Dutch Americans
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As Dutch Americans ( Engl. Dutch Americans ) are citizens of the United States referred, who themselves or whose ancestors came from the Netherlands, Flanders and Dutch-as members of minorities outside the Netherlands and Belgium in the United States of America immigrated are. In the American Community Survey carried out in 2015, over 4.5 million US citizens named “Dutch” as their main ancestry.
First colonies
The island of Manhattan (today's district of New York City ) was bought by the Dutch in 1626 from the Indians who lived there for 60 guilders. They named the acquired land New Amsterdam . This marked the beginning of the first settlement by Dutch populations from Europe. As early as 1650 there were around 7000 people living in New Amsterdam, not all of them from what is now the Netherlands. a. Wallonians and also English , German , French , Scandinavians and a few more Indians . In 1674 the English colonial power took over New Amsterdam . The first group consisted of 30 families - a total of 110 people. They left their homeland because they were not allowed to practice their Protestant faith in the Spanish Netherlands , where the majority of the population was Catholic.
Further settlement by Dutch people
In the following decades more and more Dutch people came from Europe, especially from the Flemish-Belgian area, because of their religious affiliation. Most of them settled in the Great Lakes region. There weren't too many town or church plantings, but you can still find villages, small towns and cities with Dutch names in the USA :
Illinois :
- Batavia (after the Latin name for the Netherlands)
Michigan :
- Holland (after the Dutch province of Holland )
- Van Buren County (after the US President of Dutch origin Martin Van Buren )
New York :
- Amsterdam (after the Dutch capital Amsterdam )
- Yonkers (named after the large Dutch landowner "Jonkheer" Adriaen van der Donck )
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New York City :
- Brooklyn (after the Dutch city of Breukelen )
- Harlem (after the Dutch city of Haarlem )
- New Utrecht (after the Dutch city of Utrecht )
- Orange County (after the Dutch governor William III of Orange-Nassau )
- Hempstead (after the Dutch municipality of Heemstede )
- Flushing (after the English name of the Dutch city of Vlissingen )
- Coney Island (anglicized from "Conyne Eylandt" (German: Rabbit Island))
- Broadway (anglicized from "Breede Weg" (German: Breite Straße))
- Staten Island (named after the Dutch states Generaal )
- Bergen County (after the Dutch municipality of Bergen )
- Hoboken (after the Flemish city of Hoboken )
Ohio :
- Batavia (see Illinois)
- Van Wert (after the soldier of Dutch origin Isaac Van Wart )
Rhode Island (anglicized from "Roode Eylandt" (German: Rote Insel)):
- Block Island (after the Dutch navigator Adriaen Block )
Todays situation
According to a census from 1977, 150,490 people speak Dutch as their mother tongue, with the largest language communities in California (27,730), Florida (10,760) and New York (10,315). In New York City, 4,665 people speak Dutch, up from about 0.06% in 1977.
Significantly more US citizens are of Dutch and Flemish descent. According to the last census in 2000, around 1.6% said they were descended from the Netherlands. In fact, in some counties in Michigan and Iowa , most of the residents are Dutch.
Flemings
The city of Detroit was a particular attraction for Flemings , and there are still Flemish cafes, bookshops and restaurants here. Detroit also appeared to 2018 the Gazette van Detroit .
Dutch language in the United States
Dutch was an important language in the first decades of the United States of America (USA) due to the colonization of what is now New York by the Dutch West India Company .