Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Síða 11

DANISH EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA
By A. Kamp.
Editor of “Danmarksposten.”
THE great period of Danish emigration to North America
was that of 1850—1930. During these years 330,000
Danish immigrants arrived in the United States and more
than 30,000 in Canada. In the course of the preceding two
hundred years there had, however, also been periods in which
appreciable numbers of Danes emigrated to North America. The
first of these periods was 1600—1664, when the Dutch were
the leading colonizing nation on the East Coast of America.
European colonization in this area began when English trading
pioneers in 1607 established the colony of Virginia. About the
same time Holland, which was then the principal maritime and
commercial State on the European Continent, began to display
great commercial activity in the New World, including naviga-
tion, the establishment of trading stations, and the founding of
colonies. In those days there was a lively mutual intercourse
between Holland and the territories under the Danish Crown,
and thousands of Danish, Norwegian, and Holstein sailors served
as captains or able-bodied seamen in the great Dutch commercial
marine which sent its ships all over the seven seas. Among these
men we also find the first Danes to settle in America — sailors
who went ashore.
When in 1610 the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the service
of the Dutch East-India Company, sailed up the river which he
called the Mauritius River, but which later on came to bear his
own name, he had in all probability Danish members among his
crew. It is certain that it was two Danish-born captains, Hendrik
Christiansen and Adrian Block who in 1613—14 established a
fort some way up the Hudson River, which was first called
Fort Nassau” and subsequently “Fort Orange,” and which
ultimately became the present town of Albany.
In 1617 the Dutch Government prohibited the employment
of foreign sailors in Dutch ships, but from this prohibition Danish
sailors were expressly excepted, and the number of Danes in the
Dutch service increased, while many Dutchmen also went into
Danish service. There can therefore be little doubt that there
were Danes among the members of the Dutch expedition which
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