The Question of Language

Tomorrow, June 13th, Belgians head to the polls to vote in the first national election since 2007. Recent articles by international commentators, such as the Economist or the Wall Street Journal, have for the first time begun to recognize that the core of the issue is of course language. Understanding the roots and origin of a language of course, is integral to understanding the path of a people.

Flemish immigrants to this country have assimilated well. Too well in fact. Their language contributions have often slid to the background as other, more assertive tribes, have leapt to the fore in making their claim. Thankfully for us, the study of language - called philology - still permits a scientific sleuthing to uncover the real contributors to a language. Things such as pronunciation, syntax, spelling, and the actual usages of words provide signposts that philologists follow to the ultimate source of that part of the language.

One hundred years ago, in 1910, an American philologist by the name of John Dyneley Prince, published a now out-of-print study of "Jersey Dutch". At that time, there were still pockets of descendants who lived mainly in isolated communities of upstate New York and northern New Jersey, that spoke only or primarily a Dutch dialect. Like their Flemish Protestant forefathers, they farmed, attended the Dutch Reformed Church, and otherwise were able to avoid assimilation into broader American society. The below text are select excerpts of the study by Professor Prince, as presented in the 1910 issue of "Dialect Notes". My warm thanks to Paul Belien, Matthias Storme and Dirk Musschoot for independently bringing this to my attention.

"'Jersey' or "Bergen County Dutch" is the usual name for the vernacular of the descendants of the original [New] Netherland[s] settlers in old Bergen County, N.J., now subdivided into Bergen and Passaic Counties. Up to thirty years ago [circa 1880], this was the common idiom of many rural districts in northern New Jersey, employed alike by Dutch, English, German and French settlers. It has, during the past three decades, been driven from its former territory by the advent of the public schools, and now survives only in the memories of some two hundred old persons, nearly all of whom are over seventy years of age. The younger generations have preserved, however, the curious jerky intonation, unclear diction and the marked singsong tone of voice, which were characteristics of the parent speech. The Jersey Dutch is obsolescent, but it has undoubtedly left its mark on the modern English of both Bergen and Passaic Counties."

"It must not be supposed that Jersey Dutch had anything in common, other than a kindred ancient ancestry, with the so-called "Pennsylvania Dutch," which is merely the Pfalz dialect of German mixed with English. The Jersey Dutch was originally the South Holland or Flemish language, which, in the course of centuries (ca 1630-1880), became mixed with and partially influenced by English, having borrowed also from the Minsi (Lenape-Delaware) Indian language a few animal and plant names. This Dutch has suffered little or nothing from modern Holland or Flemish immigration, although Patterson (the county seat of Passaic County) has at present a large Netherland [sic] population. The old country people hold themselves strictly aloof from these foreigners and say, when they are questioned as to the difference between the idioms: "Oiize tdl dz lex dtiuts en hcelliz dz Hol-ldns; kwdit dddfrent." ["Our language is low Dutch and theirs is Holland Dutch; quite different."]."

"An intelligent Fleming or South Hollander with a knowledge of English can make a shift at following a conversation of this Americanized Dutch, but the converse is not true, as the Jersey Dutch speaking countryman is quite helpless, if his interlocutor makes the slightest deviation from the accepted pronunciation or idiom of the dialect. As old Mrs. Bartholf of Paterson [New Jersey] remarked to the writer, when questioned as to how much she could grasp of a conversation in Netherlands Dutch: "En parti kan ak kwait xtit verstdne, mdr en parti kein dk nit." ["Part of it I can understand quite well, but a part of it I cannot."]."

"The object of the present paper is to set forth a phonetic and grammatical sketch of this curious and dying dialect with a glossary of its most important and characteristic words still in use....So far as I know, no other philological treatise has appeared on this subject....It should be added that during the past eighteen years [1891-1909], I have heard many persons use thislast echo of an almost forgotten period....I have been particularly careful not to draw material from people who had any intercourse with Hollanders or Flemings, so that my sources may be looked upon as representing the unadulterated Jersey Dutch idiom, so far as it survives today [1910]."

What followed was an exhaustive list of words, terms, forms of pronunciation and possible etymological sources. Needless to say, the backup emphasized Dr. Prince's key point: the language of the settlers of New Netherlands (Nieuw Nederland ofte Nova Belgica) was heavily influenced by Flemish. Today's Flemings - and especially the Flemish government - rightly need to reclaim jurisdiction over this point of history.

Copyright 2010 by David Baeckelandt. No reproduction in any form permitted without my express, prior, written consent.

The Flemish Influence on the Pilgrims: Part 6

Every so often I stumble upon something obscure yet dead-on to explaining the contribution of the Flemish to the discovery and settlement of the New World. A while back it was the piece by Professor Verlinden. Today it is this superb article that has been hidden in dusty tomes for more than fifty years. Because I am fortunate to work near a library that holds a vast array of periodicals I was able to access this piece. For all of you without the access - but yet with the burning desire to confirm what you might suspect of the Flemish contribution to the New World, I post this for you.

The Flemish influence on the Pilgrims Part 6: Excerpts From, “The Cultural Impact of the Flemish Low Countries on Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England”

By John J. Murray – The American Historical Review, Vol. 62, No.4, (1957); pp. 837-854

“Historians have treated at some length the cultural impact of Celt, German, Scandinavian, Frenchman, Spaniard, and Italian, but they have too often ignored the significance of the Flemings. This is indeed curious, for cultural currents from the Flemish speaking Low Countries seriously although quietly helped to shape the flow of British life, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the long run, their significance was perhaps equal to and in some respects superior to the combined influences of Italy and France….

“English and Scottish contingents in the Low Countries fought side by side with the Flemings against the troops of Alva and his successors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The soldiers serving [in the Flemish Low Countries at this time] came to know and appreciate Flemish ways and as a result took many Flemish customs – military and social – back to Britain with them…

“While the military marched, Flemish civilians flocked to England by the thousands seeking to escape the rapine, slaughter, and economic chaos resulting from Protestant and Catholic furies that alternately swept the Low Countries. The Flemings came as “strangers” and attended their own Dutch speaking churches, but their children born in England were British. Many became Anglicans, adopted British habits, and changed their names. But when Willem van der Straaten became William Streets, and Hoek became Leeke, and Haerstricht, the Flemish manufacturer at Bow, became James, they did not desert completely the old ways and the old customs…When they built their homes, they incorporated in them nostalgic reminders of their Flemish ancestry….

“Refugee traffic between the two countries ran both ways: Flemings came to England and Englishmen went to the Netherlands…. The Pilgrim Fathers were not a unique group so far as seventeenth-century Holland was concerned, and it is to be remembered that they did not embark for the New World before they had acquired some Dutch ideas and customs….

“Economic activities also provided a pathway for Flemish ideas. From the Low Countries, England drew many artisans and craftsmen, and these Flemish refugees brought new crafts with them. The coming of the “new Draperies” to England is directly connected with the Elizabethan settlements of Flemish refugees in Norwich, Sandwich, Colchester, London, and elsewhere. During Elizabeth’s reign, eleven thousand artisans from Ghent, mostly weavers, came to England….

“The town of Norwich opened its gates to four thousand Flemish strangers, the majority of whom were in the cloth trade….

“In spite of some local animosities, the immigrants prospered….they provided not only for their own poor but for the poor of their hosts as well….King and Parliament, however, levied heavy charges on them, and as a result some…migrated to the New World….

“Sir Thomas Gresham modeled the Royal Exchange on the Antwerp Bourse; Sir Balthazar Gerbier…outlined a plan for a bank for England in 1641; and fifty-three years later, under a Dutch king [William III], the Bank of England came into existence, with Sir James Houblon, grandson of a Flemish immigrant, as its first governor….

“One way to evaluate the importance of the Low Countries influence on England is to study the numerous Flemish words that crept into the English language….the common origin of many words and the similarity between English and Flemish in the fifteenth century. A pamphleteer could comment two hundred years later that ‘most of our old words are Dutch’….

“The test of language shows very clearly England’s debt….in maritime ventures. As might be expected, the English language abounds with Dutch nautical and marine terms…The influence of the Low Countries on English shipping [and exploration] extended [still] further…’The reform of cartography in the sixteenth century owed much to the achievements of Mercator and Ortelius.’ In the seventeenth century, Flemish predominance [in cartography] continued unabated….

“Flemish printing houses poured forth magnificent prints that were widely copied in England. The Flemish refugees John and Martin Droeshout are well known to students of Shakespeare because of their engraved portrait of the great dramatist….Prints from the house of Hondius-Janszoon and Blaeuw were well known to British buyers, who bought emblems along with landscapes and maps. Emblem books….had a tremendous vogue throughout the next century [1600s]. Francis Quarles, the most renowned of England’s emblem poets, borrowed all but ten of seventy-nine emblems from the books of two Flemish Jesuits…[the] British emblem writers…all plundered Flemish artists for their engravings….

“Flemings played a definite role in the history of English printing….From 1483, when Flemish printers first began to issue books for the English market, to 1640 over two hundred Flemish printers and booksellers had connections with England. Christopher Plantin, Martinus de Keyser, the Elseviers, the Blaeuws, and Hans Luft printed books specifically for English buyers. Others such as Christoffel van Ruremund and his brother Hans sold their books personally in England.…A third group, in which were Emanuel van Meteren, Stephen Mierdam, and Nicholas van de Berghe, settled in England and became British subjects.

“These booksellers and printers of Flemish birth and extraction were in the forefront in the battle for men’s minds and souls waged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A steady stream of Bibles and Protestant tracts were smuggled into England from the Low Countries. After [the Duke of] Parma was able to save the Southern Netherlands for the Spanish crown and for Rome, Antwerp and Brussels became focal points for the printing and distribution of Jesuit and other Catholic books [bound for British Catholics]….

“Flanders served as the outlet for disseminating information during the seventeenth-century religious conflicts in England, and its thinkers actually contributed many important ideas to British theological arguments….There was a direct, traceable progression of latitudinarian ideas from Erasmus, through Arminius and Grotius, to Milton and John Locke….In few periods in English history has thought been so vitally affected by ideas and occurrences in a foreign country….

“The controversy of the Dutch Remonstrant followers of Arminius with the orthodox party in the Netherlands was ‘followed with breathless interest in England’. British ecclesiastics sat at the Synod of Dort (1618-1619)….and were loud in their praise of orthodox champions such as Gomarus [of Flanders and an acquaintance of the Pilgrims]….

“[The Protestant sect of] Congregationalism drew strength from the Netherlands as well as from New England. The English separatists [from which America’s Pilgrims came], during their stay in the Low Countries, ‘had been considerably influenced by their Arminian and Anabaptist neighbors’ [in Leiden, which was nearly 70% made up of refugees, primarily from Flanders]…

“In the arts, as in other fields…Flemish polyphony merged with the active native [=British] tradition….Such Flemish musicians as Johannes Okelgem, Josquin des Pres, and Orlande de Lassus, through the subsequent developments of the Italo-Flemish and Franco-Flemish schools of music, left their mark on English music….

“The influence of Flemish painters upon those in England began as far back as the Flemish primitives. Touching the portrait painters of the Tudors, it reached its greatest significance in the seventeenth century. Within the short space of thirty-five years (1634-1668), the Dutch words ‘easel’, ‘etch’, ‘maulstick’, ‘landscape’, and ‘sketch’ were added to the English language, while at the same time the artists Van Dyke, Rubens, Huysman, and others enjoyed a tremendous vogue in England…

“The fashion of having one’s portrait done by Flemish painters has sometimes provided the historian his only real idea of the appearance of many historical personages. The two Gheerharts, the De Critzes, Hans Eworth, Antonis Mor, Lucas de Heere, Joos van Cleef, to mention a few, reveal the character of various Tudor and Jacobean figures and illustrate the clothing of their times…

“What the portrait painters did for people, the two Van de Veldes…did for ships. Pepys could ask in his Naval Minutes, “What sea-scape of our nation have we ever had like Vandervelde [sic] or the others?’…

“Flemish [art] collectors and dealers, such as Gerbier and De Critz, did much to foster art in England and to preserve the masters for posterity. The English debt to them during the dispersal of the Royal and Buckingham collections cannot be overstressed….

“Architects from John Thorpe in the sixteenth century to Christopher Wren in the early eighteenth century…incorporated many Flemish characteristics in their own work….Wren steeples and Jacobean gabled houses bear testimony to Flemish influences….

“British household interiors, like their exteriors, sometimes became Flemish Renaissance….The Flemish bow, C-scroll, and curve can be found at least individually if not collectively in all chairs made in the late Stuart period….[In 1622]Johannes Fromanteel made the first long case, or perhaps we should say ‘grandfather’ clock….One of these clocks merrily ticked away in Dickens’ ‘old curiosity shop’.…[these] examples of marquetry and inlay were put to excellent use, not only in the manufacture of clock cases but also in the making of chests and cupboards. [Recall that] ‘Veneer’ is a Dutch word… [In wall-hangings] Up to the beginning of the reign of Charles I [reigned 1625-1649], Flemish tapestry makers dominated the British markets.

“In the sixteenth century a light plow that could be drawn by two horses was invented in the Netherlands, and it was introduced into Norfolk and Suffolk during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Farmers in the Netherlands employed crop rotation, and in the seventeenth century Sir Richard Weston advocated the application of such Flemish methods to British agriculture. He initiated the planting of Dutch clover, so that in Norfolk and the Fen country, clover cultivation was practiced some years before 1700. Thirty years later, a decided impetus was given to the practice of crop rotation when Charles Viscount Townsend…quit his office of Secretary of State and returned to Raynham, his Dutch-style home, to farm his lands according to the ‘Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders.’

“Before the coming of the Flemings, the art of gardening seems to have been lost by the English…Queen Katherine of Aragon [1485-1536] had her table supplied from the Low Countries for she was unable to obtain the makings for a salad in all of England….[these] immigrants changed asparagus, artichokes, and water cress from aphrodisiacs and women’s remedies [in English minds] to edibles. By 1699, when Evelyn wrote his Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, he could find in London gardens the ingredients needed to fill the salad bowl….

“Engineers from the Low Countries altered the face of England and shamed the British by their industry, ‘which makes them seem as if they had a faculty from the worlds Creation out of water to make dry land.’…Sir Richard Weston, in about 1645, brought out of Flanders ‘the Contrivance of Locks, Turnpikes, and tumbling Boyes for Rivers.’ Charles II, during a yachting party on September 11, 1680, had a discussion with Pepys on how it came ‘to pass that England has at all times served itself with strangers for engineers.’ By far the majority of those foreign engineers were Flemings….

“New industries meant new commodities; new tools and scientific instruments made new tasks possible….New eating habits and new drinking habits became established. The Dutch word ‘brewery’ took the place of the English word ‘brewhouse’…The stylish ruffle [worn by the elite] of the reign of Elizabeth [1558-1603] and the widespread use [in England] of lawn and cambric can both be traced to the Low Countries, as can the use of starch. On the streets, the new coach from Antwerp [first brought in the 1560s by the husband of the woman who introduced starch], often pulled by mares from Flanders, appreciably changed the London scene.

“The Flemish strangers themselves gave a colorful twist to English history. Some were sober and hard-working artisans; some were godly and walked with the saints; but others were more of the flesh than of the spirit…. Some of the newcomers were merchants, bankers, goldsmiths, engineers, architects, and doctors; others were freaks, acrobats, artists, and entertainers. Some sank down into the depths of the London underworld while others rose to mingle with the high and the mighty. One, Isaac Doreslaer, helped brief the legal arguments that sent Charles I to the scaffold; another, John de Critz the second, lost his life before Oxford fighting for the Royalist cause.

“An attempt has been made here to place in proper perspective the great debt that Britain owes to the Flemish Low Countries during the period in which Britain was developing….Just as European thought was given a definite British tinge before it came to Boston and Philadelphia, so did the characteristics of the Renaissance and Reformation receive Flemish overtones before they arrived in Norwich and London.

Professor Murray’s article originally was delivered as a speech on November 13, 1954 at the first meeting of the Midwest Conference of British Historians.

Copyright 2010 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any form without my express, written consent.

Was George Vancouver Flemish?

Vancouver, the Winter Olympics, and the tie to Flanders

Like many of you I have been enjoying the Winter Olympics. Besides the actual events the draws for me are the drama, the color, and the chance to see superb athletes from across the globe in friendly, but earnest, competition.

One of the appeals of any Olympics is the chance to learn something about the locale of the Games. For Vancouver, this has centered around the story of the English explorer George Vancouver. Vancouver discovered and named many points around coastal British Columbia.

Of course, most informed observers might wonder about the “Englishness” of a name like “Vancouver”. A few decades ago a local Dutch consular official, in his desire to establish rapport with the Canadians around him, claimed that Vancouver had been of Dutch descent. The reasonably plausible argument purported to show that Vancouver had ancestral ties with the northern Netherlands:

“A search was made in the 1880s by a Dutch army captain and amateur genealogist, C.J. Polvliet, who published his findings in an 1883 issue of Heraldieke Bibliotheek, a Dutch heraldic magazine.

“Polvliet discovered that Reint Wolter van Coeverden had, for the first time in more than three centuries of the family's history, married someone from outside the country. She was an Englishwoman named Johanna Lillingston. The Lillingstons were a Yorkshire family of long lineage, and were in Burke's Peerage. Johanna is, it seems, the grandmother of the man for whom Vancouver is named.

“Polvliet's research was summarized in the February, 1973, issue of B.C. Historical News by Adrian Mansvelt, who was consul general for the Netherlands in Vancouver at that time. We learn that Polvliet's records of this English connection are vague and fragmentary, but it appears Reint Wolter's son Lucas may have stayed in England “because of his English affinities through his mother.”

“Somewhere along in here the English branch of the van Coeverdens changed and shortened their name to Vancouver. Lucas Vancouver “was, presumably, the grandfather of Capt. George Vancouver,” wrote Mansvelt, “and it may be assumed he (Lucas) married one Sarah Vancouver, whose maiden name remains unknown but who lived in St. James Street in King's Lynn, and was registered as a householder there.”

Today, visitors to the Olympics or the Vancouver website, are met with this story as established fact. Fortunately for us, recent research published in Vancouver’s own, British Columbia Historical Journal (called British Columbia History), suggests a different, Flemish, origin for George Vancouver. The author, John Robson, wrote “Origins of the Vancouver Name: Another Possibility” in 2006, commemorating the 250th Anniversary of George Vancouver’s birth. I have excerpted several key passages below (p.23):

“The City of Vancouver and Vancouver Island (plus several other features around the world) derive their name from that of George Vancouver, a late-eighteenth century British surveyor-explorer. As a surname, Vancouver is very rare and only made its appearance about the middle of the eighteenth century with George Vancouver’s own family. It then all but died out as members of the family had mostly female children if they had any children at all.

“Adrien Mansvelt, the consul for the Netherlands at Vancouver in the 1970s, researched Vancouver’s ancestry and produced a genealogy that has been accepted by most people since that time, even though there is little or no documentary evidence for some of the facts included therein…

“The lack of documentary evidence for the Vancouvers and van Couverdens in England and, especially in King’s Lynn [where George Vancouver was born] and Norfolk, prior to 1750, caused me to look elsewhere and for variant names. A genealogical search produced some results and with them an alternative version for the origins of the Vancouver name.”

Dr. Robson goes on to catalogue the migration of Vancouver’s ancestors. While George was born in King’s Lynn, his mother’s (Bridget Berners) maternal home, his father’s birth certificate is undiscovered.

The most likely candidate to be George Vancouver's father, an individual with the name "Jonas Vangover", was born a few miles away from King's Lynn at a similarily heavily-Flemish weaver town called Ipswich. Professor Robson believes that this Jonas Vangover is the same man as John Jasper Vancouver. Nor is that unlikely. Names were frequently modified in not only spelling but emphasis.

The relevance of the melding of identities between Jonas and John Jasper is key because Jonas Vangover’s father was a James Vangover who had been born at Colchester to a Dutch-speaking family that had deep roots in the town. James Vangover, George Vancouver’s possible grandfather, was the son of Abraham Vangover, a weaver and member of the “Dutch” church at Colchester. This Abraham Vangover (married in 1681 at Colchester) may himself be the namesake to (or the same individual as) an Abraham Vangover, listed as a Flemish weaver at Colchester in 1618 (see the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society published at London, 1889; Volume II, p.185).

So while we do not have proof either way, there exists the possibility of Flemish ancestry for George Vancouver. If the identities of John Jasper and Jonas Vangover are identical, then George Vancouver had links to a family of Flemish weavers from the Westkwartier of Flanders. But even if we cannot prove the connection today, a look back at time reminds us of the Flemings who ran the good race and fought the good fight.

My next postings will be a little closer to home. This time the focus will be Chicago, and other Flemish contributions in the U.S.

Copyright 2010 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No publication without my express, written permission.

The Flemish House (Vlaams Huis) & Henry Hudson's Quadricentennial

New Netherland/Novum Belgium in the 1600s

Among high society in Eastern parts of this country [the USA], to claim descent from the 'Dutch' of New Netherlands assures a certain credibility. […] 2009 marks the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's voyage to 'discover' the New York area. NY state plans a huge celebration […] To that end PBS plans a major documentary. The Dutch government also has plans for a documentary. There is a major book being published by scholars of that period ('Dutch-American Relations 1609-2009'). There will be special exhibits at NY museums. There have been special state grants to The Holland Society, The New Netherlands Project, The New Amsterdam Historical Society, etc. I think you get the idea.

Henry Hudson

Where am I going with this? Well, New Netherlands was founded, financed, governed, protected and settled by the Flemish. Plancius, who supplied the maps for the 1609 expedition, was a West Fleming. Most of the rest of the so-called "Dutch" aiding Hudson were Antwerpenaars: such as Van Meteren (who was also the 'Dutch' ambassador to England and the author of the first 'Dutch' history and the one who secured Hudson for this job. Judocus Hondius (from Wakken) was Hudson's interpreter when he came to the Netherlands before the expedition.

Henry Hudson's 3rd Voyage of Exploration - to New York in 1609

The Henry Hudson expedition had at least 3 Flemings. The follow up in 1611 for at least 10 years to the expedition (meaning the first commercial expeditions to exploit Hudson's discoveries) were financed by Arnout Vogel (from Antwerp) and captained by Adriaen Block (from Dendermonde).
Their company was De Nieuw Nederland Compagnie. It was a 'voorcompagnie' (predecessor company) of De West Indische Compagnie (WIC) which actually colonized Nieuw Nederland beginning in 1624 […]

De Haelve Maen/The Half Moon - Henry Hudson's Ship in 1609

[T]he first child born in Nieuw Amsterdam, Sarah Rapalje, was the daughter of an Antwerpenaar weaver. Govert Lockermans – the most successful trader in Nieuw Nederland – was from Turnhout. George Bush's ancestor Willem Beekman, longtime mayor of New Amsterdam was the grandson of Willem Baudartius, the translator of the first Dutch language bible, who was a native of Deinze.

Willem Baudartius, native of Deinze

Over the past several years in research, courtesy largely of the translated records of the New Netherlands, I have recorded approximately 100 Flemings – from Aalst, Aecken, Brugge, Brussel, Ghent, Hoboken, Kortrijk, Limburg, Ypres and elesewhere – who helped found and grow Nieuw Nederland (ofte Nova Belgica). Their descendants include US Presidents, famous literary and cultural people, as well as politicians and inventors. These include: Daniel Webster (the dictionary name), Thomas Edison, and even Edward Hopper (the artist). My point here is that if New Netherlands was 'Dutch', it was Dutch with a very strong Flemish accent.

View of Nieuwe Amsterdam

The Flemish need to reclaim this part of history. Vlaams Huis can do that. Once reclaimed, Vlaams Huis can capture state money (from NY, NJ, and CT), federal money, and free publicity. This will better enable the Flemish government (eg, thru the Flanders Investment Trade office, etc.) to promote Flanders in America. The 2009 Quadricenttenial of Hudson's 1609 voyage is just around the corner. And in tribal America the timing could not be any better.

Who are the Flemish-Americans?

The national anthem of the Flemish is "De Vlaamse Leeuw". The "Vlaamse Leeuw" stanza and refrain that hung in the Belgian Hall in Chicago from 1971 until its closing in the 1980s. This was created by Julian Baeckelandt (1904-1975), a Flemish immigrant from Koekelare, West Vlaanderen. We sang this anthem at the start of meetings.


Growing up Flemish-American in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s was like growing up as some part of a soon-to-be extinct tribe. In Chicago's Catholic milieu of neighborhoods and ethnicities the defining questions when making a new aquaintance were "What [Catholic] parish are you from?" and "What nationality [=ethnicity/national heritage] are you?" Most Chicagoans slipped easily into the well-known categories: Irish, Italian, German, and Polish. Others fell into smaller groups that had ethnic cohesion and strong cultural identity as well: English, French, Croatians, etc. Few people in Chicago, however, knew then who the Flemish were or are.

My answers to those two above questions were easy for the first (since I was and am Catholic) but difficult for the second. Telling another grade school kid I was Flemish was akin to telling them I spoke Swahili: it existed outside the normative range of responses that another Chicagoan could anticipate and was the prelude either for a short history lesson or (as I got older) quick quips about Flemish painters or Trappist beer.

Provinces of Belgium

Flanders did not have its own state - it was and is the most populous region of a country more than 50 years younger than the U.S., Belgium. There was barely a Belgian history, and certainly no such thing as a Belgian language (the vast majority of Belgian citizens speak as their mother tongue the softer version of Dutch called Flemish). There was and are two distinct cultures and nationalities; Flemish and Walloons cobbled together in an artficial state. Like the Soviet Union, or other states where a determined minority imposed their will on the majority without their consent, Belgium was born in 1830 of a revolt by a French-speaking minority imposing their will over the majority Flemings.


My need to answer the second question more thoroughly has been part of a 40 year quest. In a tribal society like the late twentieth-century urban United States, knowing who you are is as important as knowing where you wish to go. It is critical not only for one’s self-development but as an aid to others in the tribal society to fit you into a construct that their universe can identify and classify. So who are the Flemish?

The Flemish - approximately 60% of the 10,584,534 inhabitants of the Kingdom of Belgium in 2007 as per Belgian government statistics - are in effect a nation without a country. Although recognized as a distinct "people" since at least the time of the establishment of the Count of Flanders (862 AD) and moreover, predating "France" by at least 100 years - the Capetian kings of the late 900s transferred their fief name of the Ile de France to the broader domain that expanded under their dominion - Flanders’ political sovereignity has only sporadically stood free . Flanders has been occupied by not only the French (1794-1815 - and throughout the pre-Burgundian period before 1477), but of course the Germans (1914-18; 1940-44), Spanish (1516-1712) and Austrians (1712-1794). An excellent timeline that reduces this complexity to a graphic timeline can be found here. The Kingdom of Belgium itself is an artificial construct that only dates to 1830 and was established primarily by a Francophone elite who imposed their will, apartheid-like, on the Flemish majority.

Today Flanders' sovereignity remains impeded, primarily by the artificial political dominance of the minority Walloons. That said, conditions for the oppressed Flemish majority have improved since the establishment of the Belgian state in 1830. No longer do Flemings have to worry that they can be charged, tried, and executed without recourse to their native language (such as 2 Flemish peasants charged, tried and executed in French without recourse), nor are Flemish soldiers given military orders in a foreign language (Flemish soldiers were still being jailed for this as late as 1930) nor have they been forbidden to attend higher education in their native language (again, this was not legally permitted until the middle of the 20th century). Flemish citizens could not even - in their own streets - see street signs in Flemish. Everything official was conducted in the language of the minority - French.

The 2000 US Census listed 348,531 people claiming "Belgian" ancestry (down from more than 380,000 in 1990). Less than 15,000 specifically listed "Flemish" as their ethnicity. A superficial reading of these numbers would lead the uninformed to believe that the number of Flemish-Americans is so small as to be meaningless. The reality is that Flemish-Americans - as defined by their origins in the Dutch-speaking regions of today's Belgium and France - are the majority. The vast majority of emmigrants as tracked by the Belgian government when debriefed before embarkation during the largest decade of Belgian emigration to America were from the Flemish provinces of East and West Flanders and Brabant.

As these late 19th and early 20th century Flemish immigrants established clubs and associations in the U.S. they chose names like "Familiekring" and the "Flemish American Club". Some Flemish immigrant clusters, such as the one in Chicago that was an important part of my family’s social life, glossed over the discrimination remaining in their homeland and called themselves a "Belgian-American Club".


But even then the inequalities of the past were not entirely forgotten. When the cornerstone of the Belgian-American Club of Chicago was laid in 1921 it carried the inscription that "All Belgians are Equal". (See the picture here http://www.viwchicago.org/news_events.html#past).
Historical citizenship - in this case the Belgian citizenship of Flemish ancestors - has in the minds of many of these immigrants' descendants become the proxy for ethnicity. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence of choosing club and association names that stressed the connection with Belgium – like the Belgian-American Club of Chicago . Likewise, within one or two generations outmarriage (to non-Flemish ethnicities) was the rule. Dilution of ethnicity was multiplied by a decision to choose which “nationality” one chooses to emphasize. Despite the fact that most Americans are mongrels (yours truly included) only 29% of all Americans claimed "multiple" ancestries in the last census (2000). Since very few Americans are truly of only one ethnicity, these figures represent self-perceptions more than they represent true genetic origins.

My point here then is that the census-takers’ official designation of “Flemish-American” is not accurately reflected in the statistics officially tallied. More to the point, self-descriptions may not mesh with ethnicities. In a later blog I will attempt to show that the number of Flemish-Americans is far, far greater than even the upper tally of Belgian-Americans recorded by census takers.

The picture to the left was a reception for King Albert in 1930 hosted by the Flemish Belgian-American community in Chicago.


In the interim, I can reccommend Herman Boel's comprehensive website of all things Flemish as a superb starting point to understand more about not only the origins of the Flemish but also the various facets of modern Flemish culture.