Pieter J.C. Vedder presented this on March 26, 2007 to the Monday Night Club. One member hosted a 3–course dinner and another member made a presentation...
Next month I will celebrate my 14th anniversary as an American Citizen. Born and raised in the Kingdom of The Netherlands it is quite understandable that we have a perhaps more than normal interest in the history of our new homeland, and also because of the long–lasting relationship between The Netherlands and the United States.
As you perhaps already knew; the Dutch were actually the very first to recognize the new American Republic in 1776 when they saluted to the flag of the US warship the Andrew Doria from the Dutch island of St. Eustatius in the Caribbean.
We are proud to be an American, with an accent, but we are also proud of our Dutch ancestry. Although The Netherlands is a small country, actually ⅕ of the size of the State of Georgia, with some 16.5 million inhabitants, it has had a big influence in this nation. The Netherlands has the longest, un–interrupted friendly relationship with the United States and Mariette and I like to keep it that way. The bond between the US and The Netherlands is deep and strong and centuries long. As our Minister of Foreign Affairs once said: 'We are old friends, the kind of relationship that works well. We have a lot in common and also just enough differences to keep things interesting. Those are usually the best kind of relationships there are.''
I can assure you that in their heart most Dutch people, especially those from our generation, are very grateful to the US, not having forgotten the sacrifices Americans have made to give us our freedom back, the most important thing in life. At the same time however, I must admit that a number of Europeans, especially in the media and from the young generation, seem to have a short memory.
You must understand that most Europeans have a completely wrong picture of the US. Every time we had visitors over from that part of the world, we experienced that. Also that part of the reason that Europe is often criticizing the US, based on envy and rivalry. Some European countries, especially France and Germany, also like to be the world power. If the European countries would come together as the United States of Europe, it could perhaps be the world power but in my opinion, there is too much nationalism and animosity between the biggest players—that I don't see that happen anytime soon. Besides that, experts claim that the shrinking population, mainly caused by a very low birthrate, will set Europe even more back against the United States.
In my opinion, nowadays too many people from both sides are opinionated without knowing the facts and taking the time and effort to study history. Here is a task for un–biased historians and responsible teachers.
Although for sure not always easy, they should write and teach about the facts only and it is not their task to pass judgement on the past. This however seems to be almost impossible for people of our time, who have lived through periods when such great moral conflicts have determined history.
A striking example of an interesting discussion about what happened in the past, concerning the US, was the 1992 commemoration of the arrival of Columbus in America; a good example of the bias with which we often look at the past. The big question: was Columbus a hero, did he do the world a great favor or is he responsible for a dark page in human history?
Let me give you a few examples of the many extreme opinions that activists vented on the occasion of the aforementioned commemoration The battle cry of the American Indian leader Russell Means, who asserted that Columbus makes Hitler look like a juvenile delinquent, was quoted in European newspapers everywhere. The conclusion of Hans Koning, a writer (of Dutch descent) of popular history, became almost equally well known: 'It is almost obscene to celebrate Columbus because it's an un–mitigated history of horror We don't have to celebrate a man who was really—from an Indian point of view—worse than Attila,'
Also, the Churches, keepers of God's moral message, of course did not hod back. The National council of the Churches of Christ in the US issued a solemn resolution, protesting against such a celebration of 1492. 'For the descendents of the survivors of the subsequent invasion, genocide, slavery, ecocide and exploitation of the wealth of the land, a celebration is for sure not appropriate.'
All these protests were accompanied by the idealization of the victims of the European expansion. History has been re–written and popularized accordingly. Movies like Roots and Dancing with Wolves are good examples of that tendency; glorifying innocent blacks and Indians who lived a good life in complete harmony with each other and with nature. What a distortion of history!
The myth of the Noble Savage is one of the first and most cherished inventions of the time where the New World was discovered.
In the 18th century Jean Jacques Rousseau would carry on the myth of the Noble Savage who still seemed to live in a golden age. Their state of happiness was 'the least subject to revolutions and the best condition for man, but it was unfortunately destroyed by man's desire for progress, which manifested itself in e.g. agriculture and mining. These were the two arts whose invention produced that great revolution that led to private property and hence, in a process of inevitable degeneration, to division, envy, ambition, government and tyranny.'
Another French scholar of natural history; Count de Buffon, proclaimed that the New World would never be able to develop a real civilization because 'It had a wrong proportion of temperature and humidity' He stated that natives were not at all innocent inhabitants of a kind of paradise but instead 'the most primitive and backward people that had ever existed.'
Adriaen Van der Donck, a Dutch historian, wrote in 1655 about the Indians; 'Although nature has not given them abundant wisdom, still they exercise their talents with discretion. No lunatics or fools are found amongst them; nor any mad or raving person of either sex.'
It is refreshing to notice that Father Leonid Kishkovsky of hte American Orthodox Church, who chaired the 1991 meeting of the National Council of Churches at which the highly controversial revolution on the quincentennial commemoration of Columbus was debated, made precisely this point. Kishkovsky had the courage to question the notion that evil was something imported from Europe. 'In a certain sense he said this is patronizing; it is as if native indigenous people don't have a history which includes civilization, warfare, empires and cruelties, long before white people ever arrived.'
Of course, the first years, and even decennia, of colonization were a time of chaos and sometimes cruel exploitations and it would make no sense to condone the crimes committed by the conquistadores. It took more than half a century before a somewhat orderly regime in the endless wilderness of the New World could be established. At that time much had been destroyed—in lives, culture and traditions—that could never be restored again. However, the enormous mortality's rate in the isles and on the continent itself was for the greatest part not caused by murder and oppression but by the terrible diseases which the white people brought with them from Europe and against which the inhabitants of the New World proved to have no immunity.
Moral ideas have determined the view of the European discovery of America from the beginning. That special approach had its roots in European wonders and disbelief about the miracle of a new continent, which remained a misunderstanding even nowadays and an obstacle long after its overwhelming reality had become clear. But when, despite the gloomy predictions, in that New World new states and new cultures began to flourish, the American response transformed the negative perceptions into highly positive ones. Especially in the proud nation of the US a new consciousness gave the tragic past a mythical glamour. A new nations needs new myths!
I fully agree with what the famous German philosopher Heinrich Heine once had said about Columbus: 'Many people gave us great gifts, but this hero gave the word another complete new world, which is called: America.'
Right or wrong, Columbus discovered America in 1492. As the European powers of that time, the Spanish, the Dutch and the British, sent off their navies and adventure–businessmen to roam the seas, the new discovered world would become a factor in the international power struggle. Kings and generals plotted for control of this piece of property.
'It was for the biggest parts a band of explorers, entrepreneurs, pirates, prostitutes and assorted scalawags from different parts of Europe who sought riches in this wilderness', wrote a Dutch scholar, a wilderness that was a hunting ground for Indians 'and populated mainly by wolves and bears.'
In school we're taught that America begins with 13 English colonies but that is not true, and I like to tell you tonight why I can make that statement.
A description of the New Netherlands, written by Adriaen Van der Donck, first published in 1655, is actually one of America's oldest literary treasures. It has been translated into English and French.
In the late 1960's an archivist in the New York State Library, made an astounding discovery; 12,000 pages of centuries old correspondence, court cases, legal contracts and reports from a forgotten society; the Dutch colony, centered on Manhattan which pre–dated the thirteen original American colonies. Over the past 30 years, scholar Charles T. Gehring has been translating this trove. The Dutch colony was founded only 3 years after the Pilgrims landed. They arrived in 1609 with the lowland ship 'The Half Moon' under Hudson, a British captian, hired by the Dutch West Indian Company. History however was forgotten, mainly because the English and the Dutch, the two European superpowers of the 17th century, were bitter enemies. Once the English took over the Dutch territory and changed New Amsterdam into New York, they decided that was when the real history of the region began. We also must realize that ⅞ of our historical writings about this new republic has come from authors that have been Englishmen or descendants from Englishmen, living in New England. Naturally, those men have written wholly or largely from an English standpoint and in the English language. England, and the rest of the world, has merely accepted what those historians have chosen to lay at their doorstep. These historians have also told us that the settlement that predated New York was not really worth mention but those 12,000 charred, mold riddled documents, which recently were declared a national treasure, paint a very different picture that I like to share with you tonight. These documents show that the Dutch build a vital North American territory, and that the port of Manhattan was plugged into the global Dutch trading empire, for a big part by the West Indian Trading Company. It is known that within 20 years of the first landing, the Governor of what was then called New Netherlands, would make the ultimate business deal; the legendary purchase of Manhattan Island for 24 dollars. New Amsterdam, now New York City, was founded.
As a matter of fact, the reading world of America has yet to learn the real extend of the strong Dutch influence which underlies the American institutions and have shaped American life.
For years we have written in our history books and taught in our schools that this nation is a transplanted England; that the institution which ahs made this country distinctively great were derived either from England itself or brought to us from England by the Puritans when they settled in New England. Douglas Campbell was perhaps among the first of the American writers to point out that the men who founded New York however were not English men but largely Hollanders; that the Puritans who settled Plymouth had lived 12 years in Holland; that the Puritans who settled elsewhere in Massachusetts had all their lives been exposed to a Dutch influence; that New Jersey as well as New York, was settled by the Dutch West Indian Trading Company; that Connecticut was given life by Thomas Hooker, who came from a long residence in Holland; that Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, was a Dutch scholar and that William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, came from a Dutch mother.
Also, take what may be truly designated as the four vital institutions upon which America not only rests but which have caused it to be regarded as one of the most distinctive nations in the world. I'm talking about the freedom of religious worship; our freedom of the press; our freedom of suffrage as represented by the secret ballot and our public school system of free education. Not one of these came from England, since not one of them existed there when they were established in America; in fact, only one of them existed in England earlier than 50 years after they existed in America and the other three did not exit in England until nearly 100 years after they existed in America. Each and all of these four institutions came to America directly from The Low Countries. Further and even more important, take the two documents upon which the whole fabric of the establishment and maintenance of America rests; the Declaration of Independence and the most important document at all; the Federal Constitution of the United States.
The Declaration is based almost entirely upon the Declaration of Independence of the United Republic of The Netherlands; while all through the Constitution its salient points are based upon, and some of them literally copied, from the Dutch Constitution. This document in the Dutch language named The Plakaat van Verlatinge, was published in 1658. Similarity of wording is not the only clue to the lineage of texts. Although Jefferson appears not to have drawn upon the Dutch Plakaat for phraseology, there is a good reason to believe that he may well have drawn upon it as a paradigm for the argumentative structure of the Declaration. Of the different models available to Jefferson and the Continental Congress none provided as precise a template for the Declaration of Independence as did the aforementioned Plakaat. None were anti colonial justifications of independence; none were cast in syllogistic form and none of them contained a section comparable to the preamble of the Declaration in which the right of the people to replace a tyrannical monarch was explicitly warranted. No doubt that Jefferson and his colleagues were familiar with the parallels between their struggle against England and the Low Countries' battle against Spain. The Dutch Revolution provided and inspiring example of successful resistance to colonial domination and Whig leaders often pointed to it as evidence that America could maintain its freedom, even in the face of the British military superiority. In his 1774 Essay on the Constitutional power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America, John Dickinson observed that the British measures against the Colonies correspond exactly with the measures pursued by Philip II of Spain against the Low Countries. Even though England was a mighty power, Dickinson warned, it should be remembered that the Dutch Provinces, inspired by one generous resolution to die free rather than to live slaves, not only baffled but brought down into dust that enormous power that had contended for universal empire and was the terror of the world for half a century.
William Henry Drayton sounded the same theme in October 1776 when he noted that Americans could force George III to treat with them as a free and independent people, just as the Dutch had compelled Philip II, the most powerful prince in the Old World to give up his dominion over the Low Countries.
Although the seven Dutch Provinces constituted 'but a speck upon the globe' and faced the best troops and the most formidable navy in the universe, they resolved to oppose the tyrants' whole force and at least deserved to be free. Americans, Drayton exulted, were no less in love with liberty than the Hollanders were. Shall we not in this, in a similar cause, dare those perils that they successfully combated?
When John Adams wrote the Dutch government in April 1781, requesting that he be received as a Minister, he reported that the history of Holland, and the great characters it exhibits, have been studied, admired and imitated in every American State. Not only had America long regarded The Netherlands as its friend in Europe, said Adams, but the originals of the two Republics are so much alike that the history of the one seems but a transcript from that of the other.
So strong is the Dutch influence upon our American form of government tha the Senate of the US, as a body, derives most of the peculiarities of its organization from The Netherlands, Staten Generaal, a similar body, and its predecessor by nearly a century. Even in the American flag we find the colors from the Dutch 'driekleur'.
I like to present you with a few more facts. The common modern practice of the State allowing a prisoner the free services of a lawyer for his defense and the office of a district attorney for each County, are so familiar for us that we regard them as American inventions. Both institutions have been credited to England, whereas, as a matter of fact it is impossible to find in England, even today, any official corresponding to our district attorney. Both of these institutions existed in Holland three centuries before they were brought to America.
The equal distribution of property among the children of a person dying intestate, that is, without a will, was brought to America direct from Holland by the Puritans. It never existed in England.
The record of all deeds and mortgages in a public office, a custom which affects every man and woman who owns or buys property, came to America direct from The Netherlands. It could not have come from England, since it did not exist there even 200 years later.
The township system, by which each town has local self government, with its natural sequence of local self government in County and State, came from Holland. The practice of making prisoners work and in fac our whole modern American management of free prisons, was brought from Holland by William Penn.
The Dutch taught the world commerce and merchandise when it ranked at that time as the only great commercial nation on the globe. It taught the broadest lines of finance to the world by the establishment, in 1609, of its great Bank of Amsterdam, with 180,000,000 of dollars deposits, preceding the establishment of the Bank of England by nearly 100 years. When the fledgling British Colonies sought its independence, it should be no surprise that the Dutch were more than happy to help the colonial government with financing. Ultimately, the Dutch seem to be better businessmen than soldiers. The Dutch provided the Continental Congress with its first loan; the then whopping amount of 30,000,000 guilders and continued to provide a significant source of funding to the young nation for many more years. Amazingly for such a small country today The Netherland is the second or third largest foreign investor in the US.
If you are still not convinced that the Dutch have had a tremendous impact on America, let me group these astonishing facts together, if you will.
The Federal Constitution; the Declaration of Independence; the whole organization of the Senate, our State Constitutions, our freedom of religion, our free public schools, our free press, our written ballot, our town, county and state systems of self government, the system of recording deeds and mortgages, the giving of every criminal just a chance for his life, a public prosecutor of crime in every county, our prison system, we could go on and on.
The foregoing has nothing to do with glorification or arrogance from the Dutch part but is meant as a justification of written history, based on facts. I think it must be apparent to anyone who knows these facts in the newer and more enlightened history of America that most of our previous historical knowledge of our country must be adjusted. Just as Washington Irving, in his later life, was compelled to admit himself wrong in burlesquing the Dutch founders of New York City, and class his own writing as a course coarse caricature.
So, I hope and believe that some more enlightened historians will set aside much that has been written about the influence that shaped America and substitute facts for theories.
References:
● A Description of The New Netherlands by Adriaen Van der Donck – Syracuse Univesity Press
● The Island of the Center of the World by Russell Shorto – ISBN 0-385-50349-0
● Connecting Cultures — The Netherlands in Five Centuries of Transatlantic Exchange by VU University Press Amsterdam by several aouthors – ISBN 90-5383-344-7
● The Americanization of Edward Bok – by Edward Bok – Lakeside Press
● Article by Edward Bok in The Ladies Home Journal, October 1903
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