these origins in chapter

three. Finally, I will compare these three regions to see if I can distil a distinct Dutch aspect of

religion.

New Netherland and the revolution era in New York

Ever since the Dutch started their colonization of the New World, religion was an important factor in

Dutch culture. As early as the 17th century, the Dutch Republic was a haven for religious toleration

51

One example is Swierenga, Faith and Family., in which Swierenga gives a breakdown of the religion of the emigrants between 1831-1880, pp. 157-166. Also in earlier works, religion is an important part of Dutch ethnicity. Hinte, Netherlanders in America; Lucas, Netherlanders in America. 52

Swierenga, Faith and Family. p. 156. Since the non-Protestant immigrants are ‘only’ 19% of the total were less visible as a separate ethnic group, I will focus solely on Dutch Protestant immigrants. 53

What I call East Williamson in this paper consists of 3 townships: East Williamson, Pultneyville, and Sodus. These towns lie within a few miles of each other.

21

and by extension so was the Dutch colony of New Netherland. At least, this was the perception of

the time.54 In part out of necessity, the Dutch West India Company relied on foreigners to help

colonize New Netherland. Among these foreigners were Protestant Walloons and Germans, but also

Flemish Catholics and Portuguese Jews.55 At the time, the Dutch Reformed Church was the official

church of the Dutch Republic and of its colonies. However, this did not mean that other religions

were not permitted. As was the case in the Dutch Republic, New Netherland also had religious

freedom of sorts. Peter Stuyvesant tried to reassert the dominance of the Dutch Reformed Church,

but this did not take hold.56

The English takeover of the colony of New Netherland in 1674 marked another beginning. In

the 19th century, some viewed the Dutch Republic as one of the foundations of the modern United

States. Religious diversity, next to cultural and linguistic diversity, was the basis of this society. As I

have discussed in chapter one, there are many competing theories about the seed of American

civilization and culture. One of these theories is that the community of New Amsterdam was the

seed of New York and the basis of the United States, as we know it now.57 A foundation of this

theory is that the English takeover did not signify the end of the Dutch Reformed Church in the

colonies. The Dutch Reformed Church was the second officially recognized church in the Colonies,

next to the Church of England, under the treaty that governed the takeover.58 This was in marked

contrast to the influence of the French colonists in the northern colonies. The French were

predominantly Catholic, and with that, their religion was not compatible with the Protestant Church

54

Thomas E. Carney, “A Tradition to Live By: New York Religious History, 1624–1740,” New York History 85, no. 4 (October 1, 2004): 301–330. In this article gives a very thorough description of religious practices and traditions in colonial New Amsterdam and New York. Joyce Goodfriend also touches on this subject, Joyce D. Goodfriend, “Foreigners in a Dutch Colonial City,” New York History 90, no. 4 (October 1, 2009): 241–69. The question then, as it is now, is if it was actual tolerance or just indifference: As long as you do not bother me, I will not bother you. However, since this is outside of the scope of this thesis, I will not dwell on the meaning of tolerance in the Dutch or American context. 55

Goodfriend, “Foreigners in a Dutch Colonial City.” Naturally, not everybody agrees with this version of events. In 1918 Frederick Zwierlein was one of the first who tried to debunk this myth, Frederick J. Zwierlein, “New Netherland Intolerance,” The Catholic Historical Review 4, no. 2 (July 1, 1918): 186–216. 56

Carney, “A Tradition to Live By.” Naturally, not everybody agrees with this version of events. In 1918 Frederick Zwierlein was one of the first who tried to debunk this myth of Dutch religious tolerance, Zwierlein, “New Netherland Intolerance.” 57

Willem Frijhoff and Jaap Jacobs, “The Dutch, New Netherland, and Thereafter (1609-1780s),” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), 31–47, come to a similar conclusion. On maybe a less scientific basis, but definitely an enjoyable version of this story is Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World. 58

This status was an official sanction of the Dutch Reformed Church by the Church of England. Edwin S. Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, [1st ed.] (New York etc: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 27.

22

of England. Besides that, the French and British would be vying for supremacy until the end of the

French-Indian War in 1760.59 The Dutch colonists and now loyal British subjects had, therefore, a

special place in the hierarchy of the British colonies. Furthermore, Dutch mores continued to

dominate many parts of the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and Delaware in 1809.60 The persistence of

Dutch mores was aided, in a large part, by the survival of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York

and New Jersey. New churches were still founded, sermons were still given in Dutch, and Reformed

ministers were still ordained in the Netherlands. All this happened in a period when no new Dutch

colonists were arriving.61

Washington Irving, who did such a good job satirizing the Dutch presence in the Hudson

Valley, did not write much about the Dutch Reformed Church. Even though Irving mentions the

actual church building of the Dutch Reformed Church in his Legends of Sleepy Hollow, he does not

go into much detail about religion itself.62 Irving’s stories about the Dutch of the Hudson Valley

provide further evidence of the lasting Dutch influence in New York outside of religion. Later authors

would reemphasize Dutch religion. Only 40 years after Irving’s Knickerbocker stories were first

published, scholars had Dutch ethnicity veering back towards its colonial and Protestant origins. The

books of John Lothrop Motley and Edmund B. O’Callaghan went back to a more positive view of the

Dutch colonists and their American offspring.63 Especially Lothrop’s 3 part series The Rise of the

Dutch Republic: a History, originally published in 1856 was well read. These books focused on the

59

You could even say that they would battle each other for supremacy in North America until the end of the American Revolution, when the French aided the struggling young Republic. Because this was almost a century after the British took over control of the Dutch colonies, it is not relevant to this thesis. 60

Charles H. Anderson, White Protestant Americans: From National Origins to Religious Group (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970). p. 91. Also, Arnold Mulder, Americans from Holland (Philadelphia, PA etc: Lippincott, 1947), p. 68. 61

Gerald Francis De Jong, The Dutch in America, 1609-1974 (Boston, Mass: Twayne Publishers, 1975), pp. 52-54. Until 1772, the Dutch Reformed Church in America still fell under the Classis Amsterdam. Only then did it become its own classis. Hans Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon: Dutch Immigration to America, 1840-1940 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 100. 62

The Headless Horseman plays a key role in “Sleepy Hollow”, but the church and its graveyard feature only to bury his victims. According to some, this was a conscious effort by the descendants of English colonists in the United States to erase Dutch history from American memory. Judith Richardson, “The Ghosting of the Hudson Valley Dutch,” in Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, ed. Joyce D Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt, and Annette Stott (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 59–86. Interestingly, De Jong also has the stories of Irving, together with the stories of James Fennimore Cooper, as one of the pull factors for Dutch immigration to the United States after 1847, De Jong, The Dutch in America, 1609-1974, p. 134. This is even more surprising, since the sketch of Dutch Americans by Irving does not appear to be to flattering. 63

John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (New York: Harper & brothers, 1898); E. B. (Edmund Bailey) O’Callaghan, History of New Netherland; Or, New York under the Dutch (New York: D. Appleton & co., 1848).

23

heroic struggle of the new (Protestant) Dutch Republic against the mighty (and Catholic) Spanish

empire. Combined with the growth of the number of Reformed Churches in the United States in

1850 to 330 from 79 in 1750, Dutch Reformed Protestantism was part of the American

mainstream.64

A Protestant schism

Up to 1850, almost all Reformed Churches were in either New York or New Jersey. There, the

number of Reformed churches had grown to almost 300 by 1850 out of 330. The balance, of where

the most Dutch Reformed churches were, would shift after 1847. As I have mentioned earlier, the

combination of a potato crop failure in 1845 and a bleak economic future, led many on a path to

immigration. Most of these immigrants did not stay in the old colonial possessions, but rather

moved to what was then America’s western frontier. In part, this decision was due to the availability

of cheap farmland. The other factor that guided these new immigrants was religion. Many of the

new colonists followed their church leaders to the United States. The most prominent church

leaders were the reverends Scholte, Van Raalte, and Van der Meulen. Their decision to move to

Iowa (Scholte) and Michigan (Van Raalte and Van der Meulen) not only influenced their followers,

but also later immigrants.

Scholte, Van Raalte, and Van der Meulen were so-called Seceders. The Seceders were an

offshoot of the Dutch Reformed Church and had formed a separate church after the Secession of

1834. This Secession was a reaction to the organization by King William I of the Netherlands of a

new Reformed “Synode” in 1816. With this action, many of the more orthodox Protestants felt that

the Dutch Reformed Church succumbed to state interference. Furthermore, the centrality of human

agency in the new preaching forms, instead of the divine word of God, was something that did not

sit well with orthodox Protestant pietists. In 1834, reverend Hendrik de Cock of Ulrum in Groningen

was the first minister to secede with his congregation. A few young, freshly ordained ministers from

Leiden University soon followed his example, among who were the aforementioned reverend

Scholte and Anthony Brummelkamp. Other ministers, like Simon van Velzen, Albertus van Raalte,

64

Of those 330 churches, 300 churches were in New York and New Jersey. Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, p. 97.

24

and Cornelius van der Meulen, later joined these early secessionists.65 In essence, the goal of the

Seceders was to have a pure church, untainted by humanist doctrine and modern influences.

According to them, the liberal winds that were blowing through Europe at the time, could only lead

to worse things to come. In this vision, the United States was less corrupted and therefore a logical

destination for this pure church.

Although Scholte, Van Raalte, and Van der Meulen all were Seceders, not all Seceders were

the same. Scholte was a proponent of a quick integration of the immigrants into American society,

whilst Van Raalte was proposing a transplantation of the Seceder church to the United States. Van

Raalte was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States. This

also implied support to Sunday schools, since these had become important in religious education in

the Dutch Reformed Church. Van Raalte stayed loyal to the Dutch Reformed Church and, in turn,

they helped him establish Hope College.66 What Scholte, Van Raalte, and Van der Meulen had in

common was the wish to establish Christian schools. They believed that this wish could come true in

the United States because the United States offered religious freedom and did not have a state

church.67 During those first years of settlement, the Seceder’s dreams of Christian education were

partially realized. Teachers from the community were responsible for public education in frontier

settlements, which meant that the children were schooled in both the language and the pure

Christian doctrine of their parents. At the same time, English was starting to make headway in

education, especially at the public schools. For reverend Van Raalte, this was more than sufficient.

For him and his followers, the public school system combined with the Sunday school system was in

line with their wishes. In the opinion of some of the more orthodox immigrants, however, this shift

to English was the first encroachment on the “True Church.”68

65

One of many authors on the subject of the Secession is Henry Beets, himself an immigrant in the United States. Henry Beets, De Chr. geref. kerk in N. A.; zestig jaren van strijd en zegen (Grand Rapids, Mich., Grand Rapids printing company, 1918), http://archive.org/details/dechrgerefkerkin00beet. On the Secession, see pp. 17-36. Also, Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, pp. 10-16. 66

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon. Hope College, originally called Holland College, was established in 1866. The language in which was taught was English. I will delve more in education later in the chapter. 67

Ibid., p. 104. After all, the interference of the state in the church led to the original Secession in 1834. 68

Ibid., p. 233-236. James Bratt also includes the perceived doctrinal and liturgical impurity of the Eastern branch of the Dutch Reformed Church. According to Bratt, this also led to some people in the colonies to doubt Van Raalte’s reliability. This is in line with the Seceders original claims that the new Dutch Reformed Church, with its emphasis on human agency in its teachings, was becoming too liberal. By sticking to Dutch, the purity of the teachings could be safeguarded. James D. Bratt, Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture (Grand Rapids, Mich: WBEerdmans PubCo, 1984). p. 39.

25

As stated before, the first wave of immigrants started new churches after arrival. Those

communities joined the already existing Dutch Reformed Church in America. However, a new rift

was already in the making. Some of the causes of the Secession in the Netherlands also led to a new

schism in the Reformed Church. The encroachment of English on the true church was one example

of the pressure points. Furthermore, since there were no special Dutch Reformed or Christian

schools in the United States, Reformed children went to public schools out of necessity. These

children got their theological education in special Sunday schools, which also taught in English. The

Americanization of the Dutch Reformed churches in the East was another point of contention by the

time the second wave of Dutch immigrants arrived. In the East, sermons were in English.69 For some

of the new immigrants, all these factors would only lead to a loss of Dutch identity and, with that, a

loss of the sacredness of their religion and the “True Church.”70 The loss of Dutch identity led to

another secession in 1857 and the formation of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). Between 1857

and 1880, many of the Dutch immigrants in the Midwest that had originally joined the Dutch

Reformed Church in America, switched to the new CRC. Apart from a few congregations in Michigan,

many of the new immigrant churches in the Midwest had made this switch by 1890. Not only the

settled Midwestern immigrants, but also the immigrants that followed them also switched

allegiance.

69

Thomas J. Wertenbaker, The Founding of American Civilization: The Middle Colonies (New York etc: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938). In chapter III Wertenbaker gives an extensive description on the changes that took place in the Dutch Reformed Church after the British takeover of New Netherland. The 1857 schism is not the first (or last) schism in the Dutch Reformed Church in America. As Wertenbaker describes in chapter III and De Jon g in chapter VI, a struggle between those who wanted to keep the ties with Classis Amsterdam (the Conferentie) and those who wanted an “independent” American classis (the Coetus) took place in the late 18

th century. De Jong, The Dutch in

America, 1609-1974, pp. 87-108. In the end, the “Coetus” faction won the argument, since New York became an independent Classis in 1772. Also, in 1822, some ministries had seceded from the Dutch Reformed Church in America to become the True Dutch Reformed Church. This latter denomination would join the CRC in 1890. George Harinck and Hans Krabbendam, eds., Morsels in the Melting Pot: The Persistence of Dutch Immigrant Communities in North America (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2006), p. 19. 70

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, p. 103. Swierenga, Faith and Family; Donald A. Luidens and Roger J. Nemeth, “Dutch Immigration and Membership Growth in the Reformed Church in America: 1830-1920,” in The Dutch-American Experience: Essays in Honor of Robert P. Swierenga, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Larry J. Wagenaar (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2000), 169–88. Swierenga, Luidens, and Nemeth also point to the fact that their Dutch Reformed brethren in the East had helped the early immigrants of 1847 extensively. They therefore were more likely to stay within the Dutch Reformed Church in America. Lucas has devoted a passage on Van Raalte’s reception in the United States and the help he received from the reverend Wyckoff. Lucas furthermore comments very briefly on the Zeeland immigrants in Rochester, on whom I will have more later. Lucas, Netherlanders in America, pp. 70-74.

26

For many Dutch Reformed immigrants, the main reason for switching denominations was a

controversy that had embroiled the Dutch Reformed Church in America since the early 1880s. In the

United States, Masonry was no threat to Christian beliefs. Because some of the Founding Fathers

had been Freemasons, the Dutch Reformed Church in America did not rule out church membership

to Freemasons.71 The main arguments against Freemasonry, mainly voiced in the Midwestern

classes, were that Freemasonry was un-Republican, un-Christian, and anti-Reformed. The fact that

the Freemasons swore an oath to a godlike power was especially a reason for protest. A good

Reformed Christian, after all, could not swear an oath to a deitist secret society, since this would

lead to the worship of multiple deities.72 This controversy led to more Midwestern churches

changing denomination, and caused the new immigrants to choose the CRC over the existing Dutch

Reformed Church.

A shift in immigration during the 1860s also fed the growth of the CRC. The majority of

immigrants were now from the more orthodox Northern provinces of the Netherlands, which made

a choice for the CRC all the more logical.73 By and large, the churches in New York and New Jersey

remained within the Dutch Reformed Church in America. By 1890, the CRC was the Dutch church of

the Midwest, while the Reformed Church in America (RCA; the Dutch Reformed Church in America

changed its name to Reformed Church in America in 1876) was the church for the East.74 Although it

is difficult for an outsider to distinguish between the two denominations, this schism led to a

different course in American life for both groups involved. It is my thesis that these different courses

also led to a difference in ethnicity between the different Dutch groups in the United States. This

ethnic diversity stretched beyond the East-Midwest divide and included the Dutch from upstate

New York and Wisconsin as well. Although these two groups shared many similarities with the other

71

For more on the debate on the Masons, see Elton J. Bruins, “Americanization in Reformed Religious Life,” in The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement, and Cultural Change, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1985), p. 181. Bruins also points to the difference in perception of the Masons between the Netherlands and the United States. This is further evidence that the 1857 schism was in a large part rooted in pre-existing conflicts within the Seceder communities. 72

Beets spent an entire paragraph on this controversy. Even 28 years after the original controversy, is was still a hot topic in Christian Reformed circles. Beets, De Chr. geref. kerk in N. A.; zestig jaren van strijd en zegen, pp. 174-185. 73

Bratt, Dutch Calvinism in Modern America, p.39. Bratt also shows that the membership of the CRC in the Midwest quickly surpassed the Dutch Reformed Church membership there (p. 239). For the origins of the later immigrants, see Swierenga, Faith and Family, p. 183-188. 74

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, p. 105; Luidens and Nemeth, “Dutch Immigration and Membership Growth in the Reformed Church in America: 1830-1920.”, pp. 174-175. Swierenga, Faith and Family, p. 187-188.

27

Dutch American groups, I will show that the first two groups were neither purely “in” the East nor

“in” the Midwest in this and later chapters.

CRC and RCA: Dutch Reformed with a difference?

On theological grounds, the two denominations hardly differed from each other. Both

denominations are Calvinist and based their teachings on the Synod of Dordrecht.75 Most of their

disagreements were about worldly matters like the singing of hymns instead of psalms, the opening

of Sunday schools instead of Christian schools, and the speed at which they should assimilate in

American society.76 The latter was the major difference in the trajectories of the denominations and

their adherents in the second half of the 19th century. As Peter Moerdyke, a prominent member of

the RCA in the West, pointed out a switch to English sermons was only logical for RCA churches.

Thereby, they could connect more easily to their younger congregants. Even before Moerdyke made

his comments, Van Raalte was already promoting American citizenship for all who could apply for it.

Furthermore, since there was not a sufficient amount of ministers who spoke English, Van Raalte

invited Dutch Reformed clergy from the East to preach at the Midwestern churches. This process of

assimilation was sped up even more when most new priests in the RCA were no longer ordained in

the Netherlands, but instead graduated at the, English speaking, New Brunswick Theological

Seminary.77

The members of the CRC, on the other hand, were more reluctant to let go of Dutch as the

language of the Church and of education. They kept to the Seceder ideal of Christian schools, were

the teachers preferably taught in Dutch. Teaching and preaching in Dutch would keep the Reformed

teachings pure. Masonic membership was anathema to a devout Dutch Christian, which made the

struggle against its membership a banner under which many Dutch Reformed immigrants could 75

Herbert Brinks J., “Religious Continuities in Europe and the New World,” in The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement, and Cultural Change, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1985), 209–223. According to Brinks, the 1857 schism is predominantly based on differences that already existed before emigration began in 1847. 76

Hans Krabbendam quotes the RCA minister Peter Moerdyke, who claimed that the main difference between CRC and RCA was their respective worldviews. According to Moerdyke, the CRC wanted to remain Dutch and provincial, while the RCA was worldly and more progressive. Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, pp. 119-120. Moerdyke is also quoted in Robert P. Swierenga, “Walls or Bridges? Acculturation Processes in the Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches in North America,” in Morsels in the Melting Pot: The Persistence of Dutch Immigrant Communities in North America, ed. George Harinck and Hans Krabbendam (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2006), p. 35, "We believe in a safe, Christian, rapid Americanization of all our young people.” 77

Swierenga, “Walls or Bridges? Acculturation Processes in the Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches in North America.”, p. 36. Bruins, “Americanization in Reformed Religious Life.”, pp. 183-184.

28

gather. In the early years, the CRC was also more orthodox than the RCA. As shown by Swierenga, a

majority of the CRC clergy and CRC members came from the Northern provinces of the

Netherlands.78 These same provinces adhered to the so-called orthodox Northern Dortian teachings

of Hendrik de Cock and Simon van Velzen. Assimilation slowed even further by the fact that until

1900 every CRC pastor was trained in the Netherlands.79

Education was equally important to both denominations. Their main difference was in its

implementation. As shown before, the RCA was a proponent of the public school system, since it

was more or less based on Christian teachings.80 Even though Van Raalte had claimed that one of

the main reasons for immigrating to the United States was the possibility to found Christian schools,

he let go of this demand after he arrived.81 Perhaps he thought the combination of the, in essence

Protestant, public school and Sunday school were sufficient to ensure the Reformed children a

proper education. Van Raalte’s preoccupation with education did not stop there, since he also was a

big proponent of higher education. With financial assistance from the Eastern RCA, he managed to

found an English language secondary school that would become Hope College in 1866.82 The original

goal of this college was to prepare students for theological studies at the New Brunswick Theological

Seminary in New Jersey. The Dutch Reformed Church had established this seminary in 1784 to train

Reformed ministers. With the establishment of a theological seminary in Holland, Michigan

(originally as a part of Hope College, but later as the independent Western Theological Seminary),

78

Swierenga, Faith and Family, p. 179-188. Henry Beets and Lucas van Hinte had come to a similar conclusion in earlier works. Herbert Brinks only partly agrees with Swierenga’s claim that the CRC members were predominantly from the Northern provinces in the Netherlands. According to Brinks, the CRC ministers had been trained in the North (mostly at the newly founded Theological school in Kampen), but they had served throughout the Netherlands. Although this is probably true, the fact remains that these ministers did all originate in the Northern provinces and had a more orthodox vision than the RCA ministers. That they had not only served in the north is a minor matter. 79

Swierenga, “Walls or Bridges? Acculturation Processes in the Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches in North America.”, p. 35. 80

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, pp. 238-240. 81

Of course this did not mean that Van Raalte had given up on this ideal. He did establish an parochial school “to educate their children in schools where they will be subjected to specific Christian influences, and that as a consequence, since an overwhelming influence of unbelief and superstition is found, it is highly incumbent upon them to establish parochial schools.” Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 391. Due to a lack of support it eventually closed in 1862. On the same subject, Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., p. 235. 82

When it came to education, the Dutch immigrants were not as conservative as some would expect. Out of the 18 students at the predecessor of Hope College, two were girls. According to Van Hinte this was a conscious effort by the immigrants to co-educate their children. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp. 393-394.

29

students at Hope College could prepare for their ministries in Holland, Michigan.83 Scholte was also

active in establishing Christian institutes of higher learning by assisting in the founding of a Christian

college, Central University. Because this college was originally co-founded with Baptists, the re-

christened Central College would not be a part of the RCA until 1916.84

For the CRC, a Christian education was not only their duty for their children, but it would

also prove to be a way to ensure their own survival. However, just as Van Raalte had struggled

within the RCA to establish parochial schools, so did the CRC have trouble actually establishing the

Christian schools they wanted. In the period between 1857 and 1873, not much headway was made

with establishing the CRC schools. It also became clear that their preference for Dutch as the main

language at those schools was not viable.85 As was the case with RCA affiliated schools, in most CRC

schools English eventually became the main language. This did not stop the establishment of

Christian schools, which took flight after the CRC allied itself with the Netherlands Christian

Reformed Church (Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland). The latter had started an ambitious

program of establishing Christian schools under the auspices of Abraham Kuyper, a pattern that was

followed in the United States as well.86 In the CRC’s early years, the emphasis of education was on a

primary and secondary level. However, since the CRC wanted to isolate itself from the Americanizing

influences of the RCA, it could not send its theological students to New Brunswick or Holland. As a

result, the CRC founded the Theologische School in Grand Rapids in 1876, later extended with a non-

theological department, and re-christened Calvin College.87 Both RCA and CRC now had their

institute of higher learning.88

83

Ibid., p. 600. The original seminary at Hope College was not a success and was eventually replaced by Western Theological Seminary. 84

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., p. 240. 85

In 1875, the CRC decided that Dutch no longer needed to be included in the curriculum. This was decided mainly because many of the smaller congregations just did not have the means to provide good education in Dutch. See article 4, “Minutes of the Highest Assembly of the Christian Reformed Church, General Assembly 1875” (Christian Reformed Church in America, June 2, 1875), http://library.calvin.edu/content/downloads/4915. 86

Bruins, “Americanization in Reformed Religious Life.”, p. 187. 87

Calvin College 3201 Burton SE et al., “History - About,” Calvin College, accessed April 24, 2014, http://www.calvin.edu/about/history/. See also Richard H. Harms, “Forging a Religious Identity: The Christian Reformed Church in the Nineteenth-Century Dutch Immigrant Community,” in The Dutch-American Experience: Essays in Honor of Robert P. Swierenga, ed. Hans Krabbendam and Larry J. Wagenaar (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2000), 189–208., p. 190. 88Van Hinte’s chapter on education has been very instructive. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., Ch. 13, pp. 389-414.

See also Lucas, Netherlanders in America. Ch. XI, pp. 579-607. Currently, the ‘score’ between RCA and CRC colleges is four (including New Brunswick, Hope College, Central College, and Northwestern College), and 2 (Calvin College and Dordt College).

30

The Midwest

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was a model for the ease with which some Dutch immigrants could ‘switch’

denominations. It is also a model for the, mild, denominational clash between RCA and CRC that

took place in the second half of the 19th century. Interestingly enough, the first Dutch church in the

region was not a Dutch Reformed Church, but a Presbyterian Church under the leadership of the

Reverend Zonne. This church, established in 1848, was a joint effort by immigrants coming from

different provinces in the Netherlands, on which I will come back in chapter three. However, like

with the American Protestant secession of 1857, some immigrants did not think that Zonne and the

Presbyterian Church were orthodox enough. Predating this schism by seven years, they founded a

new church in 1850 in the nearby settlement of Oostburg, which quickly aligned with the RCA.89 The

second Dutch Reformed Church came 10 years later. In 1860, Hope Reformed Church, also a part of

the RCA, was established. It had 50 families amongst its founding members, which by 1912 had

grown to 85 families. The church did not have a Christian school, but instead organized a Sunday

school. John Sietsema was Hope’s first pastor, starting in 1894. Sietsema was a typical RCA minister

of the time. He was born in Michigan in 1867. He graduated from Hope College in 1891 and from

Western Theological Seminary in 1894, after which he went to serve in Sheboygan.

By 1890, the number of CRC members in the Midwest was still slightly below the number of

RCA members. The same was true for the Dutch immigrant communities of Sheboygan and Alto,

Wisconsin. Five charter members established the Christian Reformed Church in Sheboygan in 1889.

Sheboygan got its first church building in 1890 and the church started a Christian school in 1890.90

Originally ministered by itinerant ministers, the CRC church got its own priest, Theodore L. De Lange,

in 1896. De Lange was also a typical CRC pastor of the time, as Sietsema was a typical RCA minister.

De Lange was born in the Netherlands in 1861. His official CRC biography does not mention from

what church he originated, but it is likely that he came from the Dutch branch of the Seceded

Protestant Church (Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland). De Lange went to Calvin Theological

Seminary in 1892 and was ordained in 1896.

89

Sipko F. Rederus, “The Dutch Settlements of Sheboygan County,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History 1, no. 3 (March 1, 1918): 256–65., pp. 262-263. Also, Russell L. Gasero, Historical Directory of the Reformed Church in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p. 407. 90

Carl Zillier, Sheboygan County Wisconsin: Past and Present, Vol. 1 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912), pp 157-158.

31

New York State

The influence of the Hudson Valley Dutch logically is a lot larger in upstate New York than in the

Midwest. Bordering Lake Ontario, the Dutch immigrant communities of Clymer and East Williamson

both started a Reformed Church in 1847.91 These churches were established in the year that the

Seceder immigration to the United States began in earnest. However, as I will show in chapter three,

these churches preceded the Seceder immigration. As was the case in Sheboygan, the East

Williamson Reformed Church also started as a Presbyterian church with 104 members.92 Another

similarity with Sheboygan is that a few of the more orthodox church members decided that they

were better off under the wings of the Dutch Reformed Church. As early as 1849, they started their

own Dutch Reformed Church, which would eventually merge with the Presbyterians in 1862 to form

an undivided Dutch Reformed Church.93

The Clymer church showed the interconnectedness that existed between East and Midwest

in the middle of the 19th century. Clymer’s first minister was J.W. Dunnewold, who had originally

immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. However, after he was asked by the Clymer community to

minister their congregation, he would minister in upstate New York between 1853 and 1865.94 In

East Williamson, a similar situation occurred. Gerrit Hospers, from Pella, Iowa and a graduate from

Western Theological School, was the minister from 1887 until 1892. His brother Henry on the other

hand, studied theology at the Free University in Amsterdam and was ordained after finishing his

education at New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Henry Hospers ministered the Clymer’s Abbe

congregation from 1893 until 1897.95 Because Clymer and East Williamson were smaller

communities than Sheboygan, which did have the first Dutch language American newspaper, there

are no records of other schools than the public school at the time.96

91

Russell L. Gasero, Historical Directory of the Reformed Church in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p. 407. 92

Community of the Lord at East Williamson, “East Williamson New York Reformed Church Membership Lists Part I,” n.d., Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, accessed February 17, 2014. 93

Community of the Lord at East Williamson, “The Register of the Actions of the Consistory of the Community of the Lord at East Williamson,” 1884 1847, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, p. 11. 94

Gasero, Historical Directory of the Reformed Church in America, p. 36. 95

Ibid., p. 109. 96

Currently there are schools from many denominations in both areas. However, all these schools have been established in the second half of the 20

th century. One notable exception is Fredonia University that was

established in 1826 and is a part of the SUNY system since 1948. As all state schools, it is a public, non-denominational institute. For more on the first Dutch language newspaper in the United States, “De Sheboygan Nieuwsbode”, see Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, pp. 270-271.

32

In Albany, which was one of the original settlements of the 17th century Dutch colonists of

New Netherland, the first Dutch Reformed Church hailed from 1642. By 1834, Albany had three

Reformed Churches. Albany was also the place where the Americanization of the Dutch Reformed

Church in America was most clearly visible. In 1847, when the new wave of Dutch immigration was

starting, the reverend Wyckoff was Albany’s minister. He still preached from the Heidelberg

Catechism and he still spoke Dutch.97 Because of this, Wyckoff was instrumental in the settlement of

the Midwest and upstate New York by the new Dutch immigrants. However, by 1890, none of the

ministers in any of the three RCA churches in Albany was of Dutch descent. It is therefore also very

likely that the ministers Johnson, Selden, and Dailey did not preach in English as their predecessor

Wyckoff had.98 This is the main difference with the smaller congregations in upstate New York,

where the ministers and their flock still spoke Dutch.

What is missing from the New York church landscape, however, is the CRC. Until 1890, when

the CRC merged with the True Dutch Reformed Church, the CRC had no churches in New York State.

In 1907, when the all but three of the True Dutch Reformed congregations seceded once more, that

number came down to none.99 This lack of CRC churches in New York State in the 1890s could lead

to the conclusion that the CRC was a Midwestern church and the RCA an Eastern church. In part, this

is correct because until the 1920s around 70% of the RCA congregants lived on the Eastern

seaboard.100 Meanwhile, the CRC had established its theological seminary in Grand Rapids,

Michigan. This location was not random, since it was near the original CRC congregations of

Graafschap and Grand Rapids, the “power-base” of the CRC. However, this would oversimplify

matters, since both denominations spread their base. Until the controversy over the Freemasons

broke out, a majority of new Dutch immigrants joined the RCA. Since most immigrants immigrated

97

Ibid., p.34. 98

Gasero, Historical Directory of the Reformed Church in America, p. 287 for the list of RCA churches in Albany. The different ministers can be found on pp. 48, 116, and 211. 99

The True Reformed Church was an offshoot from the Dutch Reformed Church in America. They seceded in 1822 because they thought the Dutch Reformed Church was becoming too worldly. The merger between the True Reformed Church and the CRC apparently was an unhappy one, according to Henry Zwaanstra. For one, there was a language barrier, since all the congregants and ministers of the True Reformed Church spoke English and not Dutch. This was one of the factors that led to the break-up in 1907. Henry Zwaanstra, Reformed Thought and Experience in a New World: A Study of the Christian Reformed Church and Its American Environment, 1890-1918 (Kampen: JHKok, 1973)., pp. 9-13. Currently, the closest CRC church to Albany is Trinity CRC in Richfield Springs, New York, 63.5 miles away. 100

Luidens and Nemeth, “Dutch Immigration and Membership Growth in the Reformed Church in America: 1830-1920.”, p. 174.

33

to the Midwest, this meant that the RCA grew prolifically in that region.101 In the 1890s, the RCA was

therefore larger in the Midwest than the CRC. Only after the Freemason controversy, would the

scales in the Midwest tilt in favor of the CRC. Since membership of either denomination was very

much linked to Dutch immigration and most of the Dutch immigrants of the 19th century moved to

the Midwest, the Midwest would turn into the powerbase for Dutch Reformed religion in general.102

Religious ethnicity

19th century Dutch immigration to the United States was comprised predominantly of immigrants

moving from one Protestant country to another. Dutch Protestant history in the United States

started two centuries prior to that, when colonists from the Dutch Republic used their religious

identity as a means to differentiate themselves from the people surrounding them. Although Dutch

religious identity was dormant for a while, it would come back into the American consciousness. For

the Seceder ministers and their followers, the United States was the Promised Land. It was a country

where they could freely practice their religion. Furthermore, the United States offered the

possibility to retain pure faith and educate the next generations accordingly. The first wave of Dutch

immigrants would try to retain their Dutch identity, while at the same time becoming a part of the

American fabric, by joining the RCA. However, the rift that caused the Secession in the Netherlands

had also crossed the Atlantic. After 1857, Dutch immigrants once again could choose between

joining the organized religion or stay true to more pietistic beliefs. The CRC filled an area where the

purity of religion and language were coupled. For a few years, the CRC would be a safe haven for

those immigrants who wanted to savor their Dutch identity longer. A similar differentiation occurred

in the different regions where the Dutch settled. The Midwest was the region where the more

orthodox immigrants settled. The Freemason controversy that embroiled the RCA strengthened this

effect. The East, on the other hand, was Americanizing faster. The roots of the RCA and its Anglicized

religion were nestled in New York and New Jersey, where Freemasonry was not a sin. However,

101

Ibid., p. 183-187. Currently, the majority of RCA members live in the Midwest. James Bratt has the tipping point of RCA membership in the Midwest around 1965. Bratt, Dutch Calvinism in Modern America., pp. 222-223. 102

Nemeth and Luidens show this exclusivity of the RCA for Dutch ethnics. Until the present day, almost all RCA clergy claim some Dutch descent. Roger J. Nemeth and Donald A. Luidens, “The Persistence of Ethnic Descent: Dutch Clergy in the Reformed Church in America,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34, no. 2 (June 1, 1995): 200–213, doi:10.2307/1386765.

34

claiming that there is a strict delineation between East and West is a bridge too far.103 The

denominations and regions were, and are connected, but retain their own characteristics.

Howard Kallen said it best when he claimed that a church member is made. As I have shown

in chapter one, being a member of a church or denomination is a choice and a matter of consent.

Not long after the major wave of Dutch immigration started, immigrants could choose to which

Dutch Reformed denomination they wanted to belong. Although the differences between the two

seems small from the outside, and both denominations shared a Calvinist heritage, for the

immigrants at the time it was a momentous decision. However, what both RCA and CRC had in

common was that they helped establish a firm Dutch ethnic identity. Being a member of either the

RCA or CRC automatically meant that you were Dutch.

103

See Robert Swierenga’s essay on this exact subject for a concise overview of this point. Swierenga, “Walls or Bridges? Acculturation Processes in the Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches in North America.”, pp.33-42.

35

Chapter 3: Origins and goals

The Dutch immigrants of the 19th century were a relatively small group in the totality of the

immigrant groups of the era. According to estimates, around 220,000 Dutch have immigrated to the

United States between 1820 and 1920. When we compare this to the entire European immigration

to the United States of approximately 33 million, for the same period, the 0.64% of Dutch

immigrants is a quite a small number.104 These small numbers, both in a relative and absolute sense,

do not necessarily dictate that the Dutch immigrants should have assimilated without leaving a

trace. However, because of these small numbers it is possible to research the Dutch ethnic identity

in the United States. In order to ascertain how they managed to maintain this identity, apart from

religion and education discussed in previous chapters, I will break down the origins of the Dutch

American immigrating to distinct regions. Interestingly enough, many of the immigrants that lived

outside of the colonies of Michigan and Iowa came from the Achterhoek and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen

regions in the Netherlands. These groups clustered together in Wisconsin and upstate New York.

Why did they cluster together, and why did they stay in these chosen places? I also want to explore

if their location says something about their Dutch identity within the United States. To answer these

questions, I will start with a brief description of the first main wave of Dutch immigration to the

United States in the period of 1846-1847. Next, I will look at the background of the settlements in

Wisconsin and upstate New York. Finally, I will conclude with my analysis of the groups and the

areas they settled.

The Dutch “Kolonies”

A major part of the groundwork for immigration, like the forming of immigration societies, naturally

originates in the Netherlands. Before he was to leave for the United States, Henry Scholte met the

American minister Thomas de Witt of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in America. Together

with his colleague, the Reverend Isaac Wyckoff, De Witt would prove to be important for the final

trajectories of the main colonist groups. Scholte, however, was not the one who would meet with

104

United States. Department of Homeland Security, “Yearbook of Immigration Statitics: 2012” (United States Department of Homeland Security, 2013), http://www.dhs.gov/publication/yearbook-2012., pp. 6-8. The Yearbook comes to a total of Dutch immigration of 214,474. As discussed by Robert P. Swierenga, this number is probably too low. However, since the statistical difference on the total of legal immigrants is negligible, I have taken the data from the Yearbook as the basis for this calculation.

36

Wyckoff upon arrival. Because of numerous factors, Albertus van Raalte would meet Wyckoff.

Wyckhoff directed Van Raalte to Detroit, Michigan, where there was an organization to aid Dutch

immigrants. Although Van Raalte still planned to settle in Wisconsin, Michigan boosters eventually

convinced him to stay in Michigan instead.105 So partly because of the very cordial reception by

Wyckoff in Albany and the letters of recommendation he gave Van Raalte, Van Raalte let go of his

original goal to colonize parts of Wisconsin and settled in Michigan.106

Meanwhile, Scholte and his followers went inland from Baltimore without meeting with

Wyckoff. Although originally intent on going to Wisconsin, Scholte also changed his mind and

decided on Iowa. In part, this was to avoid having to team up with Van Raalte, who was moving his

followers to Michigan. Although they started out as friends and likeminded immigrant activists, their

later relationship was not as cordial.107 A personal clash between its two leaders was not the only

thing that separated these colonies. The original colonists of what would later become Holland,

Michigan, had followed Van Raalte from Gelderland and Overijssel, the provinces where he had

ministered. Scholte’s followers to Pella, Iowa, had mainly come from Zuid-Holland and Utrecht.

These different backgrounds also influenced the settlement patterns. Scholte’s followers were

relatively affluent, while Van Raalte’s followers came from the poorer regions of the Netherlands. As

a result, Scholte’s group could easily afford the more expensive prairielands of Iowa. Because the

available land in Michigan had to be deforested first to be cultivated, land prices were lower than in

Iowa. This monetary consideration was also a factor in Van Raalte’s decision to settle in Michigan.108

Financial capabilities also influenced the decision of a third group, coming from the province of

Zeeland that was underway to the United States at the same time. Under the leadership of Cornelius

105

Henry Lucas suspects that Van Raalte contacted Michigan booster Theodore Romeyn through Wcykoff. Romeyn was one of the persons who convinced Van Raalte to forsake Wisconsin and stay in Michigan instead. Lucas, Netherlanders in America., p. 73. Elton J. Bruins, “Albertus C. Van Raalte: Leader of the Dutch Emigration to the United States, 1847-1867. Origins 19, No. 2 (2001): 4-11. (Elton J. Bruins),” Origins, Fall 2001. Pp. 6-7. 106

Henry S. Lucas, Netherlanders in America, pp. 70-74. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp. 132-136. Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., pp 34-40. Wyckoff also assisted the new communities in Michigan during their first year. B. de Beij, Stemmen Uit de Hollandsch-Gereformeerde Kerk in de Vereenigde Staten van Amerika, (Groningen,, 1871), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433069131211., p. 63. 107

Van Hinte also hints at the fact that there was a class distinction between the two immigrant groups. Scholte’s followers were, on average, financially better off than Van Raalte’s. This could also have led to some recriminations. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp. 137-143. 108

Krabbendam points to the fact that land in Iowa was more expensive than in Michigan and could therefore be more easily afforded by Scholte’s followers. I have derived the statement that the cheaper land of Michigan better fit Van Raalte’s purse from this. An added bonus was that the building material for the first houses was readily available in Michigan.Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., pp. 39-40.

37

van der Meulen, these Zeeuwen had to decide where to go. Were they to join the new colonies of

Michigan or Iowa, or were they to found their own colony? Just like Van Raalte’s group, the

Zeeuwen were on average less affluent than Scholte’s followers were.109 In the end, most of the

Zeeuwen decided that Michigan was the best choice.110 These meanderings of the immigration

leaders and financial restraints led to the situation that the new colonists had two major centers at

the end of the first major wave of immigration: Michigan and Iowa. It was in these centers that the

Dutch American ethnicity would come to full fruition.

The Midwest: a homogenous plurality

One of the distinctions of Dutch immigrants was that they traveled in well-organized groups. As I

have shown before, the religious orientation of many of the immigrants partly underlies this

phenomenon. The overwhelming majority of the immigrants were Dutch Protestants, of which a

minority was of so-called Seceder origin. According to Robert P. Swierenga, 59% of 19th century

emigrants to the United States were Dutch Reformed, while ‘only’ 29% were Seceders.111 However,

both groups tended to travel in church and family groups.112 As I have stated in the previous

chapter, this group immigration is not something that set the Dutch apart from other immigrant

groups per se. What did set the Dutch apart, however, was the tendency to move to rural areas and

avoid most of the major urban centers. Naturally, not all Midwestern Dutch immigrants lived in

farming communities. Cities like Grand Rapids and Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois also

attracted Dutch immigrants.113 What these cities shared with rural settlements in Michigan,

Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois is that the Dutch did have a tendency to live in close proximity to each

other. In this respect, they were like most immigrant groups that ended up in American cities.114 This

109

The Zeeland Immigration Society tried to bring along everyone who wanted to immigrate. This meant that the more affluent members of the Society had to pay for the less fortunate ones. Ibid., pp. 19-20. 110

Ibid., p. 41.- 111

Swierenga, Faith and Family. Pp. 60-61. 112

Ibid., p. 304. This probably holds true for the period until 1870. As Swierenga concludes, it is possible that after 1870 more single immigrants, mostly men, made the trek to the United States from the Netherlands. 113

According to Swierenga, by 1920, over 56% of foreign-born Dutch lived in cities of over 2,500 people. By 1930, only 23% of foreign-born Dutch lived on farms, the rest lived in urban centers. Of course, the question is in how far a place with more than 2,500 is by definition an urban center. Robert P. Swierenga, “The Dutch Urban Experience,” in The Dutch in Urban America, ed. Robert P. Swierenga, Donald W. Sinnema, and Hans Krabbendam (Holland, MI: Joint Archives of Holland, 2004), 1–12. 114

For a more extensive account of how Dutch immigrant communities fared in cities, or the “salad bowl” as he calls it, see Robert P. Swierenga, “The Dutch in Urban America,” in The Dutch in Urban America, ed. Robert P. Swierenga, Donald Sinnema,

38

tendency to group together makes sense if I look at the regions of origin of Dutch immigrants. They

were predominantly from rural regions in the Netherlands and came from farm related jobs.115 In

the United States, Dutch immigrants mostly reassumed their original occupations. This tendency to

continue their occupations from the Netherlands in the United States is perhaps not specifically

Dutch, but I believe that it was based on the traditional Calvinist worldview of the immigrants.116

Furthermore, the Colonies that were specifically set up as farming communities also drew in new

immigrants. Logically, these new imports would also join agricultural occupations. In the second half

of the 19th century, these migration patterns were normal. Within Europe, many migrants moved

from destination to destination, often for seasonal work. The advent of steamships, the low prizes

for steerage passage, and the relatively quick transatlantic passage resulted in the inclusion of the

United States these migration patterns. As they did within Europe, many migrants went to the

United States temporarily, earned some money, and went back home. The Dutch migrants, on the

other hand, were immigrants. Their intention was to stay in the United States, transplant their

traditional worldview, and colonize parts of the United States with likeminded compatriots. In short,

the mindset with which many of the 19th century Dutch immigrants came to the United States set

them apart from many other immigrants.117

The Dutch not only tried to isolate themselves from other nationalities. The Dutch immigrant

groups also had a tendency to isolate themselves from other Dutch groups as well. For instance, the

main difference between the immigrants immigrating to the Midwest and their contemporaries in

upstate New York was that the Midwesterners came to the United States as colonists.118 They set

out from the Netherlands to colonize a part of the New World and put down distinct Dutch roots.119

and Hans Krabbendam (Holland, MI: Joint Archives of Holland, 2004).. Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., 87-93, and again Swierenga, “The New Immigration.”, 300. 115

See Swierenga. Swierenga, Faith and Family., pp. 259-260. 116

Swierenga comes to a similar conclusion. According to him, the colonists found safety in the New World in their transplanted, traditional communities. Ibid., p. 188. He also emphasizes the Dutch preference to cluster together more than any other immigrant group. Ibid., p. 79. 117

Within immigration history, the notion that the majority of migrants did not go to the United States to settle there, is described in more detail in Michael Boyden, Hans Krabbendam, and Liselotte Vandenbussche, eds., Tales of Transit Narrative Migrant Spaces in Atlantic Perspective, 1850-1950 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013). Especially illuminating is the chapter about Eastern European migration patterns. Walaszek, “Central Eastern Europeans in the Euro-Atlantic Migration System Before the First World War.” 118

The articles of foundation for the “Vereeniging van Christenen voor de Hollandsche volkschverhuizing naar de Vereenigde Staten in N- America” mentioned a Christian colony. Hinte, Netherlanders in America. pp. 123-124. 119

Anthony Brummelkamp and Albertus C. van Raalte, Landverhuizing, of Waarom Bevorderen Wij de Volksverhuizing En Wel Naar Noord-Amerika En Niet Naar Java?, 2. druk. (Amsterdam,, 1846), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015071202058. Brummelkamp en Van Raalte’s work is, as the title suggests,

39

Many of the immigrants that ended up in upstate New York did so by accident or went there

because friends and neighbors had already preceded them. These New York settlers were

immigrants, not colonists. They did not specifically come to plant their own communities in upstate

New York. Other would be colonists stopped there on their way to the Colonies after they concluded

that a fruitful life was possible in New York. In other words, Dutch immigrants did not form one

homogenous mass of immigrants, but had their intergroup distinctions.

There were differences within the Midwestern colonist movement as well. The communities

of Holland, Michigan, and Pella, Iowa, centered on strong leaders who had guided their flocks to the

Promised Land. In contrast, the Wisconsin colonies were more the result of happenstance and did

not start out under leaders in the mold of Scholte, Van Raalte, or Van der Meulen. The communities

were predominantly rural, with relatively few Dutch immigrants living in the cities. Wisconsin, in

general, and Milwaukee, in particular, had a big German community. Although they came from

neighboring countries, Dutch Calvinist immigrants did not assimilate into the larger German

immigrant community. In part, this was because the German immigrants from the southern parts of

Germany, like Bavaria, were Catholic. Related to the non-assimilation within the German community

is the fact that Wisconsin was also the favored destiny of the Catholic immigrants from Brabant.120

Dutch Catholic immigration to Wisconsin was the result of a concerted effort by the Catholic Church

to strengthen the missionary zeal.121 This led to a Catholic “takeover” of Little Chute, in northern

Wisconsin. On the other hand, the Protestant immigrants moved to the South and East of Wisconsin

and hardly had any contact with their Catholic compatriots.122 Unlike in Michigan or Iowa, there was

one grand argument for colonizing ‘the West’ instead of ‘the East’. In part, this was because the Dutch government had stifled religious dissent in the Dutch East Indies, something Brummelkamp en Van Raalte feared could happen again. This prompted them to colonize the West. 120

Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon. pp. 21-25. According to Krabbendam, there are two reasons that the Dutch Catholics were less visible than their Protestant contemporaries were. The first reason is that it was a much smaller group, whose impact is therefore also smaller. The second reason is that they tended to join existing Catholic churches and communities, therefore Americanizing even more quickly than their Protestant counterparts did. 121

Robert P. Swierenga and Hans Krabbendam, “Dutch Catholics and Protestants in Wisconsin: A Study in Contrasts and Similarities,” Diverse Destinies: Dutch Kolonies in Wisconsin and the East (Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press, 2012), 39–64. p. 43. 122

Protestant and Catholics did not “mix.” Dutch, Irish, and German Catholics did not have this problem. Another key difference between the Catholic and Protestant Dutch in Wisconsin is that the Catholics predominantly lived in urban areas, whereas the Protestants lived in rural areas. Yda Schreuder, “Ethnic Solidarity and Assimilation among Dutch Protestant and Dutch Catholic Immigrant Groups in the State of Wisconsin, 1850-1905,” in The Dutch in North-America, ed. Rob Kroes and Henk-O o Neusch fer, European Contributions to American Studies, XX (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1991), 195–218.

40

no strong Dutch group identity in Wisconsin. Furthermore, unlike in the Colonies, the Dutch

immigrants were almost never the dominant group in any town or village they settled in. This lack of

Dutch dominance in Wisconsin led to situations, as the one I have described in the chapter about

religion, where the Reverend Zonne started a Presbyterian Church in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin.

Although Zonne was a Seceder minister, he was not solely dependent on his Dutch followers to form

a viable congregation by founding a Presbyterian Church. The fact that Zonne was willing to forgo

the founding of a Dutch Reformed Church is a distinct difference with the communities in Michigan

and Iowa. In those communities, the foundation of a Dutch Reformed Church was one of the

priorities. The combination of loosely organized communities and “assimilating” Catholics made

Wisconsin less visible as a typical Dutch destination for immigration.123

Post-colonial New York State

As we know, the Dutch history of Northwest New York State predates the Dutch colonization of the

Midwest by two centuries. After establishing New Netherland and New Amsterdam in the 1620s,

the Dutch spread out through parts of New York State, Connecticut, and New Jersey to settle and

start plantations. Outside New York City, these Dutch settlers usually ended up in the Hudson River

Valley in small towns like Kingston and Sleepy Hollow.124 After the English takeover of New

Netherland, the Dutch colonists and their descendants led a relatively quiet life, as characterized by

Washington Irving’s stories.125 Apart from Dutch surnames and Dutch Reformed Churches in

America, these descendants were not a highly visible ethnic group.126 Instead, as was proven later

when three presidents of Dutch descent came to power, the Dutch were part of the American

landscape and establishment.127 The connection between the Dutch and the United States was a

123

Robert P. Swierenga and Hans Krabbendam, “Dutch Catholics and Protestants in Wisconsin: A Study in Contrasts and Similarities,” Diverse Destinies: Dutch Kolonies in Wisconsin and the East (Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press, 2012), 39–64, come to a similar conclusion. 124

According to Sleepy Hollow’s own historian, Adriaan van der Donck, of New Amsterdam fame, founded the town. “History of the Village | Sleepy Hollow NY,” November 13, 2013, http://www.sleepyhollowny.gov/home/pages/history-of-the-village. 125

Frijhoff, “Dutchness in Fact and Fiction.” 126

By 1790 there were 125 Dutch Reformed churches in the United States, all centered on New York State. Gaustad, Historical Atlas of Religion in America. 127

The presidents, of course, were Martin van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt. Not coincidentally, they all were born in New York State.

41

warm one. A famous example is when Dutch bankers financed part of the American Revolution

through some offshore loans and issued the first United States bonds.128

Dutch investment in the United States did not stop after the Revolution. Dutch investors

established the Holland Land Company in 1792 with the sole purpose to buy and sell land for profit.

Clymer, New York is one of the towns established in 1821 because of these land purchases.

Although the Holland Land Company’s name originates with its Dutch financiers, almost none of the

settlers were Dutch. In 1808, Chautauqua County, of which Clymer is a part, was established. The

founding of Clymer and its sister communities was a part of the so-called Genesee Purchase.

Western New York and Pennsylvania were still frontier areas at the time, where land was relatively

cheap and abundantly available. This combination made it interesting for the Holland Land Company

to speculate on farmland in the region.129 According to the 1845 census, Chautauqua County had

46,548 inhabitants of which the majority was born in America.130 Furthermore, according to census

data, they were mostly of British descent. When the Erie Canal was finished in 1825, Chautauqua

connected to the rest of New York. This connectivity attracted Dutch immigrants, mainly from

Zeeland and Gelderland, who were settling in upstate New York since the 1830s with the main

group arriving in 1844.131 Even before the 1830s, there had already been settlers of Dutch descent in

the area. As early as 1805, Dutch settlers are mentioned in the area of upstate New York. However,

these early settlers are most likely the descendants of Hudson Valley Dutch families, not recent

128

The first loan was 3 million Guilders, which was paid off quickly and without default in the payment of interest, This made it easier for the United States to issue new bonds later on. Wayne Te Brake, “The Dutch Republic and the Creation of the United States,” in Four Centuries of Durch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), 204–15. 129

For an extensive overview of the rise and fall of the Holland Land Company, see Paul Demund Evans, The Holland Land Company (New York: Buffalo Historical Society, 1924). For a brief, but nonetheless impressive overview, see Stadsarchief Amsterdam, “Archief van de Holland Land Company,” accessed May 12, 2014, https://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/archieven/archiefbank/overzicht/333.nl.html. The Holland Land Company was predominantly an investment vehicle and as such, not a great motor for Dutch immigration to the United States. This is also visible in the advertisements for the Holland Land Company that emphasized the possible return on investment, and not the possibility of immigration. 130

“New York State Census 1845. Chautauque County,” 1845, http://128.121.13.244/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=1&awdid=21. In contrast, at the 1875 Census, the percentage of foreign-born inhabitants of Chautauqua had risen to almost 18%. “New York State Census 1875.,” 1875, http://128.121.13.244/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=1&awdid=1., p 121. 131

John Phillips Downs and Fenwick Hedley, History of Chautauqua County, New York, and Its People (Boston, New York [etc.]: American historical society, inc., 1921), http://archive.org/details/historyofchautau02downs., p. 87. Downs and Hedley would fit in well with Edward Bok’s Dutch Seed theory of the same time. They draw a straight line from the Dutch colonial possessions in the Hudson Valley, to the American Revolution and to the Holland Land Company’s purchase of Western New York. They even proclaim that the “Dutch national traits” of those settlers will survive longer than those of other nationalities will.

42

Dutch immigrants.132 As Van Hinte also wrote, the influence of the Holland Land Company on

immigration to upstate New York should not be overstated. The development that began under the

Company, however, did make it possible for later immigrants to settle the area. New York was no

longer solely the province of the Hudson Valley Dutch.

The Achterhoek trek to the United States

In 1845, one of the forerunners for Van Raalte’s Colony was Roelof Sleijster.133 After a trek past

mostly German hosts, the majority of whom he did not trust, he settled in Fond du Lac County,

Wisconsin.134 By moving there, he laid the foundation for a small Dutch community in the area.

Several other settlers followed him from Dinxperloo and Winterswijk.135 The immigration by these

Achterhoekers was even more proof that in the early 19th century immigration was a local and not a

national affair. In part, the Achterhoekers emigrated for the same reasons that made their

contemporaries move: a failed potato harvest and bleak economic prospects. However, in addition

to these push factors there also was a pull factor for the Achterhoekers. The neighboring German

county of Westphalia had promoted emigration for a number of years to help lessen the dire

economic circumstances of that region. In the period of 1830-1848, the seven municipalities closest

to the Achterhoek sent 7,251 emigrants to the United States.136 These Westphalian and Achterhoek

communities shared more bonds with each other than with their respective countries. When word

132

The suggestion that the Dutch immigrated to Western New York as early as 1805 comes from Lucas. Lucas, Netherlanders in America. p. 38. However, I agree with Van Hinte who states that Dutch immigration to the region probably did not start until the late 1840s or early 1850s. It is therefore most likely that the Dutch surnames were from the descendants of the Hudson Valley Dutch, although Lucas makes a good case for Abraham Albright being Dutch by birth. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp. 114-115. Another source for this suspicion is Hilary P. Garrett, “Dutch Immigration to Sodus & Williamson” (n.a., 1979), Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg., p. 15. 133

Van Raalte contacted Isaac Wyckoff through Sleijster. Interestingly Van Raalte himself did not follow his emissary Sleijster to Wisconsin. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 130. 134

In a way, Sleijster was an atypical Achterhoeker. As G.H. Ligterink states, many of the Achterhoekers moved to the United States after receiving positive feedback from their German neighbors. They usually had more in common with Westphalians than with Hollanders. G. H. Ligterink, De landverhuizers: emigratie naar Noord-Amerika uit het Gelders-Westfaalse grensgebied tussen de jaren 1830-1850 (Zutphen: Walburg pers, 1981)., pp. 35-41. 135

Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 151.Van Hinte makes reference of a letter in Anthony Brummelkamp, Stemmen Uit Noord-Amerika: Met Een Begeleidend Woord (Amsterdam: Hoogkamer, 1847), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015071201936. , p. 59. Sleijster originally came from Velp, which is not part of the Achterhoek, but is just outside of this region. 136

Ligterink, De landverhuizers. The numbers are from his inventory of German emigrants, p. 109. Ligterink also gives an interesting reason why the Achterhoekers did not end up in the forested regions of Michigan, but instead moved to the more easily cultivated areas of Wisconsin and New York. They had ample experience with the trouble forested areas could bring to agriculture. This was something where the Zeeuwen and Frisians from their clay provinces lacked experience. Ibid., p. 55.

43

came back to Westphalia that a better life awaited in the United States, not only did Germans

decide to take a chance but also did their Achterhoek neighbors.137 The Achterhoekers were the

pioneers of the later immigration waves, which was the main reason that the Achterhoekers are

well represented among the immigrants that went to the United States prior to 1847.

What also differentiated the Achterhoekers from other Dutch immigrants is that they, in

part, also broke with tradition. The sandy soil in the Achterhoek was relatively poor in quality and

did not make intensive farming possible. In order to supplement their income, Achterhoek farmers

had to find other sources than farming. Therefore, by the 19th century the Achterhoek had a very

extensive home-based textile industry. However, the Achterhoekers did not export this skill to the

United States, but concentrated solely on farming instead. Also interesting is that although the

reverend Van Raalte had preached in areas that were relatively close to the Achterhoek, not many

Achterhoekers ended up in the Holland Colony in Michigan.138 As mentioned before, not even his

forerunner Roelof Sluijster settled the Holland Colony with Van Raalte. Instead, Sluijster moved to

Wisconsin, which was the original destination for the Colonists. Another destination of the

Achterhoekers was upstate New York, where they predominantly settled around Lake Ontario.

Clymer, which I have mentioned before, and East Williamson were the final destination for many

Achterhoekers.139

From Zeeuws-Vlaanderen to the United States

The Gelderlanders from the Achterhoek were not the only Dutch immigrants in the area. The

immigration of a few families from Zeeland to Western New York also predated the “first”

immigration wave of 1847.140 Jan Cappon and his family were from Cadzand, one of the towns of

Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. Together with his compatriot Jacob Puynbroek, Cappon wrote enthusiastic

letters about life in Wayne County to Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, prompting more people from the town of

137

Raymond Cohn also mentions the regionalism of the area in the first half of the 19th

century. Germany did not yet exist as a country, but was a collection of regions, principalities, and kingdoms. Raymond L. Cohn, Mass Migration under Sail: European Immigration to the Antebellum United States, 1 edition (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). pp. 31-34. 138

Of course, this did not mean that no Achterhoekers immigrated to the Holland Colony. However, the majority of immigrants ended up elsewhere. Ligterink, De landverhuizers., p. 61-65. 139

Swierenga, Faith and Family., p. 106. Also, Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 312. 140

Hinte, Netherlanders in America; Wabeke, Dutch Emigration to North America, 1624-1860.

44

Cadzand to immigrate to that area from 1836 onward.141 A few years later, the Eernisse brothers did

the same for Rochester.142 Of course, the reasons for settling in Western New York are numerous.

However, one of the main reasons for settlement after 1847 was the fact that these communities

were on the route from New York to the Midwest. With the exception of the settlers who arrived

before the immigration of Scholte, Van Raalte, Van der Meulen, and their followers, many of the

immigrants in Western New York settled there while they were on their way to the Midwest.

An example of one of those communities en route to the Midwest is East Williamson. Part of

Wayne County, New York, East Williamson was one of the last stops on Lake Ontario before

immigrants would be entering the Midwestern states. In 1845, a few families from Zeeuws-

Vlaanderen consisting of 156 people settled in the area under the guidance of Marinus

Clicquennoi.143 In 1847, fellow immigrant Josias Bruijnooge was one of the elders involved in

establishing a Presbyterian Church.144 Despite their shared origins, two years later internal strife

surfaced. In 1849, 48 members of this church decided to leave the Presbyterian Church to join the

Dutch Reformed Church. This denominational division led to a short break-up in the Dutch

community in East Williamson that would last until January 1862. In that month, the consistories of

the Presbyterian Church and Dutch Reformed Church of East Williamson agreed on a merger of the

two churches under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Classis of Geneva.145

Dutch immigration to East Williamson went according to a distinctly Dutch immigration

pattern. First, a couple of families settled the area. After the first families had settled, they invited

friends and family members and others from their region to join them. When their numbers were

sufficient to form a church, they did so. As mentioned before, there is a difference between Dutch

immigration to upstate New York and to the Midwest. First, the Dutch were never the majority in

their communities in New York. According to census data, the Dutch immigrants and their

141

Wabeke, Dutch Emigration to North America, 1624-1860., p. 113. Also Lucas, Netherlanders in America., pp. 38-39. 142

Hinte, Netherlanders in America. P. 120. 143

Lucas, Netherlanders in America., p. 39. Cliquennoi came from Cadzand, like the Eernisse family that preceded him in the region. Cliquennoi is also mentioned in Garrett, “Dutch Immigration to Sodus & Williamson.”, p. 15. 144

Bruijnooge, who was born in Terneuzen in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen in 1809, is mentioned in the introduction to the Consistory of the Reformed Church of East Williamson. For his birth, see DE REE Archiefsystemen BV, “Daane, Pieter (emigrant),” accessed May 9, 2014, http://www.zeeuwengezocht.nl/nl/zoeken?mivast=1539&miadt=239&mizig=862&miview=tbl&milang=nl&micols=1&mires=0&mip3=daane&mip1=pieter&mip5=Westkapelle&mibj=1835&miej=1840. Community of the Lord at East Williamson, “Consistory of East Williamson.” 145

Community of the Lord at East Williamson, “Consistory of East Williamson.”, p. 11.

45

descendants formed 8.5% of the population of Williamson in 1850. By 1915, this number had risen

to 21.3%.146 However, in both years the Dutch did not form the majority of the population. These

numbers supported a larger trend. Two thirds of the immigrants from the Zeeuws-Vlaanderen part

of Zeeland settled in the Rochester-Clymer-Buffalo area of New York State. Some people from

Zeeuws-Vlaanderen did end up in Zeeland, Michigan, others ended up in Oostburg, Wisconsin. As

described before, mostly Gelderlanders (from the Achterhoek region) settled the land near Clymer/

Clymer Hill, southwest of Buffalo.147 The Achterhoekers also settled in Wayne County, New York,

Alto, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin.148 In short, either Zeeuws-Vlamingen or Achterhoekers settled

many of the immigration foci outside of the Dutch colonies.

Connected regions

Accidental or not, Western New York, Sheboygan, and Alto were all the favorite destinations of

immigrants from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and the Achterhoek. The fact that Zeeuwen and Gelderlanders

ended up in the same places, is not completely random. A major reason for this grouping was that

the Zeeuwen and Gelderlanders were forerunners for the bigger immigration wave of 1846-1847.149

Sleijster is not the only example of an immigrant that moved to the United States before Van Raalte,

Scholte, and the others. Other examples are the Zeeveld family in Wisconsin and Marinus

Clicquennoi and his fellow Zeeuwen in East Williamson, New York.150 None of these early

146

Garrett, “Dutch Immigration to Sodus & Williamson.”, p. 16. 147

Hinte, Netherlanders in America. p. 312. According to Van Hinte, a Dutch church was established there in 1849. The historical directory of the Reformed Church in America predates the Dutch church to 1847, Russell L. Gasero, Historical Directory of the Reformed Church in America, 1628-1992 (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001)., p. 407. 148

Swierenga, Faith and Family. P. 108. 149

According to Van Hinte, the immigrants from the Achterhoek were the ones who set Brummelkamp and Van Raalte on their path to immigration to the United States. By following their German counterparts to the United States and enthusiastically writing back about it, they paved the way for Van Raalte’s immigration society. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 122. Gerald De Jong also sees German influences in Dutch immigration to the United States prior to 1847. De Jong, The Dutch in America, 1609-1974., p. 134. 150

According to a short biography, Louw Zeeveld (in the U.S. John Zeeveld) was born in Oostkapelle, Zeeland. He married three times, his third wife being German. Portrait and Biographical Record of Sheboygan County, Wisconsin: Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Biographies and Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States and the Governors of the State of Wisconsin (Chicago: Excelsior Publishing Company, 1894), http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=header&id=WI.PortBioRed&isize=M., pp. 551-552. Hans Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon: Dutch Immigration to America, 1840-1940 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 43. Van Hinte has an even more extensive summary on the origins of the Dutch immigrants in upstate New York, Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp 148-149. The American British origins from Wayne County are clear, since Pultneyville is named after the

46

communities was based upon religion; instead, they formed more or less accidentally. Furthermore,

these settlements were distinguished by their ethnic make-up. The majority of the settlers came

from either Zeeuws-Vlaanderen or the Achterhoek. A mix of liberal, orthodox-Protestant, and

Catholic populations is what both regions had in common.151 Unlike other regions in the Netherlands

that were more homogenous, this plurality probably made the Zeeuws-Vlamingen and

Achterhoekers more pragmatic and less divided by religious differences. After all, their neighbors

did not necessarily practice the same religion. When true, this lack of a need to separate themselves

from other religions also lessened the need for these settlers to immigrate to the preordained

destinations of the Dutch Colonies in the Midwest.

If we look at the origins of the first wave of immigrants in 1846-1847, both Zeeland and

Gelderland had a relatively high number of emigrants. Zeeland was also the main emigration

province in both absolute and relative numbers. Gelderland came in third with the absolute number

of emigrants to the United States. 152 Since these two provinces provided many of the total number

of emigrants, it is also not remarkable that these two groups are also well represented in the

immigrant communities. Because Dutch immigrants also had a tendency to immigrate to areas

where their acquaintances from the old town or region already settled, these areas soon became a

focal point for the immigration from local communities.

The story of Jan Willem Dunnewold is an example of the local ties that bound immigrants

together. Dunnewold was one of the Achterhoek settlers of Clymer. After originally immigrating to

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he moved to Clymer in 1851 to become a minister. He did so at the invitation

of a couple of immigrants from Winterswijk, who had settled in the area in the 1840s and had begun

their own Reformed Church. The original Winterswijk settlers had a reputation among the local

population of upstate New York of being hard working and frugal. This good reputation led the

agent from the Holland Land Company in Albany to try to draw even more immigrants from

Pultney estate that used to be in the area, while Williamson is named after Pultney’s estate agent, Charles Williamson. 151

For more on the regional differences in the Netherlands, see Knippenberg and Pater, De eenwording van Nederland., pp. 188-189. 152

Swierenga, Faith and Family. p. 82. According to Swierenga, 14.300 Zeelanders emigrated between 1835-1880, which was 87,8 per 1.000 inhabitants. When I take the period of 1880-1920 into account as well, the number of Zeeland emigrants rises to 33.600, ibid. pp. 46-48. The number of Gelderlanders emigrating to the United States was 12.400, a large part of which came from the region of the Achterhoek, Ibid., pp. 105-107.

47

Winterswijk and the surrounding Achterhoek towns to Clymer in greater numbers.153 After

ministering the Reformed Church in Clymer, Dunnewold returned to Wisconsin to minister.154 The

Daane family offers an example of the reversed direction of migration. Peter Daane’s story is also

exemplary for the immigrant network and its interconnected local origins. The Daane family

emigrated to Pultneyville from Westkapelle in Zeeland in 1842. They later moved to Oostburg,

Wisconsin. Peter fought in and survived the Civil War, after which he started numerous ventures,

including a bank. Later in life, Peter Daane would rise to become a Wisconsin assembly member.155

Within one generation, the Daane family had thoroughly Americanized. The direction that the

Daane’s took was more common than the reverse. More immigrants started in the East and ended

up moving to the West than vice versa. Ever since Van Raalte had established a good relationship

with the Reverend Wyckoff, Dutch immigrants traveled the road through upstate New York on their

way to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. However, these examples are just two among many more of

the interconnectedness of East and West.

E pluribus unum

In 1923, B.W. Lammers, a Dutch inhabitant of Sodus, mentioned in the Dutch newspaper from Iowa,

“De Volksvriend,” that the Dutch in Wayne County were different from their brethren in the west.156

According to Lammers, almost no Dutch immigrants were active in business unlike their Midwestern

brethren. Furthermore, Lammers was of the opinion that the Dutch immigrants had adapted quickly

to English as the main language and that the early settlers often switched their denomination, not

remaining Dutch Reformed.157 Hence, for Lammers, Eastern and Midwestern immigrant groups were

153

Clymer Area Historical Society, “History of Clymer, New York,” 1972, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg., p. 19. In this booklet, there is also a list of early Dutch settlers of Clymer, many of whom could have come from Winterswijk or its surroundings. A few of the names I could verify at the genealogy site for the region AaIten/Dinxperlo/Winterswijk are J.W. Dunnewold, of whom we know that he moved to Clymer, and the Willink family. Dutch Genealogy, “Wander Willink Genealogy,” accessed June 2, 2014, http://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/tng/getperson.php?personID=I12681&tree=bredevoort.. 154

Ligterink, De landverhuizers. pp. 71-72. 155

Rederus, “The Dutch Settlements of Sheboygan County.”, pp. 260-261. Rederus and Van Hinte both spell his name as Daan, probably the Americanized version of his surname. However, according to the genealogical site www.zeeuwengezocht.nl, the correct spelling is Pieter Daane, born March 26, 1835. BV, “Daane, Pieter (emigrant).” See also his biography, Portrait and Biographical Record of Sheboygan County, Wisconsin., p. 539. 156

B.W. Lammers, “Correspondentie uit Sodus, N.Y.,” De Volksvriend, March 1, 1923, Dag edition, Delpher, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag. 157

Hinte, Netherlanders in America., p. 802. Lammers noticed something that was taking place in most Dutch communities in the 1920s. In itself, his remarks are therefore not that remarkable.

48

distinct from each other. Although Lammers compared “East” (upstate New York) to “West” (the

Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin), these regions were not as strictly separated as he claims.

First and foremost, the common factor of Dutch immigration was that it was a very local affair. Not

only did most of the immigrants come from a relatively small number of municipalities in the

Netherlands, but they also stayed together in the United States. The previous examples of

immigrants from Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and the Achterhoek that often ended up in the vicinity of each

other are a case in point. It was not just the Achterhoekers and Zeeuwen who had a tendency to

group together. The same goes for all other Dutch regions that supplied immigrants in great

number. Examples include Zeeland, Michigan, Friesland, Wisconsin, Vriesland, Michigan, and many

more towns named after the region of origin of the original immigrants. In that light, Dutch

immigrants in both “East” and “West” were very similar.

Another similarity between the two groups is their religion, as I have shown in chapter 2.

Although the vast majority of Dutch immigrants were Protestant, they were not one homogenous

group. A very quick conclusion could be that the Midwesterners were more orthodox in their

religion then their Eastern brethren. The founding and rooting of the Christian Reformed Church

predominantly in the Midwest could be proof of Midwestern orthodoxy. In East Williamson, New

York, for example, the first church organized by Dutch immigrants was a Presbyterian church. On the

other hand, the same goes for Wisconsin where the Reverend Zonne founded a Presbyterian church.

Not all of the Midwest inhabitants were therefore orthodox in their religion.158 What both these

communities share is that they are good examples of the pragmatism that many of the Dutch

immigrants took with them to the United States. When viewed from this perspective, religious

orthodoxy is not something that sets “East” and “West” apart.

The intent with which immigrants settled their Colonies did set the “East” apart from the

“West.” As the name Holland Colony already suggests, the immigrants to the Midwest

predominantly came to colonize that part of the United States. They intended to transplant their

religious community. Because of this transplantation, they would defend their Dutch characteristics

for a longer time than immigrants who did not move to protect their religion. On the other hand,

many of the immigrants who did not end up in the United States because of a preordained plan

158

I must also admit that in both instances orthodox Dutch immigrants almost immediately started their own Dutch Reformed Church. This does not impact my main theme, that the tendencies of the Midwest were more orthodox than in the East.

49

settled in upstate New York. Some were on their way to the Colonies, but were waylaid along the

way; others went to the region out of their own choice. Then again, many Dutch immigrants moved

to upstate New York even before the great immigration wave of 1847. In general, those immigrants

assimilated quicker in American society, as is also noticed by Lammers.159 However, this

demarcation between East and Midwest is not as clear as sometimes suggested. As I have shown in

this chapter, many Dutch communities in New York and Wisconsin consisted of immigrants from the

Achterhoek and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. These communities stood out less than the Dutch communities

in the colonies of Michigan did and Iowa did. First and foremost, these groups shared an internal,

regional identity. Immigrants were from the Achterhoek, or Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, and not the

Netherlands. However, it is my opinion that a Dutch identity is something a majority of these

immigrants shared. However, this Dutch identity had more to do with their religion than with their

nationality.160 The motto of the United States, “E pluribus unum”, “Out of the many, one,” is

applicable to the Dutch immigrants and their offspring. Having said that, if this meant anything for

the respective group’s Dutch identity is something I will try to answer in the next chapter. What I

can conclude from Dutch immigrant’s settlement patterns is that location says a lot about intent.

Both the location from whence they came, as the location where they ended determined how

Americanized a Dutch American immigrant would become.

159

Lammers, “Correspondentie uit Sodus, N.Y.” 160

Swierenga and Krabbendam come to the same conclusion when comparing the Dutch Protestant and Catholic immigrants in Wisconsin. Swierenga and Krabbendam, “Dutch Catholics and Protestants in Wisconsin: A Study in Contrasts and Similarities.”, p. 40.

50

Chapter 4: Cultural Production

In the previous chapters, I have looked at the origin of Dutch American ethnicity, religion’s influence

on Dutch immigrants themselves and their society, as well as the final destination of Dutch

immigrants. As we have seen, the Dutch immigration stream to the United States was relatively

small with just over 200,000 immigrants in 100 years. This small stream did not prevent Dutch

immigrants and their descendents from leaving a distinct cultural mark. As I have shown in chapters

one and two, Dutch immigrants wanted to preserve their Dutch culture in the United States. For a

large part, they achieved this preservation through the foundation of their own churches and

schools. Another mechanism was the Dutch effort to retain their language as long as possible.

However, another part of Dutch ethnicity, or all distinct ethnicities for that matter, is their legacy

through cultural production. This chapter will examine a few of the cultural marks as perceived from

inside and from outside the Dutch ethnic group. First, I will define what cultural production is.

Second, I will highlight a few of the more visible aspects of cultural production regarding Dutch

Fig. 1. Figure adapted from Hesmondhalgh. This figure is a representation of cultural production within the national

social space. Small-scale and large-scale productions vary on their cultural and economic capital. The Field of

Power represents the non-professional producers, who have low cultural capital and high economic capital.

51

immigrants in the 19th century. This production eventually led to a period in the United States called

“Holland Mania”, which I will also cover briefly. After this, I will look into a very distinct 20th century

phenomenon of Dutch American culture: the Tulip Festival. This part will also tie in the three distinct

regions I have discussed in chapter 3. Finally, I will end the chapter with my conclusion about the

cultural mark the Dutch Americans have left, and are leaving, behind.

The Field of Cultural Production

According to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on cultural production, cultural production is always

symbolic.161 To complicate matters further, people can both produce and consume culture. In order

to speak of culture, there is also the prerequisite of a dominant class that decides what culture is.

However, even in this dominant class, there are distinctions between the dominant fraction within

that class and the dominated fraction. The cultural elites define culture, while the rest follows. In

order to group these fractions, Bourdieu has designed a diagram that represents cultural hierarchy.

This diagram represents a national social space, where those at the top have high levels of economic

and cultural capital while those on the bottom have low levels of capital. In this theory, economic

capital is mostly what it appears to be. Cultural production is translated into economic capital, which

then represents the monetary value of cultural production. Cultural capital is symbolic and can

signify a person’s place within society. Cultural capital consists of things like skills, clothing, taste,

and certain material possessions. When you share similar cultural capital with others, you can create

sense of collective identity. According to Bourdieu, there is also a correlation between economic and

cultural capital. Usually, the dominant fraction has more economic capital and the dominated

fraction has more cultural capital. Within the national social space, distinctions are made between

what Bourdieu calls large-scale production and restricted small-scale production. The first is

produced for the masses while the latter is produced for the producers themselves.162 Simply put,

large-scale cultural production, by definition, is accessible to the masses. It needs to transcend the

language of the producer. Restricted production, on the other hand, is the opposite. Its sole purpose

is to be appreciated in a small circle. Only the participants fully understand its secret language.

161

Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. Randal Johnson (Cambridge etc: Polity Press, 1993). 162

For a very concise summary of Bourdieu’s theories, and the main source of my interpretation of Bourdieu, see David Hesmondhalgh, “Bourdieu, the Media and Cultural Production,” Media, Culture & Society 28, no. 2 (March 1, 2006): 211–31, doi:10.1177/0163443706061682. For cultural consumption, see p. 214.

52

When I relate these concepts to Dutch immigrant religion in the 19th century, the services in Dutch

were restricted productions. These services were only meant for the true believers. The same goes

for Dutch language newspapers. Most forms of cultural production, however, were large-scale, as I

will show in this chapter. In sociology, cultural production comes in many forms. Among these forms

are art, literature, and music, but also law and religion.163 In this chapter, I will focus on literature

and art as theses Dutch cultural production were most visible in the United States. However, since

cultural production was not limited to these areas, I will also touch upon subjects that are slightly

outside of literary and artistic production.

Cultural definition from outside

Ethnicity is something that is determined both from within and without. The ethnic group sees itself

as distinct from the others surrounding them. These others can be the host society or other

ethnicities. However, in order to be an ethnic group, the surrounding majority must also see them as

such. The latter is something that started for Dutch Americans in the early 19th century with the

books of Washington Irving. Until that time, the Dutch presence in the United States was a non-

factor. In part, this was due to the fact that the original Dutch colonists and their offspring were

woven into the fabric of the United States at the time. One of them, Martin van Buren, had even

become President of the United States in 1837.164 Before the first wave of Dutch immigration to the

United States in 1847, almost all Dutch Americans lived in New York State, Connecticut, and New

Jersey. Therefore, it is no wonder that Washington Irving situated his stories about Dutch

Americans, like his stories of Diedrich Knickerbocker, in New York’s Hudson Valley region.165

Although there was some basis in reality to Irving’s representation of the colonial Dutch, he

unwittingly created many negative stereotypes of Dutch Americans and their heritage. In his books,

163

Ibid., p. 212. 164

Before his term as president, Van Buren was a Secretary of State and Vice-President under Andrew Jackson. “Martin Van Buren | The White House,” accessed June 12, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/martinvanburen. 165

Washington Irving, A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.

(New York: M. Thomas, 1819). Washington Irving’s depiction of the Dutch in the Hudson Valley is treated more extensively by Elisabeth Paling Funk, “Knickerbocker’s New Netherland: Washington Irving’s Representation of Dutch Life on the Hudson,” in Amsterdam-New York: Transatlantic Relations and Urban Identities Since 1653, ed. Hans Krabbendam and George Harinck (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2005)..

53

he described the Dutch as being lazy, fat, pipe-smoking dullards.166 However, as it goes with

stereotypes, they would turn out to be stronger than the actual cultural representation of the

Dutch. The depiction of the Dutch in early 19th century popular culture further strengthened the

stereotypes originally put forth by Irving.167 There even was an entire genre of paintings to depict

the laziness and depravity of the Dutch American settlers of the Hudson Valley.168 All in all, the

cultural representation of the beginning of the 19th century did not bode well for the Dutch

immigrants that were to follow.

From the mid-19th century, opinions about the Dutch and their contributions to society

started to shift. Historians like Edmund B. O’Callaghan and John Lothrop Motley started

investigating the Dutch United Provinces of the 17th century and their North American colony.169

Motley published three volumes of The Rise of the Dutch Republic, a bestseller at the time, between

1856 and 1867. Partly because of their work, the negative stereotypes of the Dutch turned into

positive ones. This new perception takes the Dutch “off the couch” and puts them to work. This shift

came none too soon for the Dutch immigrants that arrived in the United States from 1847 onwards.

That Motley, a New Englander by birth, elevated the Dutch Republic to such heights was not as

surprising as it might look at first glance. New England in general and Massachusetts in particular,

had a bond with the Dutch since its conception. The Dutch and the British were the neighbors in the

early years of the British Colonies. Here, the Dutch were sometimes the target of British envy

because of their successful trade. This success in trade was exactly what the early New Englanders

166

Annette Stott, “Images of Dutchness in the United States,” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations: NL-USA. Amsterdam, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2005), p. 240. A good example is Rip van Winkle. Irving paints him as someone with”an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour”, who was so lazy that he drank himself in a 20 year stupor to escape it all. Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, 5th ed. (London: John Murray, 1821), pp. 45-80. 167

For more on how the Dutch were literally pictured in 19th

century America, see Annette Stott, “Inventing Memory: Picturing New Netherland in the 19th Century,” in Revisiting New Netherlands: Perspectives on Early Dutch America, ed. Joyce D. Goodfriend (Leiden, the Netherlands; Boston: Brill, 2005),” pp. 13-40. Also, an essay on the figurative cultural extermination and literal ghosting of the Hudson Valley Dutch, see Richardson, “The Ghosting of the Hudson Valley Dutch.” 168

Annette Stott gives a short list of painters and artists that depicted the Hudson Valley Dutch at the beginning of the 19

th century. True to the books, the Dutch were portrayed as “portly, pipe-smoking, gin-swilling Dutchmen

sleeping in the shade, measuring land by laying trousers end to end, and making absurd political pronouncements.” Stott, “Images of Dutchness in the United States.”, p. 239. 169

In this group, J.R. Brodhead deserves a special mention. A former secretary to the U.S. emissary in The Hague, Brodhead was tasked by State of New York to gather as much colonial archival records as possible for further study. His work, combined with the records that were available in Albany, was the basis for the later publications on New Netherland and New Amsterdam. See, Jaap Jacobs, Een zegenrijk gewest: Nieuw-Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Prometheus/Bakker, 1999), 18.

54

envisioned for themselves.170 Furthermore, the Dutch had proven that a small Protestant country

could accomplish almost anything by achieving its independence from the Spanish Empire.

The Dutch struggle was a model in two ways. Firstly, the Republic’s governance made the

history of the Dutch Republic interesting at the time. Motley’s main point was that these early

republicans shared the American love for liberty and self-government.171 Motley also saw parallels

between the tenuous union of the Seven United Provinces and the strained relation between the

Northern and Southern states. The United Provinces were a confederation and lacked a strong

central government. This lack of a strong government, that could harness all the resources in all of

the Seven Provinces, would prove fatal in the later wars with the English. In other words, a loose

confederation is dangerous because it leads to internal strife. The tale of the rise and fall of the

Dutch Republic was a warning against the Civil War that would break out soon after the publication

of Motley’s first volume.172 Secondly, the Dutch were not the only immigrants coming to the United

States in the 1840s. Because of the Potato Famine, large numbers of Irish also flooded America’s

shores. The Irish were Catholic, which led to nativist sentiments in large parts of the United

States.173 There were fears of Papal control of the United States mediated by Irish immigrants.174

The Dutch Republic provided a recipe for the defeat of the Catholic “hordes.”175

Motley put the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic on a pedestal. Later authors would

transplant this elevation of the 17th century Dutch to the 19th century Dutch Americans. Two of the

170

For a more extensive version of Motley’s reasons, see Mark A. Peterson, “A Brahmin Goes Dutch: John Lothrop Motley and the Lessons of Dutch History in Nineteenth-Century Boston.,” in Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, ed. Joyce D Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt, and Annette Stott (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 109–31. 171

John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic: A History (London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1862)., preface, p. vi. Also, Annette Stott, Holland Mania: The Unknown Dutch Period in American Art & Culture, 1st ed (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1998)., p. 80. 172

Peterson, “A Brahmin Goes Dutch: John Lothrop Motley and the Lessons of Dutch History in Nineteenth-Century Boston.”, pp. 122-125. 173

The nativists’ main claim was that The United States was a Protestant country, founded under God, peopled by the chosen people. In this view, there was no place for Catholics. For a visually stunning and historically only nominally correct depiction of the struggles between American nativists and Irish immigrants in New York, see Scorsese’s masterpiece. Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York, Crime, Drama, History, (2002). 174

Donna R. Gabaccia, Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 100. 175

Krabbendam has a more extensive summary of the events leading up to O’Callaghan’s and Motley’s publications. In addition to Peterson’s explanation on the Civil War, Krabbendam also adds the debate about Catholic immigrants to the mix. Hans Krabbendam, “Dutch-American Identity Politics: The Use of History by Dutch Immigrants,” Origins, Spring 2012. Much has been written on the “Catholic floods” threatening the United States in the 1800s. For the numbers in the 1850s, see Gabaccia, Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective., p. 93.

55

main examples of transplantation of values are the books of Mary Mapes Dodge and Douglass

Campbell. Dodge’s book, The Silver Skates: a story of life in Holland, gave the world Hans Brinkers.176

Although the boy who stuck his finger in the dyke is actually not Hans Brinkers but a nameless

character in one of his stories, the stories changed American perception of the Dutch. After The

Silver Skates, the Dutch were a “noble and enterprising people” instead of lazy and hen-pecked.177

Campbell’s book The Puritan in Holland, England, and America: An introduction to American history

was one of the first to emphasize the theory of the Dutch role in shaping the United States.178

Campbell’s main claim was that the Puritans all went to the United States through Holland. In

Holland, the Puritans had seen a form of government they could copy. The combination of Puritans

and the institutions of the colony of New Netherland had given the United States its particular

government and morality.179 William Elliot Griffis, who popularized Campbell’s theories with his

book Brave little Holland, and what she taught us, furthered Campbell’s ideas.180 What made Griffis’

work more popular than Campbell’s was that he used the American Founding Fathers as references

for his claims on the Dutch origins of the American Republic. He went even further than Campbell

did by claiming that everything that was good about the United States originated with the Dutch.181

The enhancement of the Dutch and Dutch American reputation was not limited to the

literary world. The heroic struggles of the Dutch Republic and its citizens also needed a visual

depiction. Because, unlike with the stories of Irving, there were no American artists painting these

rediscovered Dutch heroes. The American art audiences, hence, harked back to Dutch paintings. This

quest for paintings leads to a ‘discovery’ of the Dutch Golden Age masters as Rembrandt, Vermeer,

and Frans Hals, which culminated in the period of what is now called “Holland Mania.”182 The

popularity of painting by those Dutch masters was such that Dutch experts feared that all of the

176

Mary Mapes Dodge, The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland (London: Sampson Low, son, and Marston, 1867). 177

Stott, “Images of Dutchness in the United States.” 178

Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America: An Introduction to American History (New York: Harper & Bros., 1898). 179

Stott, Holland Mania, pp. 81-85. 180

W. E. Griffis, Brave Little Holland, and What She Taught Us. (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894). 181

Stott, Holland Mania, p. 87. 182

Annette Stott, Hollandgekte: de onbekende Nederlandse periode in de Amerikaanse kunst en cultuur, trans. Bab

Westerveld (Amsterdam: De Olifant Pers; Amsterdam, 1998).

56

Netherlands’ art treasures would be sold to collectors in the United States.183 The art craze of

Holland Mania reinforced the new depiction of the Dutch that was in vogue after the publications of

O’Callaghan, Motley, Campbell, and Griffis. Holland Mania also led to a reevaluation of the Dutch

Americans living in the United States.184 Among the first to benefit from this reevaluation were the

descendants of those original Dutch colonists living in New York State. Because of Holland Mania

and the new appreciation of the Dutch history of New York, the Hudson Valley Dutch could take

pride in their ethnic heritage. In a way, the Dutch Americans were back to the exalted position they

had shortly after the transfer of power in 1674. Being Dutch then meant retention of their existing

rights and privileges. In 1885, that privilege turned into membership of an exclusive society with the

establishment of the Holland Society of New York.185 Theodore Roosevelt, who was a member of

this society, viewed his ancestors (the original Dutch colonists) as the ultimate Americans. After all,

they were fully Americanized and, as such, were an example for the following immigrants at the turn

of the 19th century.186 For Roosevelt, his Dutch ancestry was not only something to be proud of, but

also a way to describe the road to Americanization and assimilation for the non-Protestant, East and

South European immigrants. Holland Mania was not just rooted in a new interest in America’s Dutch

heritage, but its function was also to set sharp boundaries for the newly arriving immigrants.187

183

Ibid, 21. The Dutch were even afraid that the crown jewels of the Golden Age art collection, the works in the possession of the Amsterdam Six family, would also be sold to the United States. To prevent this, the Dutch government came to an agreement with the Six family in order to keep the collection in the Netherlands where it remains until the present day in the same house of Rembrandt’s contemporary Jan Six I. “Collectie Six,” Collectie Six, n.d., http://www.collectiesix.nl/nl/welkom-bij-collectie-six. 184

An unexpected result of this new appreciation of Dutch art was the use of the Dutch dining room as a symbol of civilization. Annette Stott, “The Dutch Dining Room in Turn-of-the-Century America,” Winterthur Portfolio 37, no. 4 (2002): 219–238. Or, as she puts it on page 221: 'American stereotypes of the Netherlands as a civil, cultured land matched the perceived need to promote a civilizing influence in the United States during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.' 185

One of the requirements to join, was that you could trace your Dutch roots in the United States back to before 1674. Krabbendam, “Dutch-American Identity Politics.” 186

A prime example of how Roosevelt viewed the Dutch Americans as an example for all that came after them is this quote: “The history of our Dutch ancestors, and of the part they have played in America, is now of more than merely antiquarian interest. It has a direct bearing upon one if the greater questions of the present day, the assimilation of the masses of our foreign-born fellow citizens. The thoroughness with which the Hollander has become Americanized, and the way in which he has ceased being anything but an American, makes him invaluable as an object-lesson to some of the races who have followed him to America at an interval of about two centuries”. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Hollander as an American,” New Amsterdam Gazette, January 25, 1890, 6 edition, p. 3, Hathi Trust. Annette Stott came to a similar conclusion, see Stott, Hollandgekte, 95. 187

Roosevelt was not alone in his view that Dutch values were the only road to Americanization and assimilation by immigrants. Mrs. Abbe, the founder of the City History Club of New York is quoted in Annette Stott, Hollandgekte , 94, warning of the menace of the historically uneducated, non-protestant masses from Eastern and Southern Europe. Dutch immigrant Protestant values were an antidote for this “pollution”.

57

Because of this cultural production, Dutch Americans had turned from dullards and lazy pipe-

smokers into white, protestant role models.188

Cultural production from the inside

What most of these 19th and early 20th century representations of Dutch “identity” and “culture”,

have in common is that they were defined by outsiders. American need for role models to protect

them from unwanted intrusion (Motley) or to prove American’s superiority (Roosevelt) determined

the portrayal Dutch American culture. The need by these outsiders, who had to contrast themselves

against other groups, determined the discourse on the meaning of being Dutch or Dutch American.

Of course, there were also Dutch Americans who contributed to the discourse on the perceived

value of the Dutch for American history. One of the best-known Dutch Americans who was involved

in the promotion of Dutch contributions to American history in the beginning of the 20th century

was Edward Bok. Bok was editor of the influential Ladies Home Journal from 1889 until 1919. Bok,

an immigrant himself, had a different trajectory than most other Dutch immigrants. After having

immigrated to the United States in 1870 at age 6, Bok lived most of his adult life on the East Coast.

As he would write in his autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a

Dutch Boy Fifty Years After,189 Bok believed that Americanization could only be achieved with a

frontier spirit. Although he references to himself as “a Dutch Boy”, he claimed that the basis of his

success was American attitudes and values. Furthermore, based on what he wrote in his

autobiography, Bok considered himself to be the ultimate example for immigrants. Bok tried to

show that successful immigrants succeeded because of Americanization and assimilation. Although

his Dutch heritage was important to him, Bok did not think that it formed him.190 However, this lack

188

Krabbendam briefly describes how Dutch immigrants hardly experienced discrimination or racism upon their arrival in the United States because they were “white” upon arrival. Hans Krabbendam, “‘But Tho We Love Old Holland Still, We Love Columbia More,’ the Formation of a Dutch-American Subculture in the United States, 1840-1920,” in Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009, ed. Joyce D Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt, and Annette Stott (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 151-152. For more on the phenomenon of “whiteness” and immigration in the American context, for instance, why Italians and Irish immigrants had more difficulty adapting to the United States, see David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White (New York: Basic Books, 2006). 189

Edward William Bok, The Americanization of Edward Bok; the Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years after. (New York, C. Scribner’s Sons, 1920). 190

In his dissertation, Hans Krabbendam gives a very detailed description of Bok’s life and influence. One of the reasons Bok identified less with the Dutch than other Dutch immigrants, is that he never lived in a homogenous Dutch immigrant community. Hans Krabbendam, The Model Man: A Life of Edward W. Bok, 1863-1930 (Sl: sn, 1995).

58

of belief in the formative powers of his Dutch heritage did not prevent him from publishing an

editorial in Ladies Home Journal in 1903. In the editorial, he claimed that the Dutch Republic

mothered some of the best institutions of the United States. According to Bok, the free public school

system, freedom of religious worship, freedom of the press, and freedom of suffrage by secret ballot

all were imports from the Netherlands.191

Another Dutch immigrant who placed the Dutch at the basis of everything that was good in

the United States was Henry van Coenen Torchiana. In 1915, he suggested that there was a direct

link between Dutch colonial heritage and American institutions. In that year he published his book

Holland The Birthplace of American Civic, Political and Religious Freedom.192 Van Coenen Torchiana

was a lawyer of Dutch descent who had lived in the Dutch East Indies and who became an American

in 1895. In 1913, he was appointed as the consul for the Netherlands on the American West Coast

including Alaska, during which time he wrote Holland. Among his other books are a short history of

the Netherlands’ colonial holdings in the Dutch East Indies and a history of his work with Hispanic

migrants on a California farm.193 Where Bok represented the unbound immigrants on the East Coast,

Van Coenen Torchiana was an example of the immigrants moving to the Western shores of the

United States. These communities were less tightly knit than the “Kolonies” in the Midwest and

their focus was on trade relations with the Dutch East Indies.

Both Bok and Van Coenen Torchiana were both Dutch immigrants who stood outside of the

mainstream Dutch culture. Of course, cultural production was not limited to Dutch immigrants

outside of the mainstream. The Dutch that lived in the “Kolonies” had their additions as well. The

Dutch language newspapers that were in wide circulation until the First World War are a good

example of Bourdieu’s “restricted production”. In contrast with the English work of Bok and Van

191Edward W. Bok, “The Mother of America,” Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1903. Referenced in Stott, Holland

Mania, p. 90. According to Van Hinte, Dutch immigrants saw Bok more as American than Dutch. This probably fit how Bok saw himself. Hinte, Netherlanders in America., pp. 957-958. Horace Kallen, whom I have mentioned in chapter 1, considered Bok to be artificially American, Ibid., p. 1015. 192

H.A. van Coenen Torchiana, Holland The Birthplace of American Civic, Political and Religious Freedom (San Francisco: Paul Elder & Company, 1915). Almost a century later, Simon Middleton makes a similar albeit less far reaching claim. Simon Middleton, “The Waning of Dutch New York,” in Four Centuries of Durch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith, Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009 (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009)., pp. 108-119. 193

Van Coenen Torchiana was instrumental in establishing the Dutch colony of Merced, California. The colony was set up as a truck farming community. In that capacity, he got acquainted with Mexican guest workers. The Merced colony was one of the few Dutch settlements that failed. Jacob van Hinte, Netherlanders in America : A Study of Emigration and Settlement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in the United States of America, ed. Robert P. Swierenga, trans. Adriaan de Wit (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Book House, 1985), pp. 656-661.

59

Coenen Torchiana, the Dutch language newspapers were, by definition, tailored for a small

audience. The small size of the audience did not deter the Dutch language press. Between 1849 and

1979, approximately 105 Dutch language newspaper titles were published. However, by 1979, only

16 of them remained in more or less their original state.194 Nevertheless, the fact that so many

Dutch language newspapers existed shows that they provided a much-needed service to the

immigrant community. First and foremost, the newspapers let immigrants keep abreast with

developments regarding their fellow Dutch immigrants elsewhere.195 In Imagined Communities,

Benedict Anderson also points to the importance of newspapers in forming a national identity.196

Although many of the newspapers started out as local publications, like the Sheboygan Nieuwsbode

in 1849, the newspapers started to reach out to readers outside the local community, obtaining a

national audience.197 Serving the purpose of reaching a national audience were the Dutch language

newspapers De Grondwet and De Volksvriend, published in Holland, Michigan, and Orange City,

Iowa, respectively.198 With a growing audience, these Dutch newspapers now did more than

informing their readers of the happenings in local Dutch communities. These newspapers also gave

immigrants the opportunity to stay current with their language and keep in touch with news from

the Netherlands.199 The newspapers also offered them the possibility to be a part of a larger,

cohesive Dutch community. As I have discussed in the previous chapters, religion was one of the

most important markers of Dutch ethnicity in the United States. Therefore, another important

194

Linda Pegman Doezeman, “The Dutc*h Press,” in The Ethnic Press in the United States, ed. Sally M. Miller (New York: Greenwood, 1987), p. 71. For an overview of all Dutch language publications published between 1648 and 1948, see Hendrik Edelman, The Dutch Language Press in America: Two Centuries of Printing, Publishing and Bookselling / Hendrik Edelman (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1986). 195

According to Lucas, this was their main function. Lucas, Netherlanders in America., p. 540. 196

Anderson, Imagined Communities., pp. 33-36. 197

This was not true for all newspapers. Some local newspapers made a conscious choice to stay local. Donald Sinnema, “Dutch American Newspapers and the Network of Early Dutch Immigrant Communities,” in Dutch Enterprise: Alive and Well in North America. Proceedings of the 12th Biennial Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies (presented at the Dutch Enterprise, Pella, IA: Central College, 1999), 43–56, http://www.aadas.nl/sites/default/files/proceedings/1999_5_Sinnema.pdf., p. 44. 198

In his chapter on the cultural life in the Dutch settlements, Van Hinte gives a small inventory and measure of importance of the Dutch newspapers that were still published at the time. Hinte, Netherlanders in America, pp. 914-942. 199

Sinnema, “Dutch American Newspapers and the Network of Early Dutch Immigrant Communities.”, p. 43. Krabbendam also notes the strong ties the original newspapers had with the Democratic and Republican Parties. Originally, the Dutch newspapers aligned with Democrats. At the end of the 19

th century, the allegiance of most

Dutch newspapers had switched to Republican. Unfortunately, I cannot go into further detail on this very interesting subject in this paper. Hans Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon: Dutch Immigration to America, 1840-1940 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 270-279.

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function of the newspapers was to spread their Christian Reformed message. However, the

newspapers themselves would eventually be replaced as the main medium for spreading the

Christian Reformed message by the RCA and CRC. The mere fact that the oldest Dutch American

periodicals still in existence are from RCA or CRC serves as a measure of how important religion was

in Dutch immigrant society.200 Even when it comes to cultural production from inside the own

community, church bonds eventually trump all.201

Tulip Festivals

Art, literature, and newspapers all had their role in the formation of a Dutch American identity.

Combining these factors with religion and location, sets the main outlines for a distinct Dutch

ethnicity. However, a more noticeable form of cultural production would start after the First World

War with the advent of the Tulip Festivals. At first glance, Tulip Festivals are just that: a festival to

celebrate tulips. However, this would sell the role of these festivals short. The earliest Tulip Festival

dates from 1928, when the City Council of Holland, Michigan decided to make their community

more colorful. At the suggestion of a schoolteacher, the city planted 250,000 tulips. They primarily

did this because tulips were colorful and secondarily because of the Dutch origin of the community.

Nowhere did they say that they wanted to celebrate Dutch culture or achievement.202 However,

these tulip fields were an instant success, as thousands of people from outside Holland, Michigan

came to watch the spectacle. This prompted the city council to make it an annual event, the 1929

stock market crash, and ensuing Depression notwithstanding.203 Other Dutch settlements, like Pella

and Orange City, Iowa, quickly followed Holland’s example and started their own festivals.204

200

The RCA periodical is currently called The Church Herald (formerly The Leader, first published in 1906), and the CRC periodical is called The Banner (first published in 1866) Pegman Doezeman, “The Dutch Press.”, p. 71. Also, Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon., p. 279. Lucas on the ties between church and newspapers, Lucas, Netherlanders in America, p. 540. 201

For a historiography of Dutch language newspapers, see Conrad Bult, “Dutch-American Newspapers: Their History and Role,” in The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement, and Cultural Change, ed. Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 273–90. 202

For a more detailed description of the origins of Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan, see Terence Guy Schoone-Jongen, “Tulip Time U.S.A.: Staging Memory, Identity and Ethnicity in Dutch-American Community Festivals.” (Ohio State University, 2007), pp. 155-158. 203

Janet Sjaarda Sheeres, “Klompendancing through America,” in Proceedings of the 12th Biennial Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies (presented at the Dutch enterprise: alive and wel in North America, Pella, IA: Central College, 1999), p. 2. 204

Ibid., for a helpful, chronological overview of the different tulip festivals in the United States, pp. 71-72.

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Starting out as festival that showcased tulips to beautify the city and, as a bonus, attract

visitors, the festival would soon include other activities as well. It would also become more “ethnic.”

Holland proved to be a trailbreaker again with the introduction of clog dancing and authentic Dutch

costumes in the 1930 Tulip Time festival. Later additions included scrubbing and cleaning of streets,

the sale of wooden shoes and tulips, and other “authentic” Dutch memorabilia. The depiction of

Dutch life was a mix between Irving’s New York, and the sanitized version of the Netherlands

straight out of Holland Mania. In addition, 1930 saw the first major involvement with the festival of

the Holland, Michigan Chamber of Commerce. They heavily promoted both Tulip Time and Michigan

as prime touristic destinations.205 The takeover of the organization of Tulip Time by the Chamber of

Commerce says a lot about the direction the Festival was going. No longer was it a beautification

project, but it had moved beyond that. An idealized Dutch ethnicity was something that could be

sold to their American neighbors.206 Dutch Americans could use their ethnic identity to promote

tourism to their communities and in that way make money. Surprisingly enough, it was an Irish

American who realized this and made Tulip Time more ethnic.207 In the end, Dutch entrepreneurial

spirit was more powerful than the wish for authentic ethnic representation.

It is no coincidence that Tulip Time started after World War I. Americanization became of

paramount importance due to the press coverage on the supposed German atrocities during World

War I.208 German langue newspapers were closed, German churches in the United States were in

danger of being damaged, and English was the lingua franca. This Americanization drive and mistrust

of everything that did not sound English, also took its toll on the Dutch American community. Many

Americans, after all, could not distinguish between “Dutch” and “Deutsch.”209 This resentment for

everything German (or in the case of the Dutch, guilt by association) was not the only reason for

205

Schoone-Jongen, “Tulip Time U.S.A.”, pp. 159-161. Also, 206

Michael Douma, “The Evolution of Dutch American Identities, 1847-Present” (Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations, The Florida State University, 2011), http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/7128, p. 162. 207

Ibid., pp. 166-167. The Irish American in question, William Connoly, also was the driving force behind a first attempt to create a “Klein Holland” in Holland, Michigan. This attempt would ultimately fail, but planted the seed for what would later become “Dutch Village”. 208

Anti-German propaganda was a tool used by the British to garner American support prior. A major part of this propaganda was in the form of newspaper articles on supposed German atrocities. Mia L. McIver, “Review of «Huns» vs. «Corned Beef»: Representations of the Other in American and German Literature and Film on World War I by Thomas F. Schneider; Hans Wagener,” The German Quarterly 82, no. 2 (April 1, 2009): 280–81. 209

This is also the reason why the German “Pennsylvania Dutch,” are called “Dutch.” Nicoline Sijs Van Der, Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops : The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages (Amsterdam University Press, 2009), p. 15. On the ban of preaching in a foreign language during WWI, see Hinte, Netherlanders in America, p. 998.

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quickened Americanization.210 Because of nativist sentiments and the general feeling that unwanted

“non-white” immigrants flooded the United States, 1921 and 1924 saw the introduction of severe

immigration restrictions.211 Interestingly, these calls for restrictions, unlike the immigrants

themselves, went from West to East.212 Because Dutch immigrants were white and Protestant, they

could ignore calls for Americanization by people like Theodore Roosevelt.213 However, the

combination of anti-foreign sentiments after the outbreak of World War I, and the calls for

immigration restriction made the Dutch immigrants also feel pressured to Americanize. This forced

Americanization also led to a countermovement in the Dutch immigrant community. On the one

hand, the Dutch wanted to prove to their American neighbors that they belonged in the United

States. After all, their ancestors had a part in building the United States (or at least New York State).

On the other hand, they also wanted to show that Dutch ethnicity was something you could

celebrate. Tulip Festivals could satisfy both needs.214

Invented tradition and ethnicity

Tulip Festivals fall under Bourdieu’s definition of large-scale cultural production. Their aim is to

reach the community at large, the people outside of their own ethnic community. Although the

Dutch Americans do have a distinct ethnicity, as I have discussed in chapter 1, the ethnicity that is

on display during Tulip Time is a mash of invented traditions. Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger

define invented tradition as follows:

‘Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain

210

Not only did Dutch sound similar to “Deutsch,” the Dutch were depicted as war profiteers in the American press. Cornelis A. van Minnen, “Dutch Perceptions of American Culture and Promotion of Dutch Culture in the United States,” in Four Centuries of Durch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), p. 432. 211

The Dutch themselves sometimes also considered themselves better than their peers, like Dutch socialist N.A. de Vries. Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, pp. 57-58. 212

A brief overview of causes and effects of the restriction measures, see chapter 3 of Gabaccia, Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective. For more on how Eastern and Southern European immigrants transitioned from in-between white to white, see Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness. Krabbendam and Gabaccia both point to the fact that restriction started on the West Coast and moved east from there. The first that were denied access were the Chinese. Krabbendam, Freedom on the Horizon, p.56. 213

In 1890, during a speech he gave to the Holland Society of New York Theodore Roosevelt used the Dutch Americans as prime examples of successful Americanization. However, his definition of Dutch Americans only included the East Coast descendants of the New Netherland Colony. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Hollander as an American.” 214

David Zwart, “Faithful Remembering: Constructing Dutch America in the Twentieth Century” (Western Michigan University, 2012), http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/23, pp. 107-108.

63

values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.215

The clog dancing and the sweeping and cleaning of the street that are a part of Tulip Time, are prime

examples of these invented traditions. A first generation immigrant, Janet Sjaarda Sheeres

mentioned that although she did wear clogs in the Netherlands, she had never seen anyone dance

in them. That was until she went to her first Tulip Time festival.216 Both activities are an

Americanized version of Dutch ethnicity and production. It is how Americans imagined the Dutch

behaved, based on their experience of Holland Mania, and the stories of Mary Dodge, Campbell, and

Griffis. This imagination was than translated into easily understood rituals. Dutch Americans

themselves were aware of this invention.217 The Dutch American writer Arnold Mulder commented

as much, when he stated that the Festivals were not so much about Dutchness, but instead “an

effective American flair for community publicity.”218 Another aspect of invented traditions is that

they are an effort to show continuity with the past.219 This continuity is an anchoring of some parts

of social life and with this keep the modern world at bay.220 In this way, Tulip Time as an invented

tradition achieves the celebration of Dutch ethnicity and it confirmed that Dutch American belonged

in the United States. Tulip Time was proof of assimilation of the Dutch Americans in the American

mainstream, but also kept their claim on a distinct ethnicity intact.

As I have stated in chapter one, ethnicity is itself an invention.221 By acknowledging ethnicity,

you also acknowledge certain commonalities. Tulip Time did not start as a celebration of Dutch

culture and heritage, but evolved into that later. The discovery of Dutch ethnicity as a valuable

marketing tool only came after the initial success of Tulip Time. Nevertheless, the Dutch Americans

used wooden shoes, tulips, and windmills as Dutch symbols before the Dutch used them in

215

Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge etc: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 1. 216

Sheeres, “Klompendancing through America.”, p. 71. 217

Some wanted to represent the Dutch Golden Age others wanted a representation of the Dutch culture of “Holland Mania.” What they all shared is the knowledge that it was just that, a representation. Douma, “The Evolution of Dutch American Identities, 1847-Present.”, p. 168. 218

Ibid., p. 158. 219

Keeping Dutch culture alive is something that the older Dutch American generation values in tulip festivals. Peter Ester, “Growing Up Dutch-American: Cultural Identity and the Formative Years of Older Dutch-Americans” (presented at the LECTURE SERIES OF THE VAN RAALTE INSTITUTE VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWS PROGRAM NO. 5, Holland, MI: Van Raalte Press, 2007), p.33. 220

Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, p.2. 221

Sollors, The Invention of Ethnicity.

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marketing the Netherlands. That the Dutch Americans used large-scale symbolic production first did

not mean that the country this was based on, did nothing. In the Netherlands, individual companies

used pig-tailed blond girls in Volendammer dress to sell products from the late 1800s. The chocolate

companies Bensdorp and Droste, for instance, both used Volendammer girls to sell their products at

home and abroad.222 The Netherlands, however, did not actively promote itself yet. Although the

Netherlands prides itself as a nation of commerce and export, this tradition of self-promotion was

imported from the United States.

Because of the success of Tulip Time, later organizers realized there was money in their

Dutch ethnic heritage. By highlighting certain perceived ethnic traits, like clog dancing and a

penchant for cleanliness, the festivals could tap into this potential. This is also the reason why tulip

festivals have so many commonalities. First, they all use the invented traditions and cultural

production of Holland, Michigan’s Tulip Time. Second, the time at which the Dutch American

communities adapted Tulip Festivals also says something about the place and strength of the ties

with Dutch American culture. After overcoming her surprise of seeing the clog dancing performance

at her first Tulip Festival, Janet Sheeres assembled a scheme of all annual Dutch Festivals.223 If I look

at Sheeres’ scheme, tulip festivals originated in the “Kolonies,” where the Dutch cultural continuity

was strongest. Van Raalte’s Holland was the first to celebrate Tulip Time in 1929, followed shortly

thereafter by Pella and Orange City, Iowa. The “early adaptors” did not only have a strong

identification with Dutch ethnicity, they also strived for a more authentic representation of this

Dutch American ethnicity.224 The festivals that started after the 1930s feel more contrived.

Other Dutch communities followed suit after World War II, with Albany, New York as one of

the first communities. Although some of the other festivals also placed a premium on inviting high-

profile Dutch guests, Albany has one big distinction. For its first Tulip Festival, Queen Wilhelmina

designated a tulip, the bronzy orange shaded scarlet Orange Wonder, as the special tulip for

222

Sophie Elpers, Hollandser dan Kaas: De geschiedenis van Frau Antje (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)., pp. 37-48. Although her book focuses on “Frau Antje,” a girl invented by the Dutch Dairy Institute to promote Dutch dairy in Germany, Elpers also included an overview of the history of the use of Volendammer dress in advertising. According to Elpers, the reason why Volendam became one of the most potent “Dutch” symbols was two-fold: Volendam was close to Amsterdam and therefore easy to reach and it was the base of many American artists during Holland Mania, therefore popularizing its dress. 223

Sheeres, “Klompendancing through America.”, pp. 79-80. 224

Terrence Schoone-Jongen recollects from personal experience about the efforts to be as authentic as possible. Schoone-Jongen, “Tulip Time U.S.A.”, p. 4 and chapter 5.

65

Albany.225 Later, Princess Beatrix even visited one of the festivals.226 Furthermore, as one of the first

Dutch settlements of New Netherlands, Albany incorporated a connection to this history. Since

1950, Albany has added a celebration of Pinkster to their Tulip Festival.227 The inclusion of Pinkster,

an African-American holiday with its origins in the Dutch colonial rule in New Netherland, is one of

the big exceptions Albany offers when compared to other Tulip Festivals.228 Albany started its

festival in the same year as Edgerton, Minnesota did. Clymer, New York subsequently began its Tulip

Festival a few years later. Clymer’s festival follows the traditional mold of Tulip Festivals. Street

sweeping is part of the festivities, as are “klompendansen,” and the fabrication of wooden shoes.229

Later additions include Dutch festivals in California, Washington, Illinois, and Kansas. By and

large, the later festivals also follow the later westward trek of Dutch immigrants. There seems to be

a direct correlation between the year in which a Dutch festival is first organized, and the year that

Dutch immigrants colonized a particular town. Two festivals seem to go against this trend: Little

Chute, Wisconsin, (1982) and Hempstead, New York (1983). These festivals are also markedly

different then the “traditional” Tulip Festivals. Little Chute is the only town with a Dutch festival that

identifies with the Dutch Roman-Catholic immigrants of the 19th century.230 Hempstead’s festival,

unlike the other festivals that have a town or its Chamber of Commerce as organizers, is organized

by Hofstra University.231 Its connection to Dutch heritage is not through the inhabitants of

Hempstead. Instead, the festival is rooted in the Dutch descent of the university’s benefactor on

whose land the original campus was built in 1935.232 Although they have many similarities with

225

Albany Tulip Queen, “The Albany Tulip Festival: 65 Years of History,” The Albany Tulip Festival, accessed June 16, 2014, http://www.albanytulipqueen.com/history/. 226

Ibid. On the visit of Princess Beatrix, Sheeres, “Klompendancing through America.”, p. 80. 227

Albany Tulip Queen, “The Albany Tulip Festival: 65 Years of History.” 228

For more on the origins of the word Pinkster, see Sijs Van Der, Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops, pp. 224-225. For an in-depth analysis of the background of Pinkster and its meaning for the African-American community, see Jeroen Dewulf, “Pinkster: An Atlantic Creole Festival in a Dutch-American Context,” Journal of American Folklore 126, no. 501 (2013): 245–71. 229

Sheeres, “Klompendancing through America.”, pp. 73 & 79. Clymer Area Historical Society, “Town of Clymer Triquasquincentennial Booklet 1996” (Westley Associates, 1996), Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, p. 27. 230

The 2014 Kermis Dutch Festival is also the last one to be organized. After 2014, the town itself will no longer host this festival. I have been unable to find out if this is due to lack of money or lack of interest. Village of Little Chute, “Village of Little Chute Newsletter,” accessed June 18, 2014, http://www.littlechutewi.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/1885. 231

Hofstra University, “31st Annual Dutch Festival,” accessed June 18, 2014, http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/Fest/Fest_dutch.html. 232

Geri Solomon and The Hofstra University Museum, “The Hofstra Family at 65,” accessed June 18, 2014, http://www.hofstra.edu/Community/museum/museum_exhibition_hofstra65.html.

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other festivals, the festivals of Little Chute and Hempstead are not representative for Tulip Festivals

in the United States.

Not all Dutch communities in the United States have a Tulip Festival or other types of Dutch

heritage festivals. When I look at the numbers, most of the festivals take place in the Midwest and

the West of the United States. New York, the state were Dutch presence is established the longest,

and Michigan appear to be underrepresented especially in regards to their Dutch ethnic history and

population. Maybe this underrepresentation does say something about the ties that current

inhabitants still feel with the Dutch origins of their heritage. The older inhabitants of Holland,

Michigan seem to think so.

Production, invention, and tradition

Dutch ethnicity in the United States is for a large part defined by the religion of the original

immigrants. As we have seen in previous chapters, the majority of Dutch immigrants were Dutch

Reformed, which makes their Calvinism their main ethnic marker. However, Dutch American

ethnicity was not solely determined by their internal perceptions of what it means to be Dutch

American. In a large part, perceptions from the outside the group also formed their ethnicity. To get

a measure of what these perceptions were, from both inside and outside, you can look at cultural

production. This production comes in many forms, of which large-scale production is open to the

masses, while small-scale production is only accessible to the producers themselves. Dutch language

church services and Dutch language newspapers are types of small-scale production. On the other

side of the spectrum are things like the books by Irving, Campbell, Griffis, and Dodge. Other

examples include the artifacts of Holland Mania and later Dutch ethnic festivals. The festival’s

origins had nothing to do with Dutch heritage, but were turned into events celebrating Dutch

cultural heritage. However, an Americanized version of Dutchness proved effective in attracting

American visitors. Furthermore, it also helped Dutch Americans assimilate and become part of the

American fabric. What all these forms of production have in common is that they are based on

invention of ethnicity and the invention of tradition. In short, without invention and adaptation of

their ethnicity to the American context, Dutch Americans would not have achieved their distinct

flavor within the American melting pot.

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Conclusion

Dutch ethnic identity in the American context is a matter of invention. As I have shown in the last

chapter, the ethnic identity of Dutch Americans is not just shaped by their religion. Although religion

does play a big part in the self-identification with Dutch American ethnicity, outsiders also

determine part of ethnicity. The most visible form of outsiders shaping ethnic identity is large-scale

cultural production. By and large, the books and artwork of 19th century Holland Mania shaped

American perceptions of Dutch ethnic identity. Dutch Americans then used this invented identity in

Tulip Festivals. With this use, Dutch Americans strengthened ethnic stereotypes, while at the same

time showing that they were part of the American landscape. The Dutch American identity is the

Americanized version of Dutchness. When I consider motivations of the 19th century immigrant

leaders, I can only conclude that they would not have approved of the transformation of Dutch

ethnicity in the American melting pot. Although the “true faith” is still an integral part of Dutch

American identification, their religion is only a small-scale cultural production. The development of

this ethnic identity has a long history.

The history of Dutch Americans stretches back to the 17th century with the founding of the

colony of New Netherlands. Currently, over 4 million Americans identify as Dutch Americans. That

the colony was called New Netherlands is, in a way, ironic. The Dutch were a minority in their own

colony, where they lived side-by-side with Walloons, English Puritans, and Jews. In this light, it is

unlikely that a clear Dutch ethnicity existed in New Netherlands under Dutch rule. Nevertheless,

after the British takeover in 1674, the original colonists used a Dutch ethnicity to protect certain

rights and privileges they enjoyed during the Dutch colonial rule. Their “Dutchness” became a badge

with which these colonists could distinguish themselves from their British neighbors. “Dutchness”

was therefore an invention meant to signify an “otherness.”

This “othering” is one of the main components of ethnicity. Take for example the Dutch

Americans in the Hudson Valley, the moment they became part of the American melting pot, their

need for a distinct “Dutchness” evaporated. “Dutch” became folklore, especially after Irving

published his books about Dutch New York. The only visible reminders of Dutch history were the

Dutch Reformed churches that dotted the New York and New Jersey landscapes.

At the middle of the 19th century, this would all change once again. Because of a

combination of failed harvests and religious discontent, the 1840s saw a rise in Dutch immigration

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to the United States. Although only a minority of the immigrants migrated because of religious

persecution, these Seceders would majorly influence the course of Dutch immigration. The

immigration wave of the 1840s had a clear intent: the establishment of Dutch colonies in the United

States. In these colonies, the Dutch immigrants could freely practice their religion away from what

they saw as the decay of Europe. An added bonus was that the American school system offered the

possibility to found Christian schools. Another reason for the fact that several different Dutch

colonies mushroomed, is that immigration was also a much-localized affair. Fifty percent of the

immigrants came from just five percent of the municipalities in the Netherlands.233 A result of the

combination of local immigration and a tendency to stay together also led to the formation of

transplanted communities in the Midwest. However, this clustered scattering did not stand in the

way of a formation of a national Dutch American ethnicity. The cement of this formation was the

Calvinism of the Dutch Reformed Church. Through its Dutch language services, Christian education,

and newspapers the church formed the cornerstone of these Dutch communities.

In 1857, this cornerstone would crack. That year saw a new Secession within the Dutch

Reformed Church, which was largely a result of differences that already existed in the Netherlands.

However, what was unique for the American setting was the Freemason controversy. This

controversy was the straw that broke the camel’s back for some of the more orthodox immigrants.

In the end, the Freemason controversy was mainly a discussion about the rate with which Dutch

immigrants should Americanize. The already Americanized RCA was in favor of further

Americanization, while the CRC was opposed. Although this denominational split led to a weakened

RCA, it simultaneously led to a further strengthening of Dutch ethnic identity. In their battle for the

souls of Dutch immigrants, both denominations were involved in Christian schooling, Dutch

language newspapers, church periodicals, and many other activities. All these factors helped in

establishing a firmer Dutch identity, based on religion.

The third factor of shaping a Dutch American identity is the locations immigrants chose to

immigrate too. Although the majority of 19th century immigrants did move to the “Kolonies,” not all

immigrants did. Immigrants from the Achterhoek and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen regions preceded the

main wave of 1847 and settled areas of upstate New York and Wisconsin. Their choice for these

regions, outside of the “standard” Dutch areas in the Midwest and the Hudson Valley, is in large part

233

Swierenga, Faith and Family., p. 76.

69

determined by their origins. Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and the Achterhoek were culturally plural regions,

where different religions lived in close proximity. This led to pragmatism when it came to religious

orthodoxy. The “Kolonies” would probably have been too strict, while the Hudson Valley was

already populated. Instead, the Achterhoekers and Zeeuws-Vlamingen clustered together in other

available areas while still maintaining a Dutch identity. As I have shown in chapter three, they were

part of the Dutch American immigrant network. However, their location and pragmatism mark them

as a distinct group within the Dutch American community.

This brings me back to the book that started all this: Russel Shorto’s The Island at the Center

of the World. The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten Colony that shaped America. In

the book, which is based on the research of Dr. Charles Gehrig of the New Netherlands Institute,

New Amsterdam gains primacy. It is Shorto´s theory that the Dutch, through the colony of New

Netherland, are at the root of New York´s identity. Because New York is such an important city in

the United States, the Dutch have therefore indirectly influenced the United States.234 As a

Dutchman, I could be nothing but impressed. After all, according to Shorto, we helped shape the

mightiest country in the world. Alas, proving or disproving actual cultural influence is impossible.

However, what my research for this thesis has shown me is that Dutch immigrants to the United

States have made an impression on the Americans that surrounded them. Originally, this impression

was based on religion, but at the beginning of the 20th century, this had changed. Dutch Americans

and Americans alike had added windmills, wooden shoes, and tulips to the ethnic mix. Although the

Dutch in Iowa, Michigan, upstate New York, and Wisconsin all have their small ethnic distinction,

these symbols join them all. 400 years after the first Dutch colonists crossed the Atlantic, the

cultural invention of tulips and wooden shoes, again ties old and new Netherlands together.

234

Along those lines is the essay of Frijhoff and Jacobs. However, they also caution for giving to much weight to “Dutch influence” on the United States. Willem Frijhoff and Jaap Jacobs, “The Dutch, New Netherland, and Thereafter (1609-1780s),” in Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009, ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith (Amsterdam: Boom, 2009), p.33.

70

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