.jpg)
[xiv] See http://www.rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=TSJN-index-21-15-290-2&mode=TOC |
| John Quincy Adams about 1783 |
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| John Adams (1735-1826) 2nd US President |
Permit me then, Gentle Reader, to offer you evidence of the involvement of the Flemish in the establishment of the W.I.C. Obliquely, I will also illustrate through this the West-Indische Compagnie’s importance to the Discovery and Settlement of America. Part 2 of this monograph will post under the date July 1st. Later, in a subsequent post, I intend to detail the heavy Flemish involvement through the W.I.C. in Nieuw Netherland itself.
Background
While the W.I.C. was chartered in 1621, its origins stretch back half a century to a place broadly called “The Low Countries” (Flanders and the Netherlands) and to the time of the Protestant Reformation.[i] To understand the story of the W.I.C. we need to recap the historical context.[ii]
The roots of the West India Company began amidst the confusion of civil disorder and religious strife. In 1566 a revolt broke out in a village in western Flanders.[iii] It began with Dutch-speaking Protestant youth smashing statuary, burning Roman Catholic missals, and roughing up clergy.[iv] It spread east and north throughout the Low Countries: a volatile mix of hooliganism[v], Calvinism and nationalism.[vi]
Since the sovereign ruler of what we now know as Benelux and northern France was the Spanish king, Phillip II, it was inevitable that Spanish troops were ultimately brought in to restore order. While initially successful, the presence of a foreign standing army, the imposition of additional taxes to absorb the cost, and the underlying friction between counter-reformation Catholics and hard-core Calvinists doomed the region to almost exactly 80 years (1567-1648) of ruthless warfare.[vii]
For the first thirty or so years (i.e., until the 1590s) the Dutch-speaking Protestants had the worst of it. At least 175,000 fled the rich cities of Flanders.[viii] Some went to Protestant port cities (like Rouen and La Rochelle) in France; many more onto Reformation England and Protestant Germany (especially Cologne).[ix] Many exiles likely viewed their departure as a temporary measure.
Of course not every Calvinist, Lutheran and Anabaptist left Flanders at this time. Many went underground and outwardly accepted Catholic practices while secretly professing something else.[x] For those who remained behind, external funding (from Protestant rulers and the Dutch-speaking diaspora)[xi] and a steady stream of illicit returnees enabled them to continue as fighters. These men first launched guerilla-style raids on the Flemish coast (from piratical lairs across the Channel in England) and ultimately seized control of coastal enclaves.[xii] As Dutch-speaking territory was liberated from Spanish control, Flemish Calvinists in England and Germany followed the military advance by resettling in these more familiar environments.[xiii]
The overseas Flemings, many of whom were hardened by Calvinist conviction[xiv], privation, and certainly exile, were not content to remain in “liberated” cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, and Middleburg.[xv] Rather, they were impatient to reclaim their lost homes in the South Netherlands (modern-day Belgium and northern France). Moreover, because of their unwavering belief in the justness of their cause, this war assumed the status of what today we might call a “jihad”. Any opposition posed to the Flemish Calvinists’ objectives was perceived as resistance to God’s Will. As a prominent Dutch historian remarked, “The value of Calvin’s teaching in the Low Countries, among a population long unhappy under foreign domination, lay in the fact that it sanctioned all human action.”[xvi]
The Role of Antwerp
At the center of many of these historical developments was the city of Antwerp.[xvii]“Antwerp was truly the leading [European] city in almost all things [in the 1500s], but in commerce it headed all the cities of the world,” as the Italian contemporary historian (and 16th century Antwerp resident) Gucciardini observed.[xviii] Antwerp was the center of the printing industry[xix] and was also the most important bourse and capital market in Europe (and thus the world at that time).[xx] It was here that everything from West African gold to North American beaver pelts, from spices from the East to copper from Hungary and textiles from Flanders was brought to market. In short, “Antwerp’s economy was an important, and sometimes even the principal, artery of the whole European economy.”[xxi]
Antwerp, “held a position such as [has] never been held before or since by any other town…this cosmopolitan city controlled exclusively the money market of the known world, and the whole varied interchange of goods and wealth. Every nation had its concessions within its walls, every important loan in Europe was negotiated here.”[xxii] It was in 16th century Antwerp that the Fugger family made their fortunes in trading world commodities – reputedly at 50% net profits over the course of fifteen years.[xxiii] It was in Antwerp too that the Portuguese king sold the spices that his ships brought back from India with a return of more than 50x.[xxiv] It was a place where cultures mingled, fortunes were made, and ideas allowed to percolate. In other words, sixteenth-century Antwerp was the New York City of its day.
Within the seventeen provinces of the Low Countries, Antwerp’s position was also pre-eminent. The Belgicist historian Henri Pirenne (no fan of things from Flanders and Brabant) observed that “’The Netherlands, are the suburb of Antwerp’”.[xxv] While the rest of the world is “its [Antwerp’s] periphery.”[xxvi]Flanders and Brabant were urbanized and prosperous; the rest of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands (at this time) were, by comparison, backwaters.[xxvii] Innovations and connections for the entire “Low Countries” [modern-day Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and northern France] radiated out from this critical hub; resources – whether people or materiel – were pulled to its marketplaces.
Antwerp’s Émigrés
Despite their attachment to material success, the Flemish did not neglect the spiritual. As suggested above, during the first decade of the “Dutch Revolt” the impetus for the movement came out of Flanders and Brabant. Such momentum for the Revolt quickly concentrated in the primary cities: Gent, Brugge, and Antwerp. Of these cities, in the fight against Spain, Antwerp was the most important.
After a confusing series of twists (which are not central to our story) religious and linguistic divisions among the inhabitants of the Low Countries assisted the Spanish military’s reconquest of their wealthiest dominion. From the late 1570s the Spanish reduction of Flanders proceeded with steady success. Town after town fell. Up until the mid/late 1580s, the “final redoubt” of the “Dutch Revolt” was Antwerp.[xxviii] It was here that the Prince of Orange for a time made his headquarters and it was at Antwerp that the Prince’s spymaster, Philip Marnix, a native of Brussels, ruled until 1585 as Antwerp’s Burgemeester (mayor).[xxix]
In 1585 the Spanish armies finally stormed and took Antwerp after a three year siege. Resident merchants – Protestant as well as Catholic – sought safer refuge. Some families again went back to southeastern England, coastal France or western Germany (especially Cologne). Many more – sometimes via a circuitous path – left for the pockets of liberated territory in the “North.” They swarmed cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Middleburg, and Leiden. In some places the Flemish and Brabander “exodus” swamped the locally-born population, altering customs and dialects.[xxx]
But these exiles were not (for the most part) impoverished illiterates. They were, by and large, as one historian called them, “men of the greatest distinction in their chosen fields.”[xxxi] They retained their influence while in exile. “The [Flemish] exiles were very numerous and enterprising. An astonishingly large number of the men eminent in this generation in Holland and Zealand came thither from the southern provinces. [Cornelis] Aerssens, the secretary of the States General, his son [Frans], the ambassador at Paris[xxxii], [Francois] Caron the ambassador in England, [Nicasius] de Sille the pensionary of Amsterdam[xxxiii], Justus Lipsius[xxxiv], [Franciscus] Gomarus the leader of the [Calvinist] orthodox, [Petrus] Plancius the geographer, [Emanuel] van Meteren [xxxv] the historian [and Dutch Consul at London], Judocus and Hendrik Hondius the engravers, Balthazar de Moucheron, Isaac and Jacob Le Maire, [Samuel] Godyn [and Samuel Blommaert] and [Johannes] de Laet – all these were natives of the region now called Belgium.”[xxxvi] By no means is this list exhaustive: it is only a sampling of a few of the prominent men of the “Dutch Golden Age” who came from Flanders.
Regardless of their numbers or the fact that they kept status in the North, it still was not home. These Flemish Protestant exiles wanted their ancestral homes back and they would not rest until they had made that happen. Pre-empting Douglas MacArthur nearly 400 years later (“I shall return!”), Philip Marnix, the Brussels-born former Burgemeester of Antwerp and a close confidant of Prince William of Orange, offered a plaintive vow to those in Spanish-occupied Flanders and Brabant before he died in 1598: “Hoe cond ik U mijn broeders oyt vergheten?” [How could I forget you, My Brothers?].[xxxvii] As one historian observed: “In 1600…the hope of recapturing Flanders still lingered in the hearts of her refugees.”[xxxviii]
From Antwerp to Amsterdam
As we have seen, up until 1585, Antwerp was the pre-eminent city in not only Flanders but also the Netherlands. Up until 1585 80% of all exports from the entire Netherlands shipped through Antwerp.[xxxix]With the destruction and reduction of not only Antwerp but the rest of Flanders, artisans and merchants were forced to flee. It was not logical for these Antwerp merchants to chose Amsterdam: it had neither the best harbor (poorly accessible) nor industry, nor surplus capital.[xl] However, those same features made the city physically defensible and hospitable to those who brought industry, connections and capital.
In the years after 1585, Amsterdam experienced a “huge influx of young merchants and entrepreneurs” from Antwerp.[xli]This influx included young merchant-entrepeneurémigrés from such prominent Antwerp families as the Bartholotti, Coymans, Godijn, Van Os, Sautijn, de Schot, and de Vogelaer. These families (and other less prominent families from the South) converted Amsterdam from a place notable only for buying wainscoting in the 1560s[xlii] to the dominant center for shipping, commodities and capital by the early 1600s.[xliii] All these families came to play a significant role in overseas trade – especially through the V.O.C. (established in 1602).
The V.O.C.– Vereinigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or Dutch East India Company – “served as a model for the establishment of [trading] companies in other countries”, which underscores its importance to history.[xliv] By the time of the founding of the W.I.C. in 1621, they had not only turned the V.O.C. into one of the most profitable companies in history[xlv], they had become the merchant-elite of Amsterdam.[xlvi] As such, these émigré merchants of Antwerp played a dominant role in the Discovery and Settlement of America.
The influx of Antwerp merchant-entrepeneuers, had a profound impact on Amsterdam and its relations with the outside world. The Flemish émigrés’ capital and connections, enabled Amsterdam, by the end of the 16th century, to dominate not only culture, language and customs, but also overseas trade and diplomacy for the entire Dutch Republic.[xlvii] In the words of the 19th century U.S. Ambassador to the U.S. (and trailblazing Henry Hudson scholar), Henry Cruse Murphy, “A large portion of this new impulse [for foreign trade and exploration by the “Dutch”] was due to that element of the population which had emigrated from Antwerp and other commercial and trading cities of the Spanish Netherlands, refugees for conscience sake; to whom,
indeed, much more of the maritime greatness and prosperity of the United Provinces are to be attributed than has generally been conceded.”[xlviii]
Surprisingly, despite the influx, ‘Zuidnederlanders’ were only 11% of the merchants in Amsterdam in 1585. But by 1610 were fully 1/3 of all Amsterdam merchants. By 1630 that percentage had slipped back so that only 1/5 of all Amsterdam merchants could be identified as ‘Zuidnederlanders’.[xlix] Nevertheless, the Flemish émigrés remained a potent component in Amsterdam well into the remainder of the Dutch Republic’s “Golden Century”.
The “Originator” of the West India Company
One of these Flemish merchant-entrepeneur émigrés became the “Originator” of the W.I.C. His name was Willem Usselinckx. According to Emanuel Van Meteren (a confidant of William, the Prince of Orange[l]), and like Usselinckx, a fellow Protestant refugee from Antwerp, Willem Usselinckx was “a man well informed of trade and conditions in the West Indies.”[li]
That knowledge of Iberian America and the sources of its wealth there were to become a cornerstone of the founding of the W.I.C. Johannes de Laet,[lii] an Antwerpenaar and the unofficial historian of the W.I.C., began his 1644 edition of the Jaerlijck Verhael, with a rationale for the existence of the Company. In his words, the King of Spain (Philip II until 1598 and his successors thereafter), was the greatest power in Christendom and indeed the whole world. Yet he had set the power and might of this kingdom – derived from the wealth of the Americas – against the United Provinces of the Netherlands (by which he meant modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands). De Laet concludes his opening address by stating that, “the entire world knows the great amounts of gold and silver carted out [of America] yearly.”[liii] Ergo, steal the Spanish king’s gold and silver treasure fleets and one can cripple his ability to make war against the Dutch-speaking peoples.
Willem Usselinckx had an idea, a vision. His concept was rooted in experience and offered a solution that might defeat the Spain and eject her armies from Flanders. “According to the plan [that Willem Usselinckx devised], the Dutch [speaking] colonists [in America] would convert the Indians to Calvinism, arm them,….and initiate them in[to] the techniques of modern warfare.”[liv]
Usselinckx first got the idea of establishing the W.I.C. when he as a young factor (merchant) in the Azores, Portugal, and Spain. More importantly, since the Azores were a “service depot” for Spain’s returning treasure fleet from the Americas, Usselinckx observed the paths of the Spanish treasure galleons and watched them unload chests of sugar, bullion, and slaves at Spain’s port in Seville.[lv] Chock full of gold and silver extracted at great human cost from the mines at Potosi, Peru and in Mexico, it was not difficult for a fervent Calvinist like Usselinckx to see that the Achilles heel of his homeland’s “erf-viand” (arch-enemy), Roman Catholic Spain, was the shipment of bullion across these vast, open seas in large, unwieldy Spanish galleons.
When Willem Usselinckx finally did return to the Netherlands, in about 1591, he was a very rich man.[lvi] He was also described as a man who was, “Intelligent and well-spoken… a devout Calvinist and hater of the Spanish monarchy” whose life-long obsession was to undermine the Spanish position in the Americas.[lvii] These attributes enabled Usselinckx to be taken seriously by other, unyielding Protestants from Flanders such as Petrus Plancius. It was at this time [the early 1590s] that Usselinckx first began advocating for a West India Company.[lviii] But while Usselinckx had the vision, the passion, and the energy, he needed the assistance of others to make this vision a reality.
One of those able to take this vision to the next level was Petrus Plancius. Plancius, a native of Dranoutre (near Ieper/Ypres in West Flanders), was a fiery theologian whose beliefs are best described as ‘old school’ Calvinist. Plancius was also a well-respected cartographer with practical experience as an investor in trading voyages to Africa and Asia. Plancius later became an investor in the V.O.C. (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – the“Dutch” East India Company)and, until his death in 1616, supplied all of the charts and maps used by the V.O.C. In this capacity Plancius supplied the charts that Henry Hudson used to sail to New York in 1609.[lix] But most importantly for our story here, Plancius came to know Willem Usselinckx early – certainly no later than 1600[lx]– and believed in Usselinckx’ vision.
The Role of Radical Calvinism
Besides his cartographic knowledge and his adherence to Usselinckx’ plan for a West India Company, Petrus Plancius brought other attributes to the table. Plancius was a well-respected theologian at a time when theologians of the right stripe mattered. He had also invested in and made money from far-reaching trading voyages.[lxi] Critically for this story he also was well connected to other influential men in the Dutch Republic. One of these influential men was the Councilor of the High Court, Francois Franeken. The scholar and jusrist believed in this project and sought to promote it at the highest levels. Franeken “saw in a West India Company an excellent tool with which to fight Spain in the New World.”[lxii]Collectively these men, and other Flemish Calvinists like them, saw a win-win scenario. The establishment of a W.I.C. could offer a chance for the United Provinces to reclaim Flanders from Spain, end the war, achieve great wealth, and spread the gospel according to Calvin.
However, not everyone believed in the mission to recover Flanders from the Spanish and spread the war to new territories. Often, those who did not believe in this were humanist Protestants. They also tended to not be exiles, rather they came from among the residual landed elites of Holland and other northern Netherlands provinces. As a Dutch historian put it, they were “humanistic Calvinist[s]…too lukewarm to be martyrs, too honest to be hypocrites.”[lxiii]
This segment of society, because they had at one time printed a “Remonstrance” against the predestination theology of the Flemish refugees, were called “Remonstrants”.[lxiv] Their opponents, dominated by the émigré merchant-entrepeneurs overwhelmingly from Antwerp, were naturally called “Counter-Remonstrants”.Since as one historian points out, “the W.I.C. was the creation of the Counter-Remonstrants,” it is important that we understand the religious issues.[lxv]
At the risk of overly simplifying a complicated theological debate, the Remonstrants were Dutch humanists[lxvi] who believed that every person had free will. One's salvation was a matter of making the right choices, so an individual could either accept or reject God’s offer of salvation. The Counter-Remonstrants, on the other hand, that God’s omniscience cannot be limited. Since He knows all things and stands outside history (as it were) He already knows who the chosen few are. In other words, history unfolds as part of His plan, and those granted salvation was known by Him since before time. A concept many refer to as “Predestinantion”.
The debate between these two groups of Protestant theologians spilled over from the academic to the political. Generally speaking, those theologians who believed in free will (the Remonstrants or “Arminians” – after the Remonstrants’ Dutch leader) became closely identified with the “peace party” in politics. They saw more value in trade and accommodation with Spain than in unrelenting warfare. Their most prominent political supporter was Johannes Oldenbarnevelt.
The Counter-Remonstrants (or “Gomarists”, after their West Flemish leader, Franciscus Gomarus), became strongly identified in Dutch Republic politics with the “war party”. Their most prominent national advocate (besides Gomarus himself) was the son of the Prince of Orange, the Stadhouder Maurice, Captain-General of the army.
Both Arminians and Gomarists believed that these tensions between the two theological camps could only be resolved through a conclave of leading Protestant theologians. The Arminians began calling for a synod in 1610 which finally convened for six months in 1618-1619 at Dordrecht. While officially theological in nature, it was presided over by the United Provinces’ ruling body, the States General. Flemish attendees included the enterprising polymath Johannes De Laet of Antwerp as well as the relentless Petrus Plancius.
There were several important outcomes of the Synod. First, the Contra-Remonstrants under the Bruggeling Franciscus Gomarus were victorious. The Arminians were chased from pulpits in the Netherlands and scattered. The Gomarists’ interpretation of Scripture (making Predestination a central pillar of the Dutch Reformed Church) was deemed the correct one (and is today generally called the Belgic Confession). Second, a committee of 6 Hebrew/Greek scholars – three for the Old Testament and three for the New Testament – was appointed to preside over a new translation of the Bible (to correct what were perceived to be the Lutheran tilt of the first Dutch-language Bible printed at Antwerp in 1526).
This new Bible was to be the standard for the Dutch Reformed Church until the 20th century. At least half of these scholars – William Baudartius of Deinze, and Gerson Bucerus on the Old Testament; and the Gentenaar Antonius De Waele on the New Testament – were Flemings.[lxvii]Overseeing the entire effort were two others whom today we would call Flemings: The Antwerpenaar Anthonius Thysius and the Bruggeling Hermannus Faukelius[lxviii]. Later editing and revisions of these initial translators was tightly controlled by Franciscus Gomarus. Gomarus’ Contra-Remonstrant team included Gomarus, Thysius, Sebastian Damman of Antwerp and the sons of two Flemish immigrants: Joos Larenus (=Van Laren), and Johannes Polyander van Kerckhoven.[lxix] The Bible translation and editing project consumed the attention of these scholars until 1635. Upon completion, half a million Bibles were printed and disseminated throughout the Netherlands and its overseas settlements – including New Netherland of course.
Protestant Christian theology was not the only area impacted by the Flemings who controlled the Synod of Dordrecht. The political implications of the Synod were far-reaching too. The Arminians’ loss of influence in the theological debate was matched by the Peace-Party’s loss of political power. The Synod concluded May 9, 1619. Four days later (May 13th) Johannes Oldenbarnevelt, the Pensionary of Holland who in the interests of the 12 Year Truce with Spain (1609-1621) had quashed efforts in 1606-1609 to set up the W.I.C., was beheaded.[lxx]
The way was now open for the Republic to resume a war footing. And, as part of that effort, a quasi-military company was needed that would take the fight to Spain’s rich New World settlements. In the words of one historian of the W.I.C.: “The establishment of the [Dutch] West India Company resulted from a mixture of political and economic objectives, but its development was determined chiefly by political events and motives.”[lxxi]
[i] An excellent online English language description of what transpired can be found here:http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/koss002text01_01/koss002text01_01_0002.php . As these Dutch authors point out, “The expansion of Calvinism in the Southern Netherlands, particularly in Flanders, took place long before it achieved success in what were later to become its strongholds: Holland, Zeeland and Friesland.” E.H. Kossmann & A.F. Mellink, Texts Concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1974) http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/koss002text01_01/koss002text01_01_0002.php p.8
[ii] For those interested in a deeper dive into that historical context – at least in so far as the political and religious milieu in the Low Countries intersected at that time, I would recommend a look at Alastair Duke,Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries, (London: Hambledon & London, 2003). For the Anabaptist side of the story in Flanders, please see A. L. E. Verheyden,Anabaptism in Flanders, 1530-1650, (Sottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1961). For the Calvinist bit, please see Guido Marnef, “The Changing Face of Calvinism in Antwerp, 1550-1585”, in Andrew Pettegree, Alastair Duke, and Gillian Lewis, eds.,Calvinism in Europe, 1540-1620, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.143-159. Another excellent perspective is in Martin Van Gelderen.The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt,1555-1590, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).Lastly but hardly least, is the excellent (and supremely relevant) work by Peter Arnade,Beggars, Iconoclasts, & Civic Patriots: The Political Culture of the Dutch Revolt, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).
[iii] The small Flemish village where the iconoclasm (“beeldenstorm”) began was Steenvoorde (since 1688, with few interruptions, under French occupation). The trigger for the iconoclasm that began the “Dutch Revolt” was the preaching of Sebastian Matte, a hatmaker from Ieper who, returning from exile in England (to where he had fled in 1563), delivered a fiery speech outside the St. Laurence monastery in Steenvoorde. Immediately afterwards, an ex-Augustinian monk (also from Ieper) by the name of Jacob de Buzere, led twenty toughs into the convent there where they began smashing and wrecking. So began the “Dutch” Revolt. See Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt, (Middlesex: Penguin, 1979), pp.74-75. For graphics seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeldenstorm
[iv]Those who began the iconoclasm were radicalized not only by their religious inclinations (uncompromising Calvinism) but also because, like political refugees the world over, they had been dispossessed of their livelihood and homes. “It is no coincidence that one of those who began the image-breaking in August 1566 was Jacob de Buzere [native of Ieper/Ypres], minister of the Dutch [language] church at Sandwich [England], and after the collapse of the Revolt in the spring of 1567 resistance was continued by a band of marauders recruited in Norwich and Sandwich, who carried out a series of brutal attacks in Flanders.” Andrew Pettegree,Foreign Protestant Communities in Sixteenth-Century London, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 252-253. Kindly note that this and other studies of the so-called “Dutch” Protestant churches in England at this time carry overwhelming proof that the Low Countries’ origin of the “Dutch” in England was overwhelmingly Flemish and that they actively gave their money and men to the cause of the “Dutch” Revolt. For example, in referring to the so-called “Dutch” church at Sandwich, the authoritative historian on that community declared that: “With very few exceptions they [Dutch-speaking exiles in Sandwich] were all natives from East and West Flanders or Brabant...They came from localities such as Antwerp, Axel, Bethune, Bruges, Deinze, Ghent, Hulst, Izegem, Kortrijk, Moorsele, Ostend, Oudenaarde, Pamel, Roeselare, Ronse, Turnhout, Wervik, the Westkwartier of Flanders.” Marcel Backhouse,The Flemish and Walloon Communities at Sandwich during the Reign of Elizabeth I (1561-1603), (Brussel: Paleis der Academien, 1995), p. 18.
[v]“The new creeds upset the authorities not only for the religious reasons, but also because they bred lawlessness.” John J. Murray, Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and Brueghel, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p.36. “The term beeldenstorm usually conjures up a scene of indiscriminatedestruction with wreckers and looters running amuck in the churches. Such outbreaks were in fact comparatively rare in the northern Netherlands.” Alastair Duke, Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries, (London: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.162.
[vi] My explanation here is incredibly condensed and simplistic. Those with an interest in a more thoughtful treatment of the subject matter in English may want to pick up the classic: The Dutch Revolt, by Geoffrey Parker (Cambridge, 1977). For an online sequence please see my series “The Flemish Influence on the Pilgrims” in my blog, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. A further note is in order here. While today the Dutch-speakers of the Netherlands (which is a corruption of the Dutch language term for the ‘Low Countries’ – Nederland) are called “Dutch” and those of Flanders called “Flemish” in reality, they were originally united by government, language, and culture. Even today, all children in the Netherlands and Flanders officially study the same language, “ABN” (General Refined Dutch). Thus, in many respects, the difference between the Dutch and Flemish is akin to that between (say) North Koreans and South Koreans.
[vii] Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1978), 1st ed., pp. 74-78.
[viii]Geoffrey Parker, "New Light on an Old Theme: Spain and the Netherlands 1550-1650."European History Quarterly1985 15(2): 219-236; p. 226
[ix]“Cologne…while it may not seem a particularly obvious conduit for the Dutch or Flemish precursors of New Netherland colonists, was shared as such by, for example, the Beeckman family [from Deinze], the ten Eyck family (via their Boel ancestry)[from Antwerp], and by the Nevius family (via their Becks ancestry).” John Blythe Dobson, “The Ver Veelen Family in Cologne and Amsterdam,” pp.123-127 in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, April, 2002; pp.123-124. The Ver Veelens were from Antwerp.
[x]“On 17 August 1585, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, conquered Antwerp….Included among these refugees [from Antwerp] were members of the Boel family who chose Cologne, Germany as their new home. Although many Boel baptisms were found in the register of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Antwerp, only two were children of Adriaen Boel and his wife Cornelia....It was not unusual for Protestants to have a few of their children baptized in the Catholic Church to give the impression [that] they were devout Catholics.” Gwenn F. Epperson, New Netherland Roots, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994), p.129.
[xi]“The strangers [alien immigrants in England] undoubtedly made an important contribution to the war effort across the narrow seas [in the Low Countries].” The author goes on to cite examples of funds raised from the Flemish and Walloon Protestant communities in England as well as the troops raised continuosly from the late 1560s through the early 1600s. To cite but one Flemish example: Adolf Van Meetkeercke was born in Brugge and had four sons. A scholar of Greek, he became the liaison between the government of the United Provinces and Queen Elizabeth’s chief representative there, the Earl of Leicester. Although the entire family was forced to flee to England (in 1580, in part because of his Anglophile sentiments), each son returned at the head of an English military unit. Two died in the wars. Of the two that survived, one continued to serve – eventually under the command of Sir Francis Drake. Drake commended this son (Baldwin, Adolf’s second) for bravery off Cadiz in 1596, for which service he was knighted. See D.J.B. Trim, “Protestant Refugees in Elizabethan England and Confessional Conflict in France and the Netherlands, 1562-c.1610,” pp. 68-79, in Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, eds., From Strangers to Citizens: The Integration of Immigrat Communities in Britain, Ireland and Colonial America, 1550-1750, (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2001).
[xii] Please see my earlier post on the extensive role that émigré Flemings played in the Sea Beggar attacks and especially the key victory at Den Briel in 1572 and in the liberation of Leiden in 1574. See my post here on the connection between the Flemish, the liberation of Leiden, and the Flemish connection to the two, please see http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/11/flemish-influence-on-pilgrims-part-5.html. Note also Dr. J. Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572-1630: Een Demografische en Cultuurhistorische Studie, (Sint-Niklaas: Danthe, 1985), “Table XXI: Immigratie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden-Samenvatting”, p. 214. Several other cities, such as Haarlem and Middelburg, also had more than 50% non natives in 1622. This has prompted Gusaaf Asaert, in 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p.156, to call Haarlem (for example) “een half-Vlaamse stad”.
[xiii] See especially Pieter Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1555-1609, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980), 2nd Ed., pp.180-202.
[xiv] While the association between Flemish Protestants and Contra-Remonstrant (=”hard-core”) Calvinism was strong, it was not absolute. As Professor J.G. Van Dillen noted, 40 of the 250 Arminian preachers he identified in Amsterdam in the 1620s were “Zuidnederlanders”. See “Naschrift van Dr. J.G. Van Dillen” in W.J. van Hoboken, “Een wederwoord inzake de Westindische Compagnie,” pp. 49-56, inTijdschrift voor Geschiednis, 75ste, #1, (1962), p. 54.
[xv] It is worth repeating that in 1622, the year after the establishment of the W.I.C., several Netherlands cities (e.g., Haarlem, Leiden, & Middleburg most prominently) had more than 50% (!) “Zuidnederlanders” in their recorded population. The dominant part of these Zuidnederlanders we would today call Flemings. See Dr. J. Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572-1630: Een Demografische en Cultuurhistorische Studie, (Sint-Niklaas: Danthe, 1985), “Table XXI: Immigratie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden-Samenvatting”, p. 214.
[xvi] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.5.
[xvii] If you have an interest in Antwerp, by all means THE book to get on this period of time is Leon Voet,Antwerp, The Golden Age: The Rise and Glory of the Metropolis in the Sixteenth Century, (Antwerp: Mercatorsfonds, 1973). Besides esthetically beautiful, it is well-written, colorful, and includes trivia not found in English elsewhere in print.
[xviii] John J. Murray, Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and Brueghel, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p.43.
[xix]“Of the approximately 4,000 works printed in these years [1500-1540] in the Netherlands, 2,250 were produced at Antwerp, compared with 1,340 in the Northern Netherlands and 405 in [the] Southern Netherlands centers outside Antwerp. Of the 135 printers then active in the Netherlands, 68 were in Antwerp, 16 in the rest of the Southern Netherlands, and 51 in the northern provinces. In the following decades this concentration process was carried further.” Leon Voet,Antwerp The Golden Age: The Rise and Glory of the Metropolis in the Sixteenth Century, (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1973), p.395.
[xx]“Antwerp, the biggest commodity market of the West, had become its biggest money market….Portuguese and English monarchs also addressed themselves to Antwerp financiers…The biggest commodity and money mart of Europe of that time, the pulsing heart of its chief industrial country, with an industry of its own in full expansion – Antwerp in 1520-1560, could be said to have the wind in its sails.” Leon Voet, Antwerp The Golden Age: The Rise and Glory of the Metropolis in the Sixteenth Century, (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1973), p. 161.
[xxi] John J. Murray, Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and Brueghel, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p.44.
[xxii]John J. Murray, Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and Brueghel, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p.44.
[xxiii] This return actually understates their profitability because it only reflects the net increase in retained earnings. See Jacob Strieder, Jacob Fugger The Rich: Merchant and Banker of Augsburg, 1459-1525, (Washington, DC: Beard Books, 2001) reprint of 1931 Adelphi edition, trans. By Mildred L. Hartsough, ed. By N.S.B. Gras. pp. 86-90. By comparison, Vasco de Gama’s famous return home after a three year journey around Africa to India and despite having mismatched goods for trade (who needs wool clothing in the Indies?), made a 60x or 4,700% return for his investors. See Charles Corn,The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade, (New York: Kodansha, 1999), p.xxiv
[xxiv] See my article on the importance of spices and its connection to 16th century Flanders here:http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/10/flemings-around-magellan-and-first_31.htmlCuriously, Fugger historians believe that Antwerp helped make Jakob Fugger’s wealth possible and symbiotically he contributed to Antwerp’s 16th century greatness as “a world trading center”. See Jacob Strieder, Jacob Fugger The Rich: Merchant and Banker of Augsburg, 1459-1525, (Washington, DC: Beard Books, 2001) reprint of 1931 Adelphi edition, trans. By Mildred L. Hartsough, ed. By N.S.B. Gras. Pp. 101-102.
[xxv] Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The Structures of Everyday Life, Vol. 1, (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 504 and Vol. 3, p.39. Quoting Henri Pirenne,Histoire de Belgique, III, 1907, p. 259
[xxvi] Fernand Braudel, Civilization & Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The Perspective of the World, Vol. 3, (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p.39. Quoting Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, III, 1907, p. 259
[xxvii]The full poem is "Hoe cond ick U mijn broeders oyt vergheten; Daer wij toch sijn in eenen stronck gheplant; Al zijn wij noch so veer van een geseten; So can ons doch gescheyden zee noch lant..." Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde, Heylige schriftuerlijcke Lofsangen, (1589) quoted in Gustaaf Asaerts, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p.317.
[xxviii]See especially Pieter Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1555-1609, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980), 2nd Ed., and Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt, (Middlesex: Penguin, 1979), for an overview.
[xxix] Philip Marnix is yet another “Flemish Father” of the Dutch Revolt, neglected by historians. Perhaps it is in part because he presided over the fall of Antwerp in 1585. But his “Bijenkorf” was the polemic that helped articulate the rebels position and helped to justify their actions in the eyes of the people and that of foreign powers. It was translated into multiple languages and served to rally not only Flemings and Dutchmen but the English and other Protestant standard bearers as well. See the text ofDe Bijenkorf der H. Roomsche Kerk(1569) herehttp://www.dbnl.org/tekst/marn001bien01_01/ All this means (to me at least) that Marnix deserves his own post. Besides mayor of Antwerp, spymaster for William, Prince of orange, author of the lyrics for “Het Wilhelmus” (the world’s oldest national anthem), he was also a polymath of the first degree. For a biopic, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Marnix_van_St._Aldegonde
[xxx] There is an excellent map on p. 180 of Geyl’s book which shows the year-by-year advances of the Spanish between the mid 1570s and 1594. The sequence, for the record, of notable Spanish captures of Dutch-speaking cities were Leuven & Roermond (1578), Den Bosch & Maastricht (1579), Groningen & Koevoerden (1580), Oudenaarde & Steenwyck (1582), Dunkirk, Eindhoven, Nieuwpoort, & Zutphen (1583), Brugge, Gent, & Ieper (1584), Antwerp, Brussel, Mechlin, & Nymwegen (1585),Venlo (1586) and Deventer & Sluis (1587): Pieter Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1555-1609, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980), 2nd Ed., p.180.
[xxxi]Geoffrey Parker, "New Light on an Old Theme: Spain and the Netherlands 1550-1650."European History Quarterly1985 15(2): 219-236; p. 226
[xxxii] Bios on the father Cornelis (born in Antwerp), and the son Frans (born in Brussel), can be found here Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 207.
[xxxiii] De Sille was born at Mechelen. His bio can be found here: Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 205.
[xxxiv] Lipsius was born at Vilvoorde, a town on the periphery of Brussel. He I an example of the shifting political sands at this time: first dean of the University of Leiden(sponsored by the Prince of Orange as a reward for the valiant defense by the inhabitants in 1574 – see my blog post on the subject here: http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/11/flemish-influence-on-pilgrims-part-5.html), and then switched to the University at Leuven (under Spanish, Catholic control). Many made these switches.
[xxxv]Please see my earlier post on Van Meteren here:http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/07/flemish-fathers-of-america-emanuel-van.html. The only full biography on Van Meteren is W.D. Verduyn,Emanuel Van Meteren, (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1926). As far as I am aware, despite his immense contributions and influence, no full biography on Van Meteren in English exists.
[xxxvi] John Franklin Jameson, Willem Usselinkcx: Founder of the Dutch and Swedish West India Companies, (Boston: G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1887), Vol. 2, Issue 3, p.27
[xxxvii] Quoted in Hugo De Schepper, Belgium Nostrum, 1500-1650: Over Integratie en Disintegratie van het Nederland, (Antwerpen: De Orde van Den Prince, 1987), p.i.
[xxxviii] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.35.
[xxxix] Leon Voet, Antwerp The Golden Age: The Rise and Glory of the Metropolis in the Sixteenth Century, (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1973), p. 314.
[xl] Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), p.13.
[xli] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 219.
[xlii]“Sir Thomas Gresham, who knew continental markets well, thought of Amsterdam, if we may judge from his correspondence, only as a place in which to buy wainscoting.”Violet Barbour,Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), pp.14-15. Incidentally, Gresham is famous for having established the London Stock Exchange, modeling it after the Antwerp Bourse.
[xliii] Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), p.18.
[xliv] There is an extensive list of “financial firsts” that the V.O.C. can effortlessly lay claim to. These “firsts” I am compiling as material for a future post. But those interested in (to cite just one example) the corporate governance ‘firsts’ that stem from the founding of the V.O.C. (as well as the source of my quote in the sentence above) should see Ella Gepken-Jager, Gerard van Solinge, and Levinus Timmerman, eds., VOC 1602-2002: 400 Years of Company Law, (Nijmegen: Kluwer, 2005), Law of Business and Finance Series, Vol. 6, p.x.
[xlv]Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River With Bibliographical Notes, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), reprint, pp.17-18. “As early as 1650, total dividend payments were already eight times the original investment, implying an annual rate of return of 27 per cent.” Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, (New York: Penguin, 2008), p.137. Incidentally, an annual dividend rate of this magnitude places the V.O.C. returns at better than any 20th century investor known.
[xlvi] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 219.
[xlvii]“Naschrift van Dr. J.G. Van Dillen” in W.J. van Hoboken, “Een wederwoord inzake de Westindische Compagnie,” pp. 49-56, inTijdschrift voor Geschiednis, 75ste, #1, (1962), p. 53..
[xlviii] Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River With Bibliographical Notes, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), reprint, p. 5.
[xlix] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 219.
[l] The circle of friends prominent men at this time had could often be proven by means of their Album Amicorum(“Friendship Book”). Thus, in Van Meteren’s is a detailed statement of friendship, penned by the Stadthouder, William of Nassau, and dated April 13, 1578. In the same album one also finds other leaders of the time including Philip Marnix (July 20, 1576 in Middleburg), Van Meteren’s 1st cousin Abraham Ortelius (March 15, 1576 in Antwerp and April 13, 1577 in London), Daniel Rogers another 1st cousin and Queen Elizabeth’s spy/envoy, June 6, 1578 in London), Simeon Ruytinck (Gent-origin leader of the “Dutch” Church in London (no date), and Petrus Plantius (November 4, 1595 in Amsterdam). See W.D. Verduyn, Emanuel Van Meteren, (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1926), pp.231-233..
[li] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.35.
[lii]“De Laet combined a commercial spirit with religious zeal and a vast knowledge of many subjects. He was an upright Contra-Remonstrant, [and he] had been a member of the famous Synod of Dordrecht which had set the record straight concerning the true religion.” Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.30.
[liii] The actual passage is: “De meeste middelenwaer mede den Koningh van Hispangnien de gantsche Weerelt, ende insonderheyt Christenrijck, soo vele Jaren in roeren heft gehouden, ende dese Gheunieerde Provintien soo machtich bestreden, zijn voornementlijck hem toe-ghekommen uyt de over-ricke Landen van America: Wat groote schatten van Goudt ende Silver hy uyt die ghewesten jaerlijcks heft ghetrocken is alle de Weerelt ghenoegh bekent.” Johanne De Laet,Historie ofte Jaerlijck Verhael van de West-Indische Compagnie, (Leyden: Bonaventeur en Abraham Elsevier, 1644), p.1.
[liv] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.35.
[lv] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.34.
[lvi] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.35.
[lvii] The full sentence actually is: “Intelligent en welsprekend, begaafd met een levendige fantasie, overtuigd Calvinist en hater van de Spaanse monarchie, heft hij zijn leven lang telkens weer nieuwe plannen ontworpen om de Spaanse machtspositie in Amerika te ondermijnen.” J.G. Van Dillen, “De West-Indische Compagnie, Het Calvinisme en de Politiek,” in Tijdschrift voor Geschiednis, 74, Aflevering 2 (1961), p. 145.
[lviii]“The date of conception for the WIC is not entirely clear. Usselinckx claims to have been discussing the project from the early 1590s, and in a pamphlet of 1630 he notes (three times) that his efforts on behalf of the Company predated its foundation by thirty years – dating it, thus, from 1591.” However, “the earliest published proposals for a WIC date from 1604 – a now lost “police” recorded in Van Meteren.” Benjamin Schmidt, The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), paperback edition, 2006; pp. 366-367, n96 & n103.
[lix] Not only did Plancius supply the charts for Hudson’s voyage but he played a critical role in slapping the difficult (and it seems dishonest) Henry Hudson in line. See copies of V.O.C. correspondence (both transcripted and in translation) in Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River With Bibliographical Notes, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), reprint. See especially the Translations on pp. 139-140.
[lx]Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River With Bibliographical Notes, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), reprint, p.10.
[lxi] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 221.
[lxii] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.35.
[lxiii] Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), p.32.
[lxiv]See for example, this interesting passage from Professor Asaert: "In Leiden namen vooral Vlamingen de plaatsen in van e uitgestoten remonstraten en katholieken. In de kerkenraden hadden Brabanders en Vlamingen zoals gezegd al een grote invloed verworven....In Leiden, met een gemengd calvinistisch-remonstratse kerkenraad, vroeg de magistraat in 1615 aan Episcopius, de bekende remontstrantse hoogelaar, of hij voortaan 's zondags regelmatig aan de predikdienst wilde meewerken. 'Neen,' antwoordde de arminiaan, 'ik wil niet onderworpen zijn aan de censuur van de Vlamingen in de kerkenraad.'” Gustaaf Asaert,1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2002), p.294.
[lxv]“De West-Indische Compagnie was de schlepping van het Contra-Remonstrantisme”. See Pieter Geyl, Geschiednis van de Nederlandse stam, (Amsterdam, 1949), Vol. I, p.484.
[lxvi] However, there were prominent Flemish theologians among this group as well. For example, Petrus Bertius (1565-1629) who was born in Beveren-Roesbrugge in Flanders and died in Paris. Like Plancius Bertius was a cartographer. Unlike Plancius, he supported Arminius (and was one of those who drafted the “Remonstrance” that gave the group its name). As a result of the rise of the Counter-Remonstrants, he fled to France and at the invitation of Louis XIII became the royal cosmographer. He died a Roman Catholic. See Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 117.
[lxvii] Baudartius was based at Zutphen. His grandson Willem Beekman became the longest serving New York City Mayor. His descendants include Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush. Baudartius grandson, Willem Beekman, was to become the longest-serving New York City mayor. The family connection has been chronicled in here:http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html. Bucerus was based at Veere and had solid English contacts (as did Baudartius, who had been raised in Sandwich, England; and Gomarus for that matter – who had studied at Oxford and graduated from Cambridge). Meanwhile, Herman Faukelius was a preacher at Middleburg. See Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), pp. 177-178 and p. 305. For a quick online review, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statenvertaling .
[lxviii]See Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), pp. 177-178 and pp.304-305.
[lxix]Polyander, whose father was born in Gent, was the Leiden theologian (together with Gomarus) most frequently referred to by the Pilgrims at Leiden as their close friend. For that reference, see William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, (New York: Random House, 1981), Francis Murphy, ed., 1st ed., pp. 20-22. Polyander, in fact, wrote the introduction (dated January 10, 1617) to the first Dutch language book printed by William Brewster (the “Commentary on Proverbs” by Cartwright) off of the Pilgrim’s Press. SeeRendel Harris & Stephen K. Jones, The Pilgrim Press: A Bibliographical & Historical Memorial of the Books Printed at Leyden by the Pilgrim Fathers, (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1922), Figure 22, at the end of the book (no page number). Later, Polyander and the Gentenaar Antonious Walaeus (De Waele) were to act as intermediaries from King James to Thomas Brewer to shut down the Pilgrim Press. See D. Plooij,The Pilgrim Fathers From a Dutch Point of View, (New York: New York University Press, 1932), pp. 76-77. For context on the Pilgrim-Polyander connection, see George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers: Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers and Their Families, with Their Friends and Foes; and an Account of Their Posthumous Wanderings in Limbo, Their Final Resurrection and Rise to Glory, and the Strange Pilgrimmages of Plymouth Rock, (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981), pp. 99, 107. For the background/bio on Polyander see Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), pp. 177, 305.
[lxx] Not only Oldenbarnevelt, but his close allies and family suffered the retribution of the Contra-Remonstrants. His allies were deprived of their goods and imprisoned. His sons plotted revenge against Prince Maurice but failed. One (Renier) killed himself. The other (Willem), married to the grand-daughter of Philip Marnix, the Prince of Orange’s right-hand, spymaster and the author of the lyrics to Het Wilhelmus (the Dutch national anthem) fled to Brussels and outwardly became a Roman Catholic. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_van_Oldenbarnevelt as well ashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_Oldenbarnevelt and Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and On the Wild Coast: 1580-1680, (Gainesville: University of Florida, 1971), pp. 36-39.
[lxxi] W.J. van Hoboken, “The Dutch West India Company; The Political Background of its Rise and Decline,” in J.S. Bromley, et.al., eds., Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia, p. 61.
Copyright 2011 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form is permitted without my express, written consent.
In this post I will attempt to highlight another tranche of the many Flemish contributions to the founding of the Dutch West India Company, aka, the W.I.C.
One Canadian historian has called this string of contacts in Atlantic ports the ‘Protestant International’. Linked closely by similar religious convictions, driven by a fury at a common enemy, and united by blood and marriage ties, these Flemish émigré families formed a vast trading network. “A cosmopolitan society of shipping merchants, a ‘Protestant International’, already existed at the time Quebec was founded in 1608, indeed much earlier.”[xxi]
The ‘Protestant International’ in France was heavily infiltrated by Flemish Protestant émigrés at La Rochelle and Rouen[xxii]. Flemish merchants ran their own enclaves within these French coastal towns called “cantons des Flamands”[xxiii] as they had done since the Middle Ages.[xxiv] Logically, then, when local troubles compelled Antwerp’s merchants to flee, they sought refuge with their relations in ports where they could continue – with as little disruption as possible – the trade they had carried on from Antwerp.
Of course when these merchants re-established themselves they retained many of their previous habits. Antwerp merchants exploited an elastic, multi-city trade: from Amsterdam to Plymouth, England, down to Portugal or the Flemish (Azores) Isles[xxviii], over to the Caribbean and up to Newfoundland and then back (sometimes with an intermediate port call at Bristol) home.[xxix] As émigrés the Flemish merchants attempted much the same circuit (minus of course Antwerp). Each year, in competition with those around them, they sought better sources of goods and better markets. Moreover, these émigré merchants often did not have direct access to those in power (who usually awarded geographic monopolies. Thus to earn a living they must The notarial record, while spotty, suggests many illicit voyages were conducted each year. “The posts being established in the new French colonies were linked in trade with the Protestant Dutch and English and with various European cities.”[xxx]
Several factors accelerated the expansion of the Flemish column within the ‘Protestant International’. As arcane as it may seem, fashion was one of these factors. Paris even then set the pace for modish dress in the Western world and in the second half of the 16th century there was an increasing push toward felt hats (made from treated fur) for men. Siberian furs, supplied by Flemish expatriate merchants like Olivier Bruneel from Narva, were shipped through Antwerp.[xxxi] The furs were sufficiently inexpensive to generate profits along the supply chain and feed the rising demand for men’s felt hats in western Europe.[xxxii]
However, several political events interrupted this flow of furs. First, in 1580, Narva, the gathering point of Siberian furs, fell to the Swedes who cut off access to this portal for these inexpensive pelts.[xxxiii] Second, and exacerbating the first, Antwerp, the primary European marketplace for all goods (including of course the Siberian fur market for west European buyers) was under nearly constant attack from 1578 until 1585, when it captured by Spain. France at the time was also at war with Spain. Parisian hatters, then, faced a difficulty in not only accessing the emporium where these furs normally could be bought (Antwerp), they also faced a serious problem of access to the Russian hinterland from which came those Siberian furs.[xxxiv] Logically, then, after Antwerp fell in 1585, Flemish Protestants in neighboring diasporas “began to reach out to North America and to take French ports into [their] orbit.”[xxxv]
The process of integrating Flemish trading networks with links between France and New France began long before either Narva or Antwerp fell in the 1580s. Flemish Protestants, such as the West Fleming Adriaen van Bergues, had combined trade and piracy from French and English seaports at least as early as the 1560s. Van Bergues himself used Sandwich, England as his primary base but would make regular runs to La Rochelle, where later even the mayor, Jean Guiton, had Flemish relatives.[xxxvi] By 1568 van Bergues was leading the watergeuzen (Sea Beggars) as an admiral on behalf of the Prince of Orange.[xxxvii] Nor was this a simple bilateral situation. No later than the following year (1569), the Antwerp native Jean van Resteau, while resident in Cologne, was making regular visits to La Rochelle for trade.[xxxviii]
Once on site, the Flemings jumped right in. As early as the 1570s (and possibly earlier), Flemish Protestants in France were financing trade to North America. In the words of one Canadian historian, this was another case of “economic interlacing [that] was the presence in French port towns on the Atlantic of ‘Flemish neighbourhoods’”.[xxxix] To take but one example, the Fleming Corneille de Bellois, likely from the town of Belle near Antwerp, financed French fishing voyages to Newfoundland in the 1570s.[xl] De Bellois, who ultimately became a French subject, went from financier to furrier: he was fur-trading in Canada from 1604-1608 (outfitting perhaps 10 ships during that time). Later, from 1613 to 1620, de Bellois was a member of Samuel Champlain’s trading company.[xli] This trading company included other Flemish investors and participants, as we shall see.
As this suggests, De Bellois’ was not the sole Flemish involvement with France’s fur trading in North America. Trading partnerships of the time usually conducted trade through merchant families linked by marriage and blood (as well of course, by ancestry and religious affiliation). Take, for example, the Antwerp families of the Hontoms, Vogels, Jabachs, and Duysterloos.[xlii] Linked by marriage, religious affiliation (Lutheran), and origin (Antwerp), they eventually conducted a far-reaching trade with North America. This family network connected Paris, Rouen, LaRochelle, Cologne, Antwerp, Middleburg, and Amsterdam to French America.[xliii]
It’s All in the Family
It is difficult today to appreciate the transnational intricacies of such a family business. Consider Hendrick Hendricksz. Duysterloo, who was born at Middlebrug in 1569 to Flemish Protestant émigré parents from Antwerp. His mother was a Jabach and his step-mother a Pelgrom. Like his cousin Hans Honthom[xliv] (about whom more later), he traded beaver furs in Paris on behalf of the family business, which was called “Jean Honthom, Evrard Jabach & Co.”, well into the early 17th century. Eventually, Hendrick Duysterloo also became a French subject (in 1607).[xlv] Matthijs Duysterloo, who lived in Paris and was certainly a relative (brother? son?) of Hendrick, in fact “controlled the market for supplying Canadian beaver pelts to Parisian hatters.”[xlvi]
Hendrick Duysterloo himself was also a heavy financial backer of a prominent, Rouen-based, French fur trader: Francois du Pont Gravé.[xlvii] While not likely a name familiar to Americans, du Pont Gravé is well-known among Canadian students for co-leading Samuel de Champlain’s historic voyage to Canada in 1603 and co-founding New France[xlviii]. Du Pont Gravé’s involvement with Champlain is better understood when one takes into account the fact that he made multiple voyages for beaver pelts to North America from at least the 1590s until the 1620s.[xlix] For their involvement through du Pont Gravé then Flemings can also lay an indirect claim of assisting in the founding of New France.
Chronicling the role of these Flemings is not easy, which is one reason history textbooks rarely trumpet the role of the émigré Flemings. Family trading dynasties tend to be secretive. Many of their business exploits, records, and achievements are as a result lost to history. However, a few of these enterprises have left for us an archival trail.
In 1606, just two years before the Antwerp native Emanuel Van Meteren recruited Henry Hudson to explore for the V.O.C.[l], another group of Flemish merchants sent out the huge (320 lasts/640 tonnes) ship, the Witte Leeuw (“White Lion”) to trade, fish, and privateer along the North American coast. The Witte Leeuw partnership was owned by eight, prominent Amsterdam residents, three of whom at least, Bernaert Berrewijns, Hans Hunger[li] and Louis del Becque, were Antwerpenaar émigrés. It is probably not an accident that the supercargo of the Witte Leeuw was from Rouen, the same city where Cornelis De Bellois was based.[lii]
My next post on the Flemish Founding of the Dutch West India Company/W.I.C. will focus on the “voorcompagnien” – the various ‘predecessor companies’ that paved the way for the W.I.C.
Endnotes
[i] Please see my earlier posts on Flemings amongst the Vikings and the possible Gent connection to Rhode Island’s Newport Tower here: http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/06/first-flemings-in-america-part-one.html
[ii] Those raised on the King James Version of the Bible may recall these passages: “And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.” (Mark 12:42) and “And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.” (Luke 21:2). http://www.biblelookup.com .
[iii]“The discovery, however, which has just been made on Newfoundland….A party of English settlers, in proceeding up the river which falls into Conception Bay, a little to the northward of St. John’s, observed, at the distance of about six or seven miles above the bay, the appearance of stone walls, rising just above the surface. On removing the sand and alluvial earth, they discovered the remains of ancient buildings, oak-beams, and mill stones sunk in oaken beds. Enclosures resembling gardens were traced out, and plants of various kinds, growing about the place not indigenous to the island. But the most decisive proof of these ruins being the remains of an ancient European colony was in the different kinds of coins that were found, some of ductile gold, which the inhabitants considered to be old Flemish coins, and others of copper without inscriptions. The coins, which are said to be in the hands of many of the inhabitants of St. John’s…are stamped with the impression of a sun, a star, or simply a cross, but without any inscription…they [the Viking inhabitants of Newfoundland] also trafficked even before that period [the late 1300s] with foreign money, which they received principally from the Flemings.” Sir John Barrow, A Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions: Undertaken Chiefly for the Purpose of Discovering a North-East, North-West, or Polar Passage Between the Atlantic and Pacific, (London: J. Murray, 1818), pp.24-25.
[iv] It is undisputable that Flemish priests made landfall (briefly) in Florida in 1512. It is also certain that Flemings visited and lived in Greenland in the 1300s, as Norwegian archives support. It is highly likely that Flemings were included amongst the Vikings at Newfoundland in the 1000s. See my earlier posts for detailed references to these items. Please note also that the eastern most extension of what we today call the Outer Banks, the rich fishing grounds off of the coast of Newfoundland, have traditionally been called the “Flemish Cap”. This is the closest North Atlantic fishing ground for Europeans. European fishermen could fish there literally year-round. Even today, fishermen, when making for the Flemish Cap from Europe, would often say, “We are headed for Flemish.” See Rosa Garcia-Orellan, TerraNova: The Spanish Cod Fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the Twentieth Century, (Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press, 2010), p.222.
[v] An excellent book that details the link between the Catholic feast days, the diet shift to fish, and link between the subsequent demand for fish and the discovery of North America is Brian Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World, (New York: Basic Books, 2006).
[vi] The Atlantic cod “preserves unusually well because its white flesh is almost entirely devoid of fat. Fat resists salt and slows the rate at which salt impregnates fish. This is why oily fish, after salting, must be tightly pressed in barrels to be preserved, whereas cod can be simply laid in salt. Also fatty fish cannot be exposed to air in curing because the fat will become rancid. Cod, along with its relatives including haddock and whiting, can be air-dried before salting, which makes for a particularly effective cure that would be difficult with oily fish such as anchovy or herring.” Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History, (New York: Penguin, 2003), p.114.
[vii]“The Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, flourishes over an enormous area of the North Atlantic, with a modern range from the northern Barents Sea south to the Bay of Biscay, around Iceland and the southern tip of Greenland, and along the North American coast as far south as North Carolina. Streamlined and abundant, it grows to a large size, has nutricious, bland flesh, and is easily cooked. It is also easily salted and dried, an important consideration when the major markets for salt cod were far from the fishing grounds, and often in the Mediterranean. When dried, cod meat is almost 80 percent protein.” Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850, (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p.70.
[viii]“Cod migrate for spawning, moving into still-shallower [less than 120 feet deep] water close to coastlines, seeking warmer spawning grounds and making it even easier to catch them.” Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, (New York: Penguin, 1997), p.42.
[ix]“The record for long-distance travel belongs to a cod tagged in the North Sea in June 1957 and caught on the Grand Banks in January 1962 after a journey of about 3,200 kilometers.” Brian Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World, (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.228.
[x]“A Flemish Buss doth often take seven or eight Last [=14-16 tonnes] of herrings in a day. But if GOD gave a Buss, one day with another, but two Last of herrings a day, that is, twelve Last of herrings in a week; then at that rate, a Buss may take, dress, and pack the said whole Proportion of a hundred Last of herrings (propounded to be hoped for), in eight weeks and two days, And yet is herein[after] allowance made for victuals and wages for sixteen weeks, as after followeth. Of which sixteen weeks time, if there be spent in rigging and furnishing the said Buss to sea, and in sailing from her port to her fishing-place; if these businesses, I say, spend two weeks of the time, and that the other two weeks be also spent in returning to her port after her fishing season, and in unrigging and laying up the Buss: then I say (of the sixteen weeks above allowed for) there will be twelve weeks to spend only in fishing the herring.” Edward Arber, Social England Illustrated, a Collection of XVIIth Century Tracts With an Introduction by Andrew Lang, (Westminister: Archibald Constable & Co., 1903), Forgotten Books Classic Reprint, p.284.
[xi] Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), p.9.
[xii] Louis Sicking and Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, eds., Beyond the Catch: Fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900-1850, (Leiden: Brill, 2009), p.5.
[xiv] For the process see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbing . Note that in general the Flemish buss was a modest vessel and after 1600 almost exclusively for fishing. However, “a buss of 1523 was rated at over 200 tons. In 1570 there was a report of a buss which could bring home a catch of 140 tons. But from the 1570s size decreased and vessels of about 100 tons or less became the rule. The buss of those years would approach 25 meters in length and be over 5 meters broad with a depth of over 3 meters.”Richard W. Unger, Dutch Shipbuilding Before 1800, (Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1978), p.30.
[xv]“Columbus added to his own navigational problems by carrying both Flemish and Genovese compasses, and while the Genovese needle, or wire, was set in line with the north point of the [compass] card, the Flemish needle was probably offset to the east of north by three quarters of a point (8.4 degrees) as was the custom .” Lloyd A. Brown, The Story of Maps, (New York: Bonanza, 1949), p.133.
[xvi]“Portuguese mariners [at that time, considered leaders in the field] seem to have been quick to adopt the Flemish designations of the winds in preference to the Italian. In the Arte de navegar, of Pedro de Medina (Valladolid, 1545) [THE Bible of navigation for Europeans well into the late 17th century] the Flemish names are given on roses of four, eight, twelve, and thirty-two points. Roderigo Zamorano, in his Compendio del arte de navegar, (Seville, 1588) also used the Flemish names.” Lloyd Arnold Brown, The Story of Maps, (New York: Courier Dover, 1979), p.126.
[xvii] Please see my earlier post on the hows and whys of the beaver felt trade in North America here: http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2010/12/beaver-peltries-and-la-batard-flamand.html
[xviii] Bernard Allaire, “The European Fur Trade and the Context of Champlain’s Arrival,” pp. 50-60 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), pp.50-51.
[xix] J.K.J. de Jonge, De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie, (The Hague, 1892), Vol. I, p.31; quoted in Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), p.9.
[xx] Dolhain’s real name was Adriaen van Bergues. A native of Sint-Winnoksbergen, a village near Dunkirk, he was allied with the Prince of Orange as early as 1568. To raise men, money and materiel, the Prince of Orange sent Dolhain to the Flemish émigrés’ enclaves in England. See Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 212.
[xxi] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.3.
[xxii]“La Rochelle…was the point of departure for almost half of the ships sent to Canada.” Bernard Allaire, “The Occupation of Quebec by the Kirke Brothers,” pp. 245-257, in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.245.
[xxiii]“To the north and west of the port [of La Rochelle], the old parish of Saint Barthelemy was chiefly inhabited by foreign merchants and wealthier local gens de justice. Near the harbor, in rue Chef de Ville, congregated Dutch, Flemish, and German merchants with commercial operations in La Rochelle. In their honor, Rochelais [inhabitants of La Rochelle] called the main street intersection in the vicinity the ‘canton des Flamandes’.” Kevin C. Robbins, City on the Ocean Sea: La Rochelle, 1530-1650: Urban Society, Religion, and Politics on the French Atlantic Frontier, (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p.54.
[xxiv] Judith Chandler Pugh Meyer, Reformation in LaRochelle: Tradition and Change in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1568, (Geneva: Libraire Droz, 1996), pp. 25, 46-47. For the roots of these ‘cantons des Flamands’ in the early Middle Ages please see also Louis Sicking, Neptune and the Netherlands: State, Economy, and War at Sea in the Renaissance, (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p.21.
[xxv] For example, Jacques de Peyster, born at Gent in 1596, became a banker at Rouen, where he died in 1655. His wife Catherine de Lanoye, was incidentally, the daughter of Josse de Lanoye and Sara de Wannemaker of Antwerp. Another, Jean de Peyster, was a banker at La Rochelle. The rest of the family was scattered thru Haarlem, Utrecht, England, Ireland, and even Greece! See here, Henry De Peyster, “The Pre-American Ancestry of the De Peyster Family” in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, pp. 210-216 in Vol LXX (July, 1939) and pp. 313-331 of Vol.LXXI (October, 1939) for the detailed written backdrop with supporting documentation. Or, for a quick look at the simple connections, see http://www.frostandgilchrist.com/getperson.php?personID=I11518&tree=frostinaz01
[xxvi] The Gouverneurs were the maternal ancestors of Gouverneur Morris, one of the Founding Fathers of the American Republic. See Monroe Johnson, “The Gouverneur Genealogy”, in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, pp. 134-138 in Vol LXIX (April, 1939)
[xxvii] See Newbold LeRoy, III, “Appendix: The Van Sevenhoven Family of La Rochelle, Rotterdam, and New York”, pp.93-95 in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. CXXXI, (April, 2000). For the specific Antwerp connection please see Th. Van Lerius, Biographies D’Artistes Anversois, (Antwerpen: P. Kockx, 1880), Vol.II available in scanned online format here: http://scans.library.utoronto.ca/pdf/4/3/biographiesdarti01leriuoft/biographiesdarti01leriuoft.pdf
[xxviii] For an explanation (in Dutch) of how these islands came to be called the Flemish Isles, please see my earlier post here http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2009/11/een-vlaamse-voorloper-van-columbus.html
[xxix] That this was a trade route linked to the émigrés from Antwerp, is underscored by the anecdote about one of the few Dutch patroons in New Netherland, David Pietersz. De Vries: “In 1619, some Amsterdam merchants made him a proposal:’They suggested that after the ship [that de Vries was constructing] was built they would [pay] me to perform something which was never before practiced in this country [Holland]; that is, that I should sail to Terra Nova [Newfoundland], there loading my ship with fish.” Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), pp.8-12.
[xxx] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.3. See also Emanuel Van Meteren, Histoire der Neder-landscher ende haerder Na-buren Oorlogen ende geschiednuissen, Tot den Iare M.VIXII…, (‘s-Gravénhage, 1614), folio 63: “Et certes on en trouvera un plus grand nombre que communement on n’estime. Que sit ant seulement on regarde la multitude de ceux qui se sont retirez seulement en Angleterre tant a Londres qu’a Santwick, la ou ils ont leurs assemblees publiques en nombre infini; puis qu’on face monster de ceux qui sont a Francfort, a Strasbourg, a Heidelberg, a Franckendal, Coloigne, Aix, Dusbourg, Embden, Geneve, et aultres plusieurs villes et villettes, certainement qu’on n’en trouvera pas moins de cent mille.” Quoted in Dr. J. Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de Republiek 1572-1630: Een Demografische en Cultuurhistorische Studie, (Sint-Niklaas: Danthe, 1985), p.223, n.12.
[xxxi] See here for an excellent post in English on Olivier Brunel of Leuven/Brussel and his critical ‘first mover’ efforts to connect Flanders to China: http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/brunel.html
[xxxii] Bernard Allaire, “The European Fur Trade and the Context of Champlain’s Arrival,” pp. 50-60 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), pp.50-51.
[xxxiii] An excellent discussion of the Antwerp merchants’ dominance of this eastward-looking trade network in the period 1550 to 1580 (with a superb map on p.28 of Antwerp export markets) can be found in Cle Lesger and Eric Wijnroks, “The Spatial Organization of Trade: Antwerp Merchants and the Gateway Systems in the Baltic and the Low Countries c.1550,” pp. 15-35 in Hanno Brand, ed., Trade, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange: Continuity and Change in the North Sea Area and the Baltic, c.1350-1750, (Hilversum: Verloren, 2005).
[xxxiv] Bernard Allaire, “The European Fur Trade and the Context of Champlain’s Arrival,” pp. 50-60 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), pp.50-51.
[xxxv] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.3.
[xxxvi] See, for example, P.S. Callot, Jean Guiton Dernier Maire de l’Ancienne Commune de La Rochelle, 1628, (La Rochelle, 1872), pp.137-139. Also, seeJean Guiton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Guiton
[xxxvii] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 212.
[xxxviii] Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De Val van Antwerpen en de Uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p. 109.
[xxxix] Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.239.
[xl] The profits must have been outrageous on these fur trading ventures: De Bellois lent his money to one Frenchman, Pierre Chavin, for a fur trading expedition to Tadoussac in 1605 at 30% per annum. See Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.243.
[xli] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.4.
[xlii] Although he slips into the errors of many other historians without a deep understanding of Flemish history by classifying natives of Flanders and Brabant as “Dutch”, the source for this is the well-written and (unpublished?) article by York University Professor J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”especially pp.4-7.
[xliii] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.4.
[xliv]Hunthum was a Fleming but with a reputation for cruelty to the natives (mutilating an Indian chief’s genitalia when he did not receive beaver peltries quickly enough). So he was hardly a credit to the reputation of Flanders. For references to Huntum’s “black reputation”, see Van Cleaf Bachman, Peltries or Plantations: The Economic Policies of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland, 1623-1639, (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1969), p. 131 and p. 131, n.35. That reputation hurt the Netherlanders’ trading opportunities with the Mohawks. For at least 20 years (1613-1633) Hunthum traded and lived in Nieuw Nederland. He was a ship captain and fur trader, later in the service of the WIC. Hunthum was killed by Cornelius vander Vorst in a quarrel in April, 1634 at Rennsselaerwyck. Hunthum’s father's name was Joris. Hunthum married Ibel Hendricks,the widow of Adriaen Mathyszen vander Put, on May 8th, 1618 at Amsterdam and his son Hans born 5/2/1619 in Amsterdam. Hans Jr. was first a clerk and later a cashier for the WIC in the 1630s. See Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), pp.60-62.
[xlv] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.4.
For a description of the beaver trade in North America with the Amerindians, its role in settlement and intercolonial rivalries, and its importance to Europe, please see my earlier posting here: http://flemishamerican.blogspot.com/2010/12/beaver-peltries-and-la-batard-flamand.html .
[xlvi] Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.241.
[xlvii]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Grav%C3%A9_Du_Pont and http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=321
[xlviii] Du Pont Gravé actually commanded New France, supplanting Champlain, for several critical years. See http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=321
[xlix]“On [the company’s] behalf he [Duysterloo] lent 1,190 livres in 1608 to Francois Gravé du Pont who was sending two ships to trade for furs at Tadoussac [a village at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada] and Canso (Le Blant & Baudry, Nouveaux documents, p.83). This was a bottomry loan [loan against the goods of the ship] at 25 per cent premium. On 25 February 1609 Duysterloo lent du Pont 1,000 livres to send [the ship] Le Francois to trade for furs at Tadoussac, again on behalf of Jean Honton, Jabach & Cie., and on 23 December he bought 100 beaver skins from du Pont for 772 livres, these furs to be brought from Tadoussac to Honfleur by the Scottish captain William Douglas (Le Blant, “Un commerce international”, p.11-12). Earlier that year [1609] Duysterloo had bought 200 Canadian beaver furs from Jean Sarcel of Saint Malo. In 1620 Duysterloo was a member of the Compagnie du Canada and in 1622 of the Compagnie de Montmorency (Le Blant & Baudry, Nouveaux documents, pp. 182, 418-19, 432, 466-468).” J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,” p.18, n26. Needless to say, there is an entire subject here – Flemish Protestants in France and their connection to North American trade and discovery. But it will have to wait for a future post.
[l] While the Antwerp native Emanuel Van Meteren reportedly made the initial overture in England (since he was physically present and the Dutch Consul), in the V.O.C. leadership itself, Antwerp native Dirck Van Os (Head of the Amsterdam Chamber of the V.O.C.) and the Brugge native Jan Janszoon Carel together with Pieter Dirckszoon Hasselaer of Haarlem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Hasselaer were all heavily involved with the Dutch East India Company and with Henry Hudson's recruitment and engagement. All three were members of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company ("VOC"). Van Os, a native of Antwerp, was the most important: he was the 'originator' and head of the VOC. He was also the person who signed Henry Hudson's contract on behalf of the VOC. See Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River With Bibliographical Notes, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), reprint, p.10.
[li] Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), pp.47-48.
[lii] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.4. Note that one historian refers to the supercargo as “none other than the smuggler from Rouen Nicolaes de Bancquemaire,” Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.242.
[liii] Roman Catholics are currently the largest denomination in the Netherlands, accounting for more than 25% of the population. Mainline Protestants account for another 15%. Ironically, for a country formed in the fires of faith, the majority of the Dutch population today rejects Christianity. See Wikipedia for excellent visuals and an explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Netherlands
[liv] Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), p.13, n.7.
[lv] Lonck admitted in a notarized statement (now in the City of Amsterdam Archives) to have captured 107 barrel of grain and seven guns from the Spanih ship and 24,000 codfish from the Portuguese ship. See Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), pp. 13-15.
[lvi] Cornelius Jaenen, “Champlain and the Dutch,” pp. 239-244 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p.239. Samuel Eliot Morison in his Samuel de Champlain, Father of New France, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972), says (on p. 148) of Pierre Dugua de Monts: “As a founder of New France, de Monts was second only to Champlain in importance, and often Champlain’s commander; but he has received precious little recognition from French Canadians, or anyone.”For an excellent biography of this “honest, likeable, generous man” who could was also brave, efficient, and loyal, please see Jean-Yves Grenon, “Pierre Dugua de Mons Lieutenant General of New France,” pp. 143-150 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).
[lvii] J.F. Bosher, “French Ports and North America Before 1627: The View From LaRochelle,”p.4.
[lviii] Pierre Dugua De Mons affirmed this before a notary in 1596, two years before both the Edict of Nantes (which allowed freedom of religion in France) and when Dugua de Mons first visited Canada (and observed the trading for beaver pelts). See Jean-Yves Grenon, “Pierre Dugua de Mons Lieutenant General of New France,” pp. 143-150 in Raymond Litalien and Denis Vaugeois, eds., Champlain: The Birth of French America, trans. By Kathe Roth, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), p. 144.
[lix] Despite having many Flemish Contra-Remonstrant admirers, Grotius was imprisoned as an Arminian for several years. Ironically, Grotius fled to France and was taken in by Louis XIII. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Grotius downloaded July 15, 2011.
[lx] Cornelis’ son Francis was a prominent Contra-Remonstrant and played a role in the execution of Johan Oldenbarnevelt. See http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_van_Aerssen_(1545-1627) downloaded July 15, 2011.
[lxi] The restitution included handing over the Spanish guns! See Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson, (Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959), pp. 13-15.
Copyright 2011 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form is permitted without my express, written consent.
June 29, 1998
When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson penned words that would live forever in history. But was he the first to write them?
A UW-Madison expert says that Jefferson may have modeled the Declaration after a 16th-century Dutch document.
Stephen Lucas, professor of communication arts, has spent the last 15 years studying the origins of the Declaration, "arguably the most masterful state paper in Western civilization," he says. He has concluded that Jefferson and his colleagues in the Continental Congress based the Declaration in part on the Dutch Plakkaat (plah-KAT) van Verlatinge (vur-LAT-ing-uh), issued in 1581 to justify the Netherlands' revolt against Spanish rule.
While very little is known about the Declaration's true genesis, scholars generally agree that the document was influenced by several British state papers, especially the 1689 Declaration of Rights, which deposed King James II and brought to power William and Mary of Orange. Lucas, however, is the first to point to the Plakkaat, one of the earliest statements of the rights of citizens to combat a tyrannical ruler.
"Of all the models available to Jefferson and the Continental Congress, none provided as precise a template for the Declaration as did the Plakkaat," says Lucas, an expert on historical rhetoric. "When you look at the two documents side by side, you cannot avoid noticing that the American Declaration more closely resembles its Dutch predecessor than any other possible model."
Both documents, for example, begin with a preamble that justifies, in remarkably similar fashion, the right of citizens to revolt against tyrannical authority, Lucas notes. British state documents, he says, say nothing about the natural rights of citizens to remove a tyrannical leader.
It is merely the first of many parallels, Lucas says, between the Declaration and the Plakkaat, written to justify the actions of a long-suffering Dutch people to shake off colonial domination and establish a sovereign nation. Further comparison illustrates more similarities:
·Both present a lengthy catalog of grievances as evidence of their king's tyranny;
·Both document repeated attempts by the authors to seek redress of their complaints through existing legal and civic channels;
·Both conclude that, having repeatedly been rebuffed by despotic authority, the plaintiffs have no alternative but to invoke the right of revolution.
Lucas says it is feasible that Jefferson turned to the Plakkaat in pondering the Declaration. Jefferson used inspirational models in virtually every sphere of his artistic activity, including his design for his home Monticello, which he consciously derived from the great Italian architect Andrea Palladio.
But Lucas stresses that the resemblance between the two papers should not diminish our appreciation of the Declaration.
"Unlike our own age, which prizes originality, the 18th century gave its greatest accolades to those able to master the art of imitation," Lucas says. If done well, the imitation should surpass the model, and Lucas says our Declaration has served as the gold standard of such documents since 1776.
"The Declaration is a work of consummate artistry that sustains a perfect synthesis of style, form and content," Lucas says. "There could be no greater literary or rhetorical achievement."
http://www.news.wisc.edu/3049
The rebellious States-General decided on 14 June 1581 to officially declare the throne vacant[3], because of Philip's behavior, hence the Dutch name for the Act of Abjuration: "Plakkaat van Verlatinghe", which may be translated as "Placard[4] of Desertion." This referred not to desertion of Philip by his subjects, but rather, on a suggested desertion of the Dutch "flock" by their malevolent "shepherd," Philip [II].
A committee of four members – Andries Hessels, greffier (secretary) of the States of Brabant; Jacques Tayaert, pensionary of the city of Ghent; Jacob Valcke, pensionary of the city of Ter Goes (now Goes); and Pieter van Dieven (also known as Petrus Divaeus), pensionary of the city of Mechelen– was charged with drafting what was to become the Act of Abjuration.[3] The Act prohibited the use of the name and seal of Philip in all legal matters, and of his name or arms in minting coins. It gave authority to the Councils of the provinces to henceforth issue the commissions of magistrates. The Act relieved all magistrates of their previous oaths of allegiance to Philip, and prescribed a new oath of allegiance to the States of the province in which they served, according to a form prescribed by the States-General.[5] The actual draft seems to have been written by the audiencier.[6] of the States-General, Jan van Asseliers[7]
The Act was remarkable for of its extensive Preamble, which took the form of an ideological justification, phrased as an indictment (a detailed list of grievances) of King Philip. This form, which is strikingly similar to that of the American Declaration of Independence, has often given rise to speculations that Thomas Jefferson, when he was writing the latter, was at least inspired by the Act of Abjuration.[8][9]
The Preamble was based on Vindiciae contra tyrannos by Philippe de Mornay, and other works of monarchomachs may have been sources of inspiration also.[10] The rebels, in their appeal to public opinion, may have thought it more important to quote "authoritative" sources and refer to "ancient rights" they wished to defend. By deposing a ruler for having violated the Social Contract with his subjects, they were the first to apply the theoretical ideas that two hundred years later would ultimately form the basis for the American Declaration of Independence.
Excerpt from Introduction to Belgian Law, by Hubert Bocken & Walter de Bondt (Kluwer 2000)
p. 20 IV. Belgium’s contribution to law
“The idea of the rule of law was already present in Flemish cities in the twelfth century….When count William Clito came to power in Flanders in 1127, he guaranteed the inhabitants of his cities a right judgement of the cities’ aldermen against every man and against himself [the count]. The prince is already [at this time then] subject to the laws. The 1127 city charters were not mere words. On 16 February 1128, Ivan, Lord of Aalst, acted as the spokesman of the city of Ghent before the count. Ivan rebuked the court [sic] for not respecting the privileges he had given the burghers of Ghent and other cities. To settle the matter, he proposed [that] a special court should convene, in which the Peers of Flanders and representatives of the clergy and the people would sit to judge over the count. If this court should find the count unworthy of the countship, he would have to give it up. The count did not agree to this and Ivan and Ghent rose in revolt.
William was killed in the civil war that ensued and a new count came to power. The background of the conflict was the opinion of Ghent and other cities that there was a contractual relationship between the count and the citizens. They recognized him as their lord and he, in turn, recognized their privileges. If the count no longer respected his part of the deal by acting against the rights of citizens, they had a right to break their contract and to fight him. This contractual conception of the relationship between ruler and subjects returns in the city charters granted by William’s successor. Thereafter the counts managed to suppress it, but it reappeared at regular times in Flemish history. In 1191 the first article of a charter for the city of Ghent stated that the citizens were only subject to the count as long as he wanted to treat them justly and reasonably….The 1581 Act of Abjuration is reminiscent of Ivan of Aalst. By his failure to respect the rights of his subjects, Philip II of Spain had lost his right to rule the Netherlands.
of Which in Nieuw Nederland
of Which Flemings
Timeline of Flemish Discovery & Settlement of North America
·862-864 Baldwin Iron Arm establishes the County of Flanders in response to the depradations of Norsemen
·600s Sint Baaf (Saint Bavo) helps establish Christianity in Flanders
·800s St Ansgar of Tourhout becomes the first Catholic missionary to make a dedicated evangelization effort to Scandinavia (and some claim as far as Greenland)
·982-985The Norseman Eric the Red founds a colony in western Greenland; the settlement lasts until the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
·990-999Dankbrand, a Flemish missionary from Tourhout (and the Archbishop of Bremen, which diocese at that time explicitly included Scandinavia, Iceland and Greenland) converts first King Olaf of Norway and then Leif Ericsson
·c. 1000Leif Ericsson, returning to Greenland from Norway, is driven onto the North American coast, which he explores and tries unsuccessfully to settle. With Leif is a “Southlander” [e.g., German/Dutch/Flemish] Catholic priest named “Dirck” who gives Vineland its name.
·1147 Burgundian knightRaymond de la Coste, as a reward for serving the King of Portugal, Afonso I, in the siege of Lisbon, is granted a fief and the surname Corte Real.
·1297 Flanders is the first maritime nation to be accorded the honors of a naval salute (by England, via treaty)
·1302 Guldensporenslag/Battle of the Golden Spurs (July 11th)
·1320-1350 Jan de Langhe of Ieper writes The Travels of John Mandeville– which inspires Columbus & later explorers
·1327 Jan d’Ypres from Bruges purchases approximately 1500 pounds of walrus tusks from the archbishop of Nidarios who had received the tusks as tithes from Greenland (August 11th).
·1364 Jacobus Cnoyen pens the Inventio Fornato which describes the Arctic cartographic discoveries of a “fifth-generation Bruxellois” priest resident in Greenland. This is a book that inspires Columbus, Ruysch, Mercator, and the English thru John Dee to seek a northwest passage to Asia.
·Early 1400s “The use of the initials of the Frankish names of the winds – N, NNE, NE, etc. – on compass cards, seems to have arisen with Flemish navigators, but was early [1400s] adopted by the Portuguese and Spanish.”
·1427 circa Azores discovered by a Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges
·1429 Columbus’ father Domenico, at the age of 11, is apprenticed to a Flemish weaver from Brabant
·1447 Dirck Maartens, first printer in the Low Countries, is born at Aalst.
·1450 Jacome de Bruges (aka, Jacques/Jaak van Brugge) is granted a donatory as Capiton Terceira (March 2nd) by Prince Henry the Navigator.
·1450s-1470s Thousands of settlers from the Franc of Brugge emigrate to the Azores under the sponsorship of Prince Henry’s sister, Isabel, Duchess of Burgundy; the last European settlers die in Greenland – gravesite excavations uncover the latest Flemish fashions of 1450-1470 Flanders: pleated dresses for the women and conical hoods for the men.
·1460-1470 Joost Van Hurtere becomes lord/captain of the islands of Fayal and Pico (dies 1495).
·1471 1st printed book in the Low Countries (at Aalst); Alvaro Martins Homem granted captaincy of Angar region of Terceira
·1474 First book in English printed at Brugge by William Caxton (who calls the Flemish, one of the seven races of the British Isles); Jacome de Bruges dies (April 2nd); Joao Vaz Corte Real and his Flemish partner, Alvaro Martins Homem, are granted (for maritime services rendered) governorship of Terceira, Azores, by the widow of Prince Fernando (February 12th).
·1476 Columbus embarks on his first voyage – on a Flemish urca called the Bechalla bound for Flanders: it is attacked and sunk by the French pirate Casenove off the coast of Portugal (August 13th)
·1470s Willem Van der Haegen (aka Silveiras) becomes lord/captain of the island of Flores (most northwesterly of the Azores)
·1483 Joao Vaz Corte Real also granted governorship of the island of S. Jorge in the Azore islands
·1484 Columbus demands King John II of Portugal supply ships and men to discover the Indies sailing West
·1486 Ferdinand Van Olmen and Joham Afonso do Estreito agree to split 50/50 the rights to lands granted Van Olmen by King John II of Portugal (June 12th– ratified by king July 24th) to find the Islands of the Seven Cities
·1487 Ferdinand Van Olmen sent out in a northwesterly direction by March; later Van Olmen becomes lord/captain of the area on Terceira Island called Ribeyras; King John II also sends out Bartolomeu Dias around the south coast of Afgrica and Afonso da Pavia across the north coast of Africa (both to seek a path to the Indies)
·1488 Bartolomeu Dias returns first to Spain, then Portugal, proving that the Indies can be reached by sailing around the southern tip of Africa (December)
·1492 Columbus granted rights to seek out a westward path to the Indies (April 17th); and “discovers” America (October 12th). His two most heavily annotated “guide books” are The Travels of John Mandeville (written by Fleming Jan De Langhe) and the Discoveries of Marco Polo (printed at Antwerp in 1475). His most common trade item is Flemish bells; his most important cartographic tool is the Flemish language compass rose (with a “Flemish needle”). Martin Behaim, a son-in-law of Joost van Hurter of Moerkercken/Winendaele, West Flanders (the Flemish Lord of first Fayal/Neu Flandern and then Pico in the Azore Islands) and the cartographic advisor to the King of Portugal, creates the oldest existing globe on which he describes the Flemish Azorean discoverers of islands in the Indies (September)
·1493 Columbus returns from America (March 4th). First return land sightings are the ‘Flemish Islands’ aka, the Azores (February 12th). He pens a missive (officially dated March 14th) which is widely reprinted by Flemish printer from Aalst Dirck Maartens in Antwerp and Gerardus de Lisa [Gerard van de Lys, a Gentenaar] in Italy; On his second voyage Columbus takes two Franciscans from Ath, Henegouwen (September 24th).
·1494 The Pope awards Spain all lands west and Portugal all lands east of an imaginary line 100 leagues west of the Azores in the Treaty of Tordesillas (June 7th)
·1497 John and Sebastian Cabot depart Bristol, England (May 2nd) and arrive at Cape Breton Island (June 24th). They are guided by Joao Fernandez, the Labrador, “because he who gave the information to the King of England was a labrador of the Azores”; Johannes Ruysch of Utrecht & Antwerp is also believe to have been on the Cabots’ voyage.
·1499 Miguel Corte Reale embarks from the Azores to “Terra Nova” [Newfoundland]. His fleet is shipwrecked on the Massachusetts coast but leaves distinct carvings on the Deighton Rock. Joham (Joao) Fernandes of Barcelos, near Van Olmen’s on Terceira, is granted the right, by King Manuel of Portugal, to search for and discover islands to the northwest (October 28th).
·1500 The future Charles V, first ruler of an empire on five continents, is born on the road near Eeckloo, East Flanders (February 24th); King Manuel grants Gaspar Corte Reale jurisdiction over all discovered lands and “enterprises that he now desires to continue;” he then sails (June) to Greenland and Newfoundland (returning before January 27, 1501).
·1501 Gaspar Corte Reale again departs Lisbon (May 15th) with three ships for Newfoundland; two return on October 8th/9th and October 12th (respectively).King Henry VII of England grants three Azoreans resident at Bristol (Joao and Francisco Fernandes and Joao Goncalves) letters-patent for any discoveries to the west (March 19th) thereby creating the “pioneer corporation of the British Empire”.
·1502 Cantino Map created by Flemish mapmaker (Breelant?) which shows Newfoundland as “Terra del Rey de portugall” (territory of the king of Portugal) – it also shows the Yucatan and Cuba years before they were officially “discovered”; The first recorded shipload of Newfoundland cod is brought back to England – by an Azorean Fleming; Miguel Corte Reale departs Lisbon for Newfoundland (May 10th) with three ships of which two return (August 20th); King John II of Portugal decides to sell all of his spices at Antwerp (instead of Bruges or Lisbon)
·1506 Christopher Columbus dies (May 20th)
·1507 Johannes Ruysch of Antwerp/Utrecht prints the very first printed global map that shows America and Newfoundland (“Terra Nova”), where it seems to have copied the Cantino map. Ruysch clearly borrows from Behaim’s 1492 globe and also relies on the Inventio Fortunata for information on a Northwest passage to Asia. Ruysch’s map becomes an important source for future cartographers such as Mercator; Waldseemueller’s map using the name “America” is printed [in 1513 Waldseemueller rejects the name “America”]
·1509 Joost Van Hurtere II becomes lord/captain of the islands of Fayal and Pico (May 31st)
·1511 Gerardus Mercator born at Rupelmonde, E. Flanders (March 5th); The very first book on the “discovery” of America in English, Peter Martyr’s “New Founde Landes”, is printed at Antwerp; Deighton Rock in Massachusetts is carved by Miguel CorteReale.
·1517 Adolf of Wynendaele (West Flanders) ferries Charles to Spain to assume the throne; Jan de Witte of Brugge is named Bishop of Cuba (August).
·1518 Adolf of Wynendaele (West Flanders) is granted ownership of the island of Cozumel off the coast of the Yucatan and therefore is named by Charles “Admiral of Flanders” and Governor of Cuba (March 29th); Laurrent de Gorrevod, Flemish majordomo for Emperor Charles V, requests a license for exclusive trade and to establish a colony on the Yucatan.
·1519-1522 Charles V funds Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, which leaves Spain with 5 Flemings. Only 1, Roland van Brugge, survives.
·1520 One of the 5 Flemings of Magellan’s fleet, Roland van Brugge, becomes the first man of the fleet to see the Pacific
·1522 The 33 survivors (including Roland van Brugge after imprisonment in the Azores) return to Spain
·1523 Maximillanus Transylvanus of Brussels, after interviewing nearly all of the 33 survivors (including Roland van Brugge) of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe – the world’s first – publishes the report (January 1st).
·1527 Abraham Ortelius, 1st cousin of Emanuel Van Meteren and Daniel Rogers, born at Antwerp (April 14th) dies in the same city, June 28th, 1598. Philip II of Spain also born and dies the same years as Ortelius (b May 21st at Vallodolid; dies September 13th, San Lorenzo).
·1533 Willem van Oranje born at Dillenburg (April 24th)
·1534 Dirck Maartens, first printer in the Low Countries, printer of Columbus’ copy of Marco Polo at Antwerp and of Columbus’ First Letter in 1493, as well as of Thomas More’s Utopia, dies at Aalst (May 2nd).
·1535 Corte Real voyages again launched; Emanuel Van Meteren born at Antwerp (July 8th).
·1538 Gerardus Mercator of Rupelmonde, East Flanders, creates a world map for the use of the world’s first global emperor, Charles V (born near Eeckloo, East Flanders) and uses – for the first time ever – the name “North America” for the current continent; Mercator also labels the channel between Canada and Greenland as the “Strait of the Three Brothers through which Portuguese attempted to sail to the Orient and the Indies and the Moluccas”. Manoel Corte Real, son of Vasco Eannes Corte Real (the 1st), declared “Lord of Terra Nova”.
·1545 ”It remains to be remarked that the Portuguese mariners at an early date seem to have adopted the Flemish designations of the winds…In the Arte de Navegar of Pedro de Medina (Valladolid, 1545), the Flemish names are given.”
·1550 “Dutch” Church established in London by Micronius of Ghent
·1552 Petrus Plancius born at Dranouter (near Ieper, West Flanders) – dies May 15th, 1622 in Amsterdam
·1555Abdication of Charles V in favor of his son Philip and brother Ferdinand; Philip II inherits control over the Low Countries; tensions between actual (Philip II) and emotional (Willem of Orange) sons evident at Brussels abdication; Muscovy Co in England established at London by Sebastian Cabot, John Dee, and depending upon
·1556 Dirck Van Os born in Antwerp (March 13th) – critical Fleming in the discovery and settlement of America (dies May 20th 1615 at Amsterdam).
·1558 Charles V dies (September 21st)
·1561 Manoel Corte Real, son of Vasco Eannes Corte Real (the 1st), prepares ships of Azorean settlers in Terceira to colonize Newfoundland – the colonization of Sable island; Samuel Godijn is born at Antwerp
·1563 Franciscus Gomarus, leader of the Counter-Remonstrant party, born at Brugge (January 30th); dies at Groningen, January 11th, 1641.
·1566Beeldenstorm (“Iconoclastic Fury”). Considered the start of the “Dutch Revolt” (De Opstand) begins in Steenvoorde, Flanders (August 10th), Spreads from Steenvoorde to the rest of the Netherlands. Nine Flemings and one Spaniard land near St. Augustine FL and spend 10 days there before seeking a Spanish settlement to the south (September 16th). Manoel Corte Real, son of Vasco Eannes Corte Real (the 1st), prepares ships of Azorean settlers in Terceira to colonize Newfoundland.
·1567 Manoel Corte Real, son of Vasco Eannes Corte Real (the 1st), prepares three ships of Azorean settlers in Terceira to colonize Newfoundland.
·1568 Azoreans begin colonization of Newfoundland in conjunction with Native American villages (March). Dutch nobles Egmont and Hoorn beheaded at Brussels; the Dutch revolt against Spain begins; Willem Usselinckx of Antwerp, whose life span in years mirrors exactly that of the Dutch Revolt, is born.
·1569 Gerardus Mercator creates his world map with “rhumblines” which solves a navigational problem (accounting for the curvature of the earth when plotting sailing routes on maps) that had caused mariners problems for centuries
·1572 Expulsion of the Flemish and Dutch privateers (watergeuzen) from England (March 31st);Capture of Den Briel, strategic city at the mouth of the Rhine, by "Sea Beggars" led by the Flemish Admiral Lumey (April 1st); Abraham Ortelius, with guidance and assistance from his good friend Gerardus Mercator, creates the first “atlas” (which furthers navigation)
·1573Dutch defeat Spanish fleet at battle of Zuiderzee
·1574 Vasco Eannes Corte Real sails on the last known colonization voyage from the Azores to North America (Labrador). Relief of Leiden (Ontzet), on October 3rd made possible by the Antwerpenaar Moons and the Flemish-led watergeuzen (the commemoration of this event forms the basis of American Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims land in America). Pacification of Ghent (Pacificatie van Gent), November 8th unites all Netherlanders of all stripes against the Spanish
·1575 As a reward for resisting the Spanish siege, William of Orange permits Leiden to establish the first university of the northern Netherlands. The first President of the University is Justus Lipsius of Vilvoorde, Flanders.
·1577 Gerardus Mercator, in a letter to John Dee (April 20th) shares details he culled from the Inventio Fortunato about the information of a Flemish priest in Greenland in 1364 who knew of both northwest and northeast passages to Asia
·1577-1640Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter
·1579 The Union of Utrecht, a mutual defensive pact unites all the Dutch-speaking provinces against Spain, is signed by Holland, Zealand and parts of Utrecht and Groningen (January 23rd) and then by Ghent, parts of Friesland, Guelders and Utrecht as well as all of Ieper, Antwerp and Breda (February 4th); George Calvert (later, Lord Baltimore and founder of the English colony of Maryland), a grandson of refugees from Antwerp, is born in England.
·1579-1584Willem I, prince of Orange-Nassau, serves as first stadhoulder – appointment negotiated and promoted by Philip Marnix of Brussel
·1580 The Union of Utrecht is signed by Bruges, Lier, the city of Groningen, Zutphen, and Guelders (February) as well as Overijssel and Drenthe (April). Crowns of Spain and Portugal united under Philip II
·1581Act of Abjuration (later the basis of American Declaration of Independence) declared: drafted by four men, three of whom Flemish; representatives of the United Provinces (led by Philip Marnix of Brussel) abjure their oath of allegiance to Philip II at The Hague; Johannes De Laet born at Antwerp.
·1582-1612 Emanuel Van Meteren of Antwerp (son of Jacob, first cousin of Ortelius and Daniel Rogers), is appointed Dutch Consul at London
·1583 Samuel Blommaert is born at Antwerp (August 21st)
·1584Willem I, prince of Orange-Nassau, assassinated at his home in Delft (July 10th)
·1584-1625Prince Maurits of Orange-Nassau assumes the inherited stadholdership
·1588Spanish Armada defeated (August 8th); initial surprise lost when two Flemish sailors escape the Armada and alert the English
·1590 Willem Usselinckx of Antwerp returns from a pro-longed sojourn in the Azores and the Iberian Peninsula with wealth and a plan to defeat Spain
·1594 Petrus Plancius is awarded a patent for a navigational solution to determining longitude at sea; largely under Petrus Plancius’ urging, the Compagnie Van Veere is established to seek out trade in the Far East.
·1595 “The placing of the compass-card in a fixed position beneath the needle, as in miner’s dials, surveying instruments, and opticians’ compasses, appears to have originated with Stevinus [Simon Stevins] of Bruges about the year 1595.”
·1598-1599The first real circumnavigation Netherlanders thru the Strait of Magellan led by first Simon de Cordes (a Zuidnederlander, who commanded the ship “de Liefde” which was piloted by Will Adams and made it to Japan) and then Jacques Mahu and financed by Johan van der Veeken of Mechelen as well as by Antwerpenaars Isaac and Simon LeMaire and Balthasar Coymans (who invested 18,000 guilders in the V.O.C.).
·1602United East India Company chartered by the States General of the United Provinces (March): Subscriptions taken over 5 month window (April 1st thru August 31st); largest chamber is Amsterdam with 57% of capital; it is run out of Antwerp emigres’ Dirck Van Os’ house half of all shareholders are “Zuidnederlanders” and 6 of the top 8 shareholders are as well.
·1605 Cecilius Calvert, son of George Calvert (later, Lord Baltimore), grandson of Flemish émigrés from Antwerp, is born in London (August 8th). Cecilius becomes the first proprietor of Maryland a Roman Catholic refuge, and it is for him that the city of Baltimore (established 1729) is named.
·1606 The Virginia Company established (April 10th) with investors including George Calvert (later, Lord Baltimore); the ship “de Witte Leeuw” (partially owned by Hons Honger of Antwerp), captained by Hans Lonck/Loncq of Roosendaal, trades and raids in the St. Lawrence Seeway for furs and fish (April-December).
·1607The Virginia Company establishes Jamestown, which includes some Anglo-Flemings, such as John Ganne (May 14th)
·1609 Dirck Van Os of Antwerp establishes the Bank of Amsterdam (Amsterdamsche Wisselbank) which later becomes the model for Alexander Hamilton’s Buttonwood Agreement of 1792 (January 31st); Henry Hudson, in command of the East India Company ship Halve Maen, recruited, financed, and advised by Flemings, departs Amsterdam (April 4th) to find a Northeast Passage to Asia; Pieter Winne of Ghent (later of Nieuw Nederland) baptized at St. Baaf’s Cathedral (April 14th); Twelve years' truce with Spain (April 23rd); founding of the bank of Amsterdam by Dirck Van Os of Antwerp; Hudson ultimately explores North American coast from Delaware Bay to the upper Hudson as far as present-day Albany (Sept 3rd to October 22nd) and makes return landfall at Dartmouth, England (November 7th).
·1610 Beginning with Arnout Vogels of Antwerp (July 26th), Flemish merchants in Amsterdam send ships to exploit Hudson’s “discovery”
·1611 Arnout Vogels with fellow Antwerpenaars Francoijs and Lennaert Pelgrom charter the 120 ton (60 lasts) ship “St. Pieter” to trade for two months in New Netherland [likely Adriaen Block’s first voyage to New Netherland] (May 19th); Emanuel Van Meteren publishes the first written account of Henry Hudson’s “discovery” in his book Belgische ofte Nederlantsche Oorlogen en de Geschiedenissen
·1612 Adriaen Block purchases for Arnout Vogels and the Pelgrom brothers, the 110 ton (55 last) ship “Fortuyn” to sail to New Netherland (January 12th); Emanuel Van Meteren of Antwerp dies at London (April 18th); Govert Loockermans, later of Nieuw Nederland, baptized at St Pietrskerk in Turnhout (July 2nd);
·1613 Francoijs Pelgrom, in a letter to his wife, says that the just returned voyage by Adriaen Block on the ship “Fortuyn” was “a better voyage even than last year” (July 30th); Arnout Vogels and the Pelgrom brothers, the first of the “Voorcompanieen” to define the region that later is called New Netherland, calls itself (August)“the Company of lands situate[d] between Virginia and Nova Francia” and has an exclusive license to exploit the area from Prince Maurits, which the Prince later rescinds (September 23rd) and admonishes disputing to work thru a solution under the arbitration of Petrus Plancius
·1614The name New Netherland first appears in an official document; New Netherland Company licensed by the States General (October 11th); fur trading post Fort Nassau established on Castle Island, present day Port of Albany
·1615 New Netherland Company Charter officially begins (January 1st)
·1618 New Netherland Company Charter expires (January 1st)
·1618-1619Synod of Dordrecht; heavy representation by Flemish delegates including Franciscus Gomarus of Brugge, Petrus Plancius of Dranouter, Johannes De Laet of Antwerp and others (November 13th, 1618-May 29th, 1619); beginning of Thirty Years' War in Germany
·1619Beheading of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt [who opposes the establishment of the WIC and brokered the Truce with Spain], leader of the peace party, at the Hague (May 13th)
·1620 Arnout Vogels of Antwerp, the first to exploit New Netherland, dies (May 16th); the Pilgrims arrive off of Massachusetts and sign the Mayflower Compact (November 11th) – including Isaac Allerton, later a close friend and business partner of the wealthiest man in Nieuw Nederland, Govert Loockermans of Turnhout;
·1621End of the Twelve years' truce with Spain (April 23rd); patent granted for the West India Company [WIC] by the States General (June 3rd, effective July 1st); George Calvert (later Lord Baltimore) of Antwerp extraction, sends his first colonists to the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, arround a site called Ferryland (August); the States General permits a partnership led by Hans Hontom (or Houton) of Antwerp to send his ship “de Witte Duyf” under the command of Hontom’s brother Jan to New Netherland (September 13th); the States General permits a partnership led by Petrus Plancius to send two ships to New Netherland – one to the Hudson and the other to the Delaware – as long as they return by July 1622 (September 24th)
·1622 Petrus Plancius dies at Amsterdam (May 25th); the largest single investor in the W.I.C. (100,000 guilders) is the Antwerp émigré Guillielmo Bartholotti and more than half of all the 7 million+ guilders in capital raised is from the Amsterdam Chamber which is dominated by Flemings and Brabanders (and directs the activities for New Netherland); Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp is appointed a Director of the Amsterdam Chamber of the W.I.C. (October); census data show that more than half of the populations of Haarlem, Leiden and Middleburg are of Southern Netherlands origin and that even large cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam are more than one third immigrants from modern day Belgium; George Calvert (later Lord Baltimore) of Antwerp extraction
·1623 George Calvert (later Lord Baltimore) of Antwerp extraction, is awarded all of Newfoundland as his "Province of Avalon" by James I (January); Adriaen Jorisz Thienpont (born at Oudenaarde) appointed the first Director General of Nieuw Nederland (June 20th)
·1624First colonists – 24 Walloon and 6 Flemish families – sail on the ship called “Nieu Nederlandt” and arrive in New Netherland where they are settled at Fort Orange (Albany), the mouth of the Connecticut River, on Manhattan Island, and on High Island (Burlington Island) in the Delaware River (April); Cornelis May, as senior skipper, becomes first director of New Netherland science of international law;
·1625-1647 Prince Frederik Hendrik becomes stadhoulder upon death of Prince Maurits (dies April 25th)
·1625Willem Verhulst departs Amsterdam and is named Director General of New Netherland (April 22nd) Sarah Rapalje, whose father may have been a tailor at Antwerp, is the first European child born in New York (June 6th); Publication of De Jure Belli et Pacis, by the Dutch statesman and jurist Hugo Grotius, lays foundation for the freedom of the seas; publication by the Elsevir brothers of Leuven of Johannes De Laet’s Nieuwe Wereld (1st book to describe and use the term “Nieuw Nederland”); George Calvert made Lord Baltimore.
·1626 Daniel van Crieckenbeeck, commander at Fort Orange, killed while supporting a Mahican war party against the Mohawks; Peter Minuit replaces Verhulst as director (July 31st); purchases Manhattan Island (some sources say May 24th but others suggest August 10th); moves settlers from Fort Orange, Connecticut, and Delaware to Manhattan
1627 George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore and a descendant of Antwerp, arrives at Ferryland, the Province of Avalon, Newfoundland(July 23rd)
·1628Piet Heyn captures Spanish silver fleet for the W.I.C. (September 8th); Samuel Godijn of Antwerp, Samuel Blommaert (both of Antwerp), and Kiliaen Van Rensselaer agree to hire two men and send them to New Netherland to purchase land from the Amerindians (December)
·1629Samuel Godijn of Antwerp, Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp, and Kiliaen Van Rensselaer formally announce to the Amsterdam Chamber of the W.I.C. their intention to plant a colony or colonies at New Netherland (January 13th); "Freedoms and Exemptions," establishing the patroonship plan of colonization, granted by the Lords XIX of the W.I.C. (June 7th); Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp resigns as a Director of the Amsterdam Chamber of the W.I.C. (June 30th)
·1630 Messrs Blommaert and Godijn of Antwerp with Kiliaen Rensselaer (and Albert Burgh) establish a partnership for a colony on the “South River” (February 1st); Michael Paauw of Ghent granted a patroonship (on the site of Jersey City, New Jersey) called “Pavonia” (July 13th); Samuel Godyn/Godijn of Antwerp granted a patroonship at Cape Hinlopen/Delaware River Bay ” (July 15th); Michael Paauw of Ghent granted a patroonship for Staten Island (August 10th); A new partnership is formed by Messrs Blommaert, De Laet and Godijn of Antwerp with Kiliaen Rensselaer (and others) for Rensselaeswyck (October 1st); A new partnership is formed by Messrs Blommaert, De Laet and Godijn of Antwerp with Kiliaen Rensselaer (and others) for the establishment of a colony on the South (Delaware) River (October 16th); Michael Paauw of Ghent granted a third (New Jersey) patroonship at “Ahasimus” (November 22nd); Johannes De Laet of Antwerp joins with Samuel Godijn of Antwerp, Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp, and Kiliaen Van Rensselaer to form a general partnership (October).
·1631 First colonists for Swaenendael landed at Blommaert’s Kill/Lewe’s Creek (March?); Samuel Godyn/Godijn and Samuel Blommaert [and later including Johannes De Laet] – all of Antwerp – were granted a patroonship at Cape May (June 3rd); Kiliaen Van Rensselaer granted the east side of the Hudson River later called Rensselaerwyck (August 6th); Kiliaen Van Rensselaer granted the west side of the Hudson River also included in Rensselaerwyck (August 13th) – he includes the Antwerp natives Samuel Godyn/Godijn, Samuel Blommaert, and Johannes De Laet.
·1632George Calvert, 1st Lord Baltimore, grandson of Antwerpenaars and Founder of the English colony of Maryland, dies in London (April 15th); Pieter Minuit removed as the Director General of New Netherland and replaced by Bastiaen Jansz Crol; the Delaware River colony of Swaenendael (population 34) is destroyed by Indians (November 18th).
·1633 JanBaptist van Antwerpen, gunners mate on the ship “Nieu Nederlant:, brings back to Patria 23 beaver pelts for private trading (April 7th); The very first military force to defend New Netherland of 104 soldiers arrives with the new Director General Wouter Van Twiller on the Zoutberg (April) accompanied by the captured Spanish yacht St. Martyn (commanded by Juriaen Blanck of Flemish origins) on which is also Govert Loockermans of Turnhout (April); Samuel Godijn dies (September 29th); first purchase of land from Indians outside Manhattan (on the Schuykill) is witnessed by Govert Loockermans (October 24th).
·1633-1638Wouter van Twiller, director of New Netherland (April)
·1634 Adriaen Vincent/van Sant, born at Aecken near Ghent, arrives in New Amsterdam from London on the English ship “Mary&John”; the first colonists from England arrive to establish the Royal Colony of Maryland, under the proprietorship of Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, and of Antwerp descent (March 25th); Hans Hontom, originally of Antwerp, and who first arrived in New Netherland in 1611, is killed by Cornelius vander Vorst in a knife fight at Renseselaerswyck (April);“Pretensions and Demands of the Patroons of New Netherland” delivered to the Directors of the West India Company (June 16th);
·1635 The W.I.C. agrees to Michael Paauw of Ghent’s terms to buyback his patroonships for Pavonia and Staten Island (January 1st)
·1636 Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp becomes an agent/advisor of the Swedish government (November).
·1637 Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp sends Pieter Minuit to Sweden to prepare for a Swedish colony near the old Swaenendael patroonship in Delaware (February).
·1638Peter Minuit hired by Swedish South Company, establishes New Sweden on the Delaware River (Wilimington, Delaware); Minuit lost at sea while returning to Sweden; Johannes De Laet proposes an official plan for the colonization of Nieuw Nederland (August 30th)
·1638-1647Willem Kieft, director of New Netherland
·1639 The sale of muskets or gunpowder to Amerindians in New Netherland is forbidden on pain of death (March 31st); The W.I.C. opens fur trade to everyone (May); Isaac Bedlow, with origins in Maldegem (near Middleburg, East Flanders), and who became the owner of Bedloe’s Island (where the Statue of Liberty stands) and Pieter van der Linde (from Belle Flanders, a surgeon the ship “De Liefde” and later, in 1648, schoolmaster) arrive in New Netherland.
·1640 Emmigrants to New Netherland are no longer required to pay for their passage over (May);Cornelis Melyn of Antwerp receives the rights of patroonship for Staten island (July 3rd); Michael Pauleszen van der Voort (from Dendermonde, East Flanders) marries Maria,Rapalje (daughter of Joris and sister of Sara – 1st European born in New York) at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (November 18th)
·1641 Cornelis Melyn of Antwerp arrives at New Amsterdam on the ship “Eyckenboom” and establishes his colony at Staten Island (August 20th)
·1642 AnnekenLoockermans of Turnhout, sister of Govert, marries Olof Van Courtlandt (February 26th) in the Dutch Reformed Church of New Amsterdam; Govert Loockermans is granted the Brooklyn Ferry as well as a a house and lot in Manhattan (March 26th);Cornelis Melynis granted “the major part” of Staten Island (June 19th); Pieter Loockermans (brother of Govert) arrives in New Netherland.
·1642-1654Johan Printz, governor of New Sweden
·1643 Stephanus Van Courtlandt, son of AnnekenLoockermans of Turnhout and nephew of Govert Loockermans (and brother of Maria Van Rensselaer) and the first, native-born mayor of New York City is born in New Amsterdam (May 7th)
·1643-1645Kieft's war with the Indians around Manhattan Island
·1644 Cornelis Melyn of Antwerp awarded a double lot in Manhattan along the Strand (April 28th); Adriaen Vincent “from Aecken near Ghent” awarded a double lot in Manhattan on Ditch (later Broad) Street (June 1st); Pieter (vander) Linde of Belle, Flanders, marries Martha Chambert of Newkirk, Flanders (July 10th); Johannes De Laet publishes a chronicle of the W.I.C. (with details relating to New Netherland) in his Histoire ofte Iaerlijck Verhael.
·1647 Wilhelmus Beekman, the longest serving mayor of New York, and a grandson of Deinze (thru his maternal grandfather Willem Baudartius) and Brugge (thru his paternal grandfather Hendrik Beekman) arrives in New Netherland
·1647-1650Prince Willem II as stadholder
·1647Petrus Stuyvesant becomes director general of New Netherland, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, and other dependencies in the Caribbean; WIC ship Princess Amalia lost in Bristol Bay, former Director Kieft and Domine Evardus Bogardus drowned with 82 others
·1648Peace of Westphalia, settling Eighty Years' War with Spain; end of Thirty Years' War
·1649Simon Joosten of Meerbeke (near Aalst) marries Marritje Simons at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (August 4th); Johannes De Laet of Antwerp dies (at Leiden).
·1650States General, opposing authority of princes of the house of Orange, assume control over Dutch general policy; Hartford Treaty, settling boundary dispute between New Netherland and New England
·1651Stuyvesant abandons Fort Nassau (Gloucester, New Jersey); replaces it with Fort Casimir (New Castle, Delaware) below Swedish Fort Christina; Teunis Janszen Couverts (of Loemel in Limburg) arrives in New Netherland; Jan Coster van Aecken near Ghent (Beverwyck blacksmith and fur trader) marries Else Janse (); Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp dies at Amsterdam (December 23rd).
·1652-1654First Anglo-Dutch War
·1653 Isaac Bethloo (later Bedloe) marries Lysbeth Potters of Batavia, East Indies at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (May 16th); Jan Corneliszen Van Cleef, grandson of Martin from Antwerp and ancestor of actor Van Cleef, arrives in New Netherland; Construction of defensive wall across Manhattan Island (Wall Street) after threat of invasion from New England
·1654Swedes under new governor, Johan Rising, capture the Dutch post Fort Casimir on Trinity Sunday, rename it Fort Trefaltighet (Fort Trinity); Samuel Blommaert of Antwerp dies, still a part owner of Rensselaerwyck .
·1655 Joris Stephenszen of Brugge marries Geesje Harmens at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsteredam (May 5th); Nicasius de Silla of Mechelen marries Tryntje Crougers in New Amsterdam (May 26th); Stuyvesant conquers New Sweden in the Delaware Valley; Indians around Manhattan attack New Amsterdam, Pavonia, and Staten Island in a conflict called the Peach War.
·1656 Daniel Janszen Van Antwerpen of Beverwyck and later Schenectady, marries Maria daughter of Symon Symonsen Groot; Jan Tibout of Brugge settles near Ft. Casimir on the S. Delaware River; Pieter Janszen Loockermans of Turnhout purchases a house in Beverwyck (November 1st)’ Johanna De Laet, widowed daughter of Johannes De Laet, arrives in New Netherland.
·1657 Gabriel Corbesye, from Leuven, marries Teuntje Straetsmans in New Amsterdam (June 15th); Fernand Willays (born in Kortrijk) and Joost Koochuijt [sometimes listed as Kockuyt] born at Brugge arrive on the ship “De Verguilde Otter” in New Amsterdam (December 22nd)
·1658 CornelisVan Langevelt of St. Laurens, East Flanders, marriesMairitie, daughter of Jan Corneliszen Jonkers at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (January 19th); Christaen Toemszenof Strabroeck (Stabroek, Antwerpen) marries Engeltje Jacobs at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (February 10th); Jan Evertsen of Lokeren, East Flanders and Anthony de Mil, grandson of Mennonite Bruggelings who emigrated to Haarlem, arrive in New Netherland on the ship “de Verguilde Bever” (May 17th); Philippus Jacobus Schooff of Antwerp marries at the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam Jannetje Toenis Kay (July 26th); Jacobus Van Courtlandt, son of AnnekenLoockermans of Turnhout and brother of Stephanus, and grandfather of the first U.S. Chief Justice, John Jay, is born at New Amsterdam.
·1658-1663Esopus Indian War in New Netherland
·1659 Johanna De Laet (daughter of the Antwerpenaar Patroon and WIC Director Johannes De Laet) marries (Jeronimus Ebbing) in the same church in New Amsterdam on the same day (February 22nd) as Jan Guisthout Vander Linden of Brussels (who marries Jannetje daughter of Barent Balthus Van Kleeck from Haarlem); Pieter Follenaer (of Hasselt, Limburg) arrives in New Amsterdam on the ship “De Bever” (April); Karel de Beauvois (born in Leiden) lists himself as Flemish (father from Ghent) when he arrives at New Amsterdam; WIC soldier Jacob Farmont (born in Brussels) marries Annetje Andries in New Amsterdam (September 5th).
·1660 Anries Pieterszen a soldier and Willem Vanschure (both born in Leuven), Willem Vanderbeke (born in Oudenaarde), Ludovicus Aerts (born in Brugge), Jean Verele [Verhelle?] (born in Antwerp), and Pieter Bayard (born in Nieuwpoort, West Flanders) arrive in New Netherland on the ship “De Moesman” (March 9th); Ferdinandus Van Sycklin (born in Ghent; ancestor of U.S. Civil War general Dan Sickles) marries Eva, daughter of Anthonee Van Salee [the infamous Dutch pirate and convert to Islam] in New Amsterdam.
·1661 Jan Doske, a soldier born in Tongeren, Limburg, marries Styntje Klinckenborgs from “Aken” (February 19th); Jacob Abrahamsen, born in Zandvoorde, West Flanders, arrives in New Netherland on the ship “Johan de Doper” (May 9th); Jan Evertszen of Lier, East Flanders, arrives in New Netherland; Cornelis Stevenszen Muller of Turnhout marries Hillitje Loockermans (niece of Govert, daughter of Pieter) in Beverwyck.
·1662 Jan de la Warde, listed as a Fleming, (born in Antwerp), arrives in New Netherland on the ship “De Vos” (August); Balthus Loockermans [brother of Govert] is in New Amsterdam; Harmanus Van Hoboken (schoolmaster 1555-1559 in New Amsterdam) marries Claertje Pieters (October 28th) at the Dutch Reformed Church.
·1663 Alexander Stilteel of Duynkerken marries Maria Burchhardts in New Amsterdam (February 10th); Jan Gysberstzen Meteren [grandson of Antwerpenaar Emanuel Van Meteren], Teunis Janszen Lanen van Pelt (from Overpelt, Limburg), his four children and brother Matthys Janszen Lanen van Pelt (from Overpelt, Limburg) and Jan Bastiaenszen van Kortryk [Kortrijk], ancestor of First Lady Elizabeth Kourtright (President James Monroe’s wife) arrive in New Amsterdam on the ship “de Roosebloom” (March 15th).
·1664 Meynard Jurnay of Duynkerken marries Lysbeth Durmon in New Amsterdam (May 16th); Carel Enjart “from Flanders” arrives in New Netherland (descendants known as “Injyard”); English naval force funded by the Duke of York and Albany captures New Netherland in a surprise attack during peace time
·1665-1667Second Anglo-Dutch War
·1665 Christina Pieters “Van Sluys in Vlaenderen” marries Johan Letelier (April 26th); Francoys Rombout (the first New York mayor born in what we now call the Flemish Region, Hasselt, Limburg) marries Aeltje Wessels; Admiral Michiel Adriaansz de Ruyter retakes most of the WIC trading posts lost previous year to English in Africa; De Ruyter's plans to retake New Netherland aborted
·1667 Marye Van Hoboken marries Otto Laurenszen at the Dutch reformed Church in New Amsterdam (February 20th); Admiral Abraham Crijnsen retakes former Dutch colonies in the Guianas (Wild Coast of South America) seized by the English
·1670 Jean Crocheron (born in Zele, East Flanders) arrives at Staten Island; Ms. Beelitie Jacobs of Brugge marries Frans Hendrickszen of Breevoort (November 4th)
·1672-1674Third Anglo-Dutch War
·1673New York captured by Dutch naval force; New Netherland restored as a Dutch colony; Anthony Colve, grandson of Bruggelings, becomes Nieuw Nederland’s final governor.
