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Immigrants in the Polder. Rural-Rural Long Distance Migration in North-Western Europe: The Case of Watergraafsmeer1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

HARM KAAL  and
JELLE VAN LOTTUM
HARM KAAL
Affiliation:
History Department, VU University, Amsterdam.
JELLE VAN LOTTUM
Affiliation:
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Geography Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
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Abstract

Long distance emigration of agriculture workers or farmers is usually associated with seasonal migration. Permanent migration of farmers on the other hand, is considered to be a non-European phenomenon and commonly linked to migration to the New World where capital costs were relatively low and institutional barriers limited. Interestingly, in the early modern period, in the wake of the mass migration from continental north-western Europe to the urban areas of the Dutch Republic, a contingent of German market gardeners and their descendants were slowly able to take over the production of farmed vegetable goods for the nation's capital, Amsterdam. In the middle of one of Europe's most densely populated areas, in a polder called Watergraafsmeer, a parish neighbouring, and subsequently part of, Amsterdam, Germans dominated the agricultural sector for over a century. This article will try to answer the question of how these German migrants were able to control a sector that is usually run by locally born producers, for such a long period of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 99 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

Notes

2. The authors would like to thank Jan Lucassen and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.

3. See, for instance, Moch, Leslie Page, Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650 (Bloomington, 2003)Google Scholar and van Lottum, Jelle, Across the North Sea. The Impact of the Dutch Republic on International Labour Migration, c. 1550–1850 (Amsterdam, 2007)Google Scholar.

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5. Lucassen, Migrant Labour, passim.

6. There are examples known where farmers were invited to set up farms hundreds of miles away from home. This was for instance the case in the sixteenth century, when 184 farmers and their families migrated from the Dutch island of Marken to the island of Amager near Copenhagen. However, this migration was exceptional in the sense that it was not the result of the normal migration process, the farmers involved were subsidised and received all kinds of privileges and had their own jurisdiction upon arrival. See, Johansen, Hans Christian, ‘Danish-Dutch Relations in the Late Eighteenth Century’, in Davids, C.A., Fritschy, W. and van der Valk, L.A. (eds.), Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azie van 1500 tot heden (Amsterdam, 1996), 197–207Google Scholar. Interestingly, immigrants also played an important role in the history of market gardening in England and Wales. It is known, for instance, that in the wake of the large scale migration of Protestants from the Continent to England in the sixteenth century, market gardeners and market gardeners' labourers set up gardens at Sandwich, Colchester, Norwich, Canterbury, Maidstone and London. In all these places, except for London, they were the first to set up market gardens. See Thirsk, Joan, ed., Agricultural Change: Policy and Practice, 1500–1750. Chapters from the Agrarian History of England and Wales, volume 3 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 235–6Google Scholar.

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11. In a recent overview of Dutch agricultural history, market gardening has been labelled as one of the agricultural sectors in need of ‘a more modern study’. As such, this study also aims to fill a part of this lacuna. See: Bieleman, Jan, ‘Dutch Agricultural History c. 1500–1950: A State of Research’ in: Thoen, Erik and VanMolle, Leen (eds.), Rural History in the North-Sea Area. An Overview of Recent Research, Middle Ages – Twentieth Century (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 283–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quotation at p. 291.Older studies include W.J. Sangers' thorough, but dated study De ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse tuinbouw (tot het jaar 1930) (Zwolle, 1952) and Blink, H., ‘Nederland als tuinbouwland. Historisch en economisch-geografisch beschreven’ in Tijdschrift voor Economische Geographie, 7 (1916), 229–362Google Scholar.

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24. 1829 was the first year for which such a table can be constructed.

25. The average share of foreigners in the whole of the Netherlands in first half of the nineteenth century was only four per cent. See van Lottum, Jelle, ‘Nieuwkomers in Nederland in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 29 (2003), 257–80, quotation at p. 258Google Scholar.

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27. Van Lottum, Across the North Sea, pp. 41–3.

28. Van Lottum, Across the North Sea, p. 62.

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30. Van Lottum, Across the North Sea, pp. 99–102.

31. Lucassen, Jan, ‘Immigranten in Holland, 1600–1800: een kwantitatieve benadering’, CGM Working Paper, 3 (Amsterdam, 2002), 24, table 5Google Scholar; Van Lottum, Across the North Sea, p. 65, Figure 2.5.

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34. ACA. Watergraafsmeer Parish Archive (337). Confession Books (1710).

35. ACA, 5008, inv.nr. 193, 195–201. Population registers; ACA, 337. Personele Quotisatie (1744), Quotisatie van de 50e penning of Liberale gift (1747), Annual Reports (1830, 1848).

36. ACA, 5076.WGM, inv.nr. 3, f. 306.

37. University Library Amsterdam. Collection KNAG. Map by Jan Mol: Nieuwe Kaart van de Wydberoemde Koopstat Amsteldam met deszelfs Gebied. Beneevens alle de Plaisante Weegen en Paden buiten de Stat, Als naa Diemen, de geheele Diemer Meer, Als meede naa Slooterdyk en den Overtoom (1770); University Library Leyden. Collection Bodel-Nijenhuis. Map by Gerrit Drogenham: Het Watergraafs of Diemer-Meer; North Holland Provincial Archive (NHPA). Cadastral Maps 1821, A.

38. ACA, 337. Parish Council Minutes (1817–1851), folio 229 (1825).

39. ACA, 5008, inv.nr. 193, 195. Population Registers 1830–1840-1850.

40. See Sogner, Solvi and van Lottum, Jelle, ‘An Immigrant Community? Norwegian Sailors and their Wives in 17th-Century Amsterdam’, History of the Family, 12 (2007), 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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43. ACA, 337. List of Enfranchised Inhabitants of Watergraafsmeer (1848). folio 55; Annual Reports 1830, 1848.

44. NHPA. Cadastral Maps 1821, A. Parcel numbers 70 – 72, 92, 99, 10–103, 119; Cf. Lucassen, Leo, ‘Herr Hagenbach en vele anderen. Migratie naar Holland na 1795’ in de Nijs, Thimo and Beukers, Eelco, eds, Geschiedenis van Holland 1795–2000 IIIa (Hilversum, 2003), 299–344Google Scholar, quotation at 300.

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46. In general the Netherlands were relatively open towards foreigners. Lourens, Piet and Lucassen, Jan, ‘Zunftlandschaften in den Niederlanden und im benachbarten Deutschland’, in Reininghaus, Wilfried, ed., Zunftlandschaften in Deutschland und den Niederlanden im Vergleich, Schriften der Historischen Kommission fűr Westfalen 17 (Muenster, 2000), 11–43, quotation at pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

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52. ACA, 337. Parish Council Minutes (1831–1833). Annual Reports.

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56. ACA, 5008. Population Registers 1830–1840–1850–1860–1870–1880.

57. Cf. Waldinger, Roger, ‘The Making of an Immigrant Niche’, International Migration Review, 28 (1994), 2–30, quotation at p. 27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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59. Cf. Lucassen, ‘Tijdelijke of permanente vestiging’, p. 256.

60. (Silver) wage ratios (based on wages for building labourers) between the Western Netherlands and Western part of Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century show that wages in the latter were almost half of that in the former. There is no reason to assume that farm wages will have shown a lesser divide. See van Bochove, Christiaan, The Economic Consequences of the Dutch: Economic Integration around the North Sea, 1500–1800 (Amsterdam, 2008), p. 71Google Scholar, Table 3.6.

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66. On the importance of the use of family labour on immigrant farms in the United States see Gjerde, From Peasants to Farmers, pp. 171–5.

67. ACA, 337. Parish Council Minutes (1817–1851), outgoing post nr. 94.

68. Verslag van de Commissie van Onderzoek naar de Toestand der Warmoezierderijen in de Omgeving van Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1884).

69. ACA, 5008, inv.nr. 200–201. Population Register 1880.

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