A Call for Dutch Emigration. An Appeal Based on Faith, Family, and Famine: The Pamphlet That Sparked an Exodus

Six million people (2 percent of the population) in North America have Dutch roots.
Beginning in the mid-1800s, over half-a-million Netherlanders immigrated to North America (360,000 to US and 185,000 to Canada). Their reasons were many: religious freedom, economic well-being (to escape poverty), land ownership, to escape a rigid class structure that thwarted upward mobility, to escape famine, and for the education of their children.
Emigration, Why We Encourage Migration to North America and Not Java, a pamphlet written by Anthony Brummelkamp and Albertus C. Van Raalte in 1846, outlined multiple reasons to emigrate and was a powerful influence in the decision of many to leave. Arguably, this pamphlet could be considered the final impetus for Dutch migration to North America. Brummelkamp and Van Raalte’s pamphlet is here, published in English for the first time, for the purpose of contributing to a greater understanding of Dutch American culture.