Comments on: How Dutch was Nieuw-Nederland?

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll take you up on that, and I’ll pay $10 to the person who can show I’m right.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I hope you’ve found someone to insure you against the downside

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I would be curious to know how the term “Dutch” or “Dutchness” is defined. How “monocultural” were the “Dutch” in their own country? By its very nature wasn’t Dutch culture formed by people of many different national origins, in the Netherlands just as in America? The Netherlands was and is, after all, the great crossroads of Europe. Many foreigners who settled there learned the Dutch language and became “Dutch,” just as they did in America.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

> How “monocultural” were the “Dutch” in their own country?
Not particularly, I think. Some would date the concept of Netherlandish nationality to the Union of Utrecht (1579), but talk in the treaty document of the various, scattered entities who signed up acting as one in relations with other polities is firmly balanced with provisions designed to maintain town and provincial privilege. A variety of tracts were published in the C17th which sought to promote a Netherlandish identity on the basis of the Bataves, but their success must have been limited by the lack of any clear definition of what the Netherlands or the Netherlanders were. For example, there was disagreement about whether the southern provinces (currently Flanders, and never under northern Netherlandish control) belonged to the Fatherland, about whether speakers what we call low Saxon dialects east of the IJssel were true Netherlanders, and about whether the same doubts should be applied to those who were not orthodox Calvinists. Opposition to Spain may have been the only unifying factor. (Schama is good on all this stuff.) You’re right that the Netherlands–particularly the cities, but also some parts of the countryside–were a formidable mixture, but I suspect it was a funny mix of proto-civic and proto-ethnic nationalism, in which for example the numerous Scandinavian seamen who settled along the coast were probably regarded as Volendam men or whatever for some purposes and something else for others, and I suspect that in the rural east identity was expressed with reference to powerful men for much longer than in the urban west, where people began imagining communities with enthusiasm and creativity at an early stage. The truth is, however, that this is something about which I know virtually nothing.

By: Ric Rew

Ric Rew — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m desceded from a French family that came over on the Nieuw Nederland -Jan Le Rou (Arou)
I haven’t been able to find the passenger list. Please e-mail me at ReuxPhoto@cs.com if you have this information.