There are approximately 8 million Americans of Dutch descent in the United States. Dutch-Americans are found in every region, with 18% of Dutch-Americans living in the northeastern U.S., 35% living in the the north-central U.S., 26% living in the southern U.S. and 25% living in the western U.S. Although Dutch-Americans can be found in every state they, like other groups, tend to be concentrated in certain states and these concentrations correlate with recognizable immigration patterns over the past 400 years. The majority of Dutch-Americans live in just ten states: California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Washington and Iowa.

The Roots of Dutch-Americans and Immigration Patterns

The Dutch first set foot on the North American continent in 1609 when the Dutch East India Company vessel De Halve Maen, commanded by English Captain Henry Hudson, laid anchor at Sandy Hook and then sailed up the present-day Hudson River. Captain Hudson was searching for a shorter route to Asia and the East Indies, and after approaching what is now Albany and finding the river becoming more narrow and not at all salty, Hudson returned to England. Dutch traders, however, were not daunted and began to exploit the riches of this wild country. In 1614 the Netherlands States-General granted a trading charter to 13 Dutch businessmen, who in turn established themselves in Fort Nassau, the second European settlement in America.

Fort Nassau became "merchant-central," and ten years later the burgeoning trade from New Netherland--as the area came to be called--attracted the interest of the newly-established and well-capitalized Dutch West India Company. The Company was granted a monopoly over trade in America by the States-General and began to encourage Dutch citizens to settle in New Netherland. In 1625, Fort Amsterdam was constructed on Manhattan Island and the town of New Amsterdam sprung-up around it. New Amsterdam, of course, later became New York City. One year later, the Governor of New Netherland bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24. Dutch emigration to New Netherland during this period was approximately 1500, with many living on Manhattan or Long Island. Many boroughs and places in New York--Brooklyn, Wall Street, Long Island, the Bowery, The Bronx, Coney Island, Harlem--trace their names from this Dutch period. For more information about the Dutch colonial period in North America, visit the New Netherland Project.

In the mid-1600s, the Netherlands chief maritime and trading rival was England. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, an English fleet appeared off the coast of New Amsterdam in 1664, and Peter Stuyvesant was forced to surrender the fort and the settlement to England. Although New York remained in English hands until George Washington took it from the British during the American Revolutionary War, the Dutch remained and prospered. By 1664, Dutch emigration to America totalled approximately 6000, and an equal number of Dutch came to America during the 18th century.

The height of Dutch emigration to the United States occurred in the latter half of the 19th century, when more than a quarter-of-a-million Dutch landed on American shores. Most Dutch immigrants came to the U.S. for economic reasons, hoping to find opportunities for prosperity in the New World. Smaller groups, mainly orthodox dissenters from the Dutch Reformed Church, decided to leave their homeland, and these groups became the heart of the Dutch colonies of Pella, Iowa and Holland, Michigan.

Mechanization and modernization in the Netherlands caused many Dutch to leave their villages and seek a life in the United States' agricultural belt. The heavy concentration of Dutch-Americans in and around the Great Lake states testify to this proclivity and to another oft-mentioned Dutch-American trait--that of living in a stable, homogeneous, like-minded communities of fellow Dutch emigrants. This latter trait is illustrated by two facts: in 1850, 3/4ths of all Dutch emigrants lived in less than 1% of all U.S. counties; in 1990 more than 1/3rd of all citizens of Holland, Michigan claimed to be of Dutch descent.

Other waves of Dutch emigration occurred after both World Wars in the 20th century. While the U.S. was the destination for 90% of all Dutch emigrants in the 19th century, in the 20th century this slipped to under 50%; Canada and Australia also became favored destinations. After World War II, the Netherlands was the most-densely populated country in the world, and the Netherlands government actively encouraged emigration. In the U.S., the settlement pattern of these "post-war" emigrants roughly followed that of their predecessors, although more Dutch migrants seemed willing to settle in Washington, Florida and Texas.

Today, U.S. Census Bureau data show that the Dutch-Americans are still clustered in a few well-defined areas. Heavy concentrations of Dutch-Americans are found in central and western New York, eastern and western Pennsylvania, central and southern Michigan, central Florida, eastern Wisconsin, central Washington, western and central Iowa, northeastern and southwestern Ohio, and central and northeastern Illinois.