The Republic of the Refugees: Early Modern Migrations and the Dutch Experience

Abstract

This essay surveys the wave of new literature on early modern migration and assesses its impact on the Dutch golden age. From the late sixteenth century, the Netherlands developed into an international hub of religious refugees, displaced minorities, and labour migrants. While migration to the Dutch Republic has often been studied in socio-economic terms, recent historiography has turned the focus of attention to its many cultural resonances. More specifically, it has been noted that the arrival of thousands of newcomers generated the construction of new patriotic narratives and cultural codes in Dutch society. The experience of civil war and forced migration during the Dutch revolt had already fostered the development of a national discourse that framed religious exile as a heroic experience. In the seventeenth century, the accommodation of persecuted minorities could therefore be presented as something typically ‘Dutch’. It followed that diaspora identities and signs of transnational religious solidarity developed into markers of social respectability and tools of cultural integration. The notion of a ‘republic of the refugees’ had profound international implications, too, because it shaped and justified Dutch interventions abroad.

Migrant solidarities and the politics of place

“…A pre-modern – or Counter-Enlightenment (Kapeller and Wolkenstein, 2013) – interpretation of solidarity focuses on loyalty based on reciprocity and trust. Migration research published in diverse interdisciplinary and disciplinary journals, ranging from history to sociology, has observed this type of solidarity within faith-based communities (Janssen, 2017; Yoon, 2013), diasporas (Sheffer, 2002) and families (McGovern and Devine, 2016; Juozeliunienë, 2013). When this bond of solidarity is associated with an imagined national community (Anderson, 1983), it can imply the rejection rather than inclusion of international migrants and refugees who may not represent a nation’s ethnic and religious imagination.…”

The Legal Rights of Religious Refugees in the ‘Refugee-Cities’ of Early Modern Germany

“…Thus the settlers of both Neuhanau and Neuwied exercised an agency and power that has only recently won recognition in historical writing on religious refugees in early modern Europe. Recent research has begun to reveal the many roles played by early modern refugees in mobilizing support, choosing among options, setting the terms of their reception, and defining their own identities (Lachenicht, 2017;Janssen, 2017;Arnold, 2017;Niggemann, 2016;Linden, 2015: Part III;Fehler et al, 2014;Schunka, 2006: 102-30;Schunka, 2003;Spohnholz and Waite, 2014;Strohmeyer, 2008). This new wave of research, though, has largely ignored the refugee-cities.…”

“…Economically, the contribution of certain refugee groups to the development of the host lands that took them in was decisive, while religiously, the experience of exile left a powerful mark on the thought of figures such as John Calvin and on the movements they led. It also played no small role in shaping the course of religious and political events in many lands (Niggemann, 2016;Janssen, 2017;Terpstra, 2015: 4;Lachenicht, 2017;Bahlcke, 2008;Grell, 2011;Spohnholz and Waite, 2014;Jürgens andWeller, 2010, Fehler et al, 2014;Kaplan, 2007: 156-61. Oberman, 1992 has been influential conceptually).…”

“…As far as taking in refugees was concerned, rulers sometimes felt a sense of duty as Christians to aid co-religionists, and their sympathies sometimes extended beyond the latter, for example to fellow Protestants who belonged to other confessions. Uniquely, the Dutch Republic began in the seventeenth century to identify itself as a haven for religious refugees of all stripes, while the eighteenth century saw the British government articulate general humanitarian grounds for protecting refugees and other persecuted groups (Janssen, 2017;Arnold, 2016;Arnold, 2017). Legally, though, it remained up to each ruler or government to determine, on a case by case basis, whether or not a particular group of refugees would be admitted, and if so, what rights its members would enjoy.…”

Migration

“…Commemorative texts and poems published after the peace with Spain in 1648 similarly framed the Dutch Republic as a natural safe haven for persecuted dissenters. 13 Stories of immigration were thus fused with declarations of patriotism.…”