The Decision to Emigrate

Dutch emigration generally followed certain patterns. The vast majority of Dutch immigrants were day laborers, farmers, and craftsman from rural areas where economic prospects were limited.  However, few Dutch emigrants were driven by a desperate struggle to survive like the Irish.  Most made a conscious calculation that a life in America, where farming awaited them among family and friends, offered greater economic opportunity for themselves and their children.  Farmers and craftsman sought the relatively inexpensive land of the American West, including Iowa and Michigan.   

The Dutch usually selected their destination before their departure.  Such was the case with Martinus De Jong.  His destination Pella, Iowa in North America was clearly written in the Hoogblokland city register. 

The dominant pattern of the Dutch migration was gradual emigration over a period of time of related families and friends from particular Dutch communities to communities in America where family and friends had emigrated previously.  First, a few families would emigrate, and they in turn would induce relatives or friends to follow.  During the mid-nineteenth century, 12 % of all Dutch municipalities (counties) provided 75 % of the emigrants.  In the United States, 72 % of all native Hollanders lived in only one percent of the counties.   Dutch emigration was clearly governed by community and family ties.  

The early focus (1840s) of emigration in the polder area between the rivers, the Lek and the Waal, was in the Beijerland municipalities of the Hoekse Waard and the western Alblasserwaard region centered in Dordrecht, to the east of Arkel.  In the 1850s – 60s, emigration spread to the seceder strongholds in the eastern region of the Alblasserwaard  (Noordeloos, Heukelum, and Vianen).   Arkel is between Noordeloos and Heukelum. The region around the village of Arkel had a relatively high emigration rate as compared to the rest of Holland.  But it was still far lower than the municipalities by the sea in the provinces of Zeeland and Gronigen.  

Even within the province of Zuid-Holland, certain emigration patterns existed.  Ninety percent of emigrants from Zuid-Holland settled in four locations: Paterson NJ, South Holland, IL, Noordeloos, MI and Pella, IA.  In general, Paterson attracted the young unskilled farm laborers seeking jobs in an industrialized urban center. South Holland, a market garden community, attracted farmers from the dairy region just east of Arkel. Noordeloos, MI attracted citizens from Noordeloos, Netherlands. Pella attracted the grain and livestock farmers.   

 The Rationale for Leaving The Netherlands  

The reasons for leaving The Netherlands were not as obvious as one might think.  Most of the strict Calvinist seceders had left in the 1840s.  The big agricultural crisis in The Netherlands did not begin until the late 1870s.  Hence this De Jong group was not a part of the two largest migrations from Holland to the United States.  

One possible reason for leaving was religious freedom.  Martinus De Jong was mentioned in a book, which chronicles the secessionist activities taking place in the Hoogblokland area. The book mentions he and his family left the church in Noordeloos bound for America.  Although it doesn’t explicitly state so, the implication was he left for religious reasons.   

Another possible explanation was that Martinus and Pieter, Sr. were simply looking to provide more opportunities in farming for themselves and their families.  Pieter, Sr. still had three daughters and five sons at home.  One son, Gysbert, was 30, but unmarried.  Unmarried men could not own a farm of their own.  In addition, sons Jan and Martinus, who were no longer living at home, were engaged in farming.   

Let’s examine these possible reasons more closely.  

The seceders, although they gained much notoriety, represented about 13% of Dutch emigrants between 1835 – 1880.    Most seceders had left The Netherlands by 1850.    The persecution that was so prevalent in 1830s and 40s had subsided somewhat with the ascension of Willem II to the Dutch throne.  Though the movement grew, the pressure to leave subsided somewhat.  

One contemporary observer, B.W.A.E. Sloet tot Oldhuis, writing in 1866 on the causes of Dutch emigration to the United States, listed several factors that encouraged residents to depart.  Dutch farmers had large families, and small farms, but government policy required that the farm be either subdivided equally among sons and daughters, or that one of the children buy the interest of the others and pay the state for the right of redistribution.  If the children could not raise the capital, the land, except for the house, was sold at auction to richer neighbors or outside land investors.  Farms that did become available for purchase were extremely expensive, which would make it difficult for the sons to purchase farms of their own.  Pieter Sr. had eight living sons and daughters in 1866, making it all but impossible for any one of them to continue farming on the family farm.    

All departing citizens of Holland were asked their primary reasons for leaving.   So what reasons did Pieter Sr., Martinus, and his brother Gysbert offer on their emigration registration form upon leaving Holland?  The reasons given for leaving were “economic opportunity” and “to join family”.  Although they were given a chance to designate “religious freedom” as a primary reason, none of them did so.   There were no penalties imposed by the Dutch government on those leaving for religious freedom.  So emigrants had nothing to fear for saying so.  Religious freedom may have played a role in their decision to leave, but I believe, based on their responses on the emigration registration form, that economic opportunity was the single most important factor in their decision to leave The Netherlands.     

The Choice of Pella as the Destination  

When choosing a destination, potential emigrants relied heavily on advice from family and friends already residing in the United States.  Several members of the Noordeloos church  (of which Martinus was a member) who lived in the Hoogblokland area had immigrated to Pella in the mid-1850s.  Being a grain and livestock farmer, Martinus would have sought advice from other such farmers.  Pella was the primary destination for grain and livestock farmers from Zuid-Holland.  Clearly early farming emigrants from Holland to Pella sent a favorable message back to friends and family.   Martinus probably made the same recommendation to his father, Pieter Sr., after he arrived in 1865.  Pieter Sr. and family subsequently left for America the following year.  

 The Rationale for Emigrating in 1865-66 

In 1865, a wave of emigrants departed The Netherlands, enticed largely by the American land boom stimulated by the Homestead Act of 1862 and the end of the American Civil War.    Much of the post-Civil War migration included families and friends of previous emigrants in the1840s and 50s from the same municipalities.  It was possible the De Jong group sought to emigrate earlier, and that the American Civil War delayed this by several years.   

Credits

The content of this page relies heavily on the published works of Robert Swierenga.