400 Years of Dutch-American Stories

The American Revolution had a significant impact on the Dutch Republic. Not least thanks to Thomas Jefferson, who passed on his political ideals to Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, the drafter of the Dutch constitution.

In the Roaring Twenties, bourgeois Holland was awakened by a new musical wind from the West: jazz!

Without the Anglo-Dutch diplomat, the history of the United States would have looked different.

On 21 November 1847, the Phoenix steamship burned to the waterline on Lake Michigan and 154 passengers lost their lives. Most of them were Dutch immigrants.

In New York City, the historical memory of Petrus Stuyvesant has recently become controversial, but in the twentieth century, the image of the Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland was iconic as a symbol of Dutch-American friendship.

Few people know that the first African-American woman to be honoured with a bust in the US Capitol was a native speaker of Dutch.

Social activism and the struggle for women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century brought together women from countries around the world, including Jane Addams from the United States and Aletta Jacobs from the Netherlands.

On 25 February 1643, two massacres on and around Manhattan Island ignited a war between Dutch settlers and Native Americans that would last for years.

The United States is a rich source of inspiration for Dutch writer Annejet van der Zijl. 'Americans are open to newcomers and interested in history, perhaps because they live in a young country.'