Moccasins and Wooden Shoes:
Indians and Dutchmen on the Plains Frontier, 1830-1940
Pieter Hovens
Introduction: The Dutch and the American Frontier
In his seminal 1883 paper, Frederick Jackson Turner proposed a theory of
the development of the American character and nation. Pivotal to that development
was the existence of what he called a “frontier” which he defined as an area of
free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement
westward. Conditions particular to the environment of the New World had molded,
transformed, and unified people, institutions, and identities, and they had given
rise to a national character and culture quintessentially American.1
When surveying the involvement of the Dutch in the history and
development of the new American nation, one cannot but wonder about the specific
role they played in the relentlessly shifting frontier, whether in their 17th century
colony New Netherland on the Hudson River, the subsequent development of
British North America, during and after the American Revolution, the settlement
of the West, and the development of regions in which substantial numbers of
emigrants from The Netherlands settled and put down roots. In the 2000 U.S.
census, 4.5 million people – 1.6% of the population – claimed Dutch ancestry.2
Dutch-American studies have addressed the history of the Dutch and their
descendants in North America and focused on a wide variety of topics and issues.
However, little attention has been paid to the encounters and relations between the
Dutch newcomers and the Native American peoples, with the sole exception of the
colony of New Netherland.3 Ten years ago I began gathering data on the history
of Indian-Dutch relations in archives, libraries, and museums in the United States,
Canada, and The Netherlands, and some time ago launched a series of publications
on this subject.
37
New Netherland, British North America, and the early American Republic
With the discovery of the Hudson River in 1609, The Netherlands became
engaged in a tempestuous North American adventure and emerged as a colonial
power standing at the cradle of what would become the first independent and
democratic nation in the New World: the United States of America. The West
India Company initiated the purchase (in reality a lease) of the island of Manhattan
from the local Algonquian Indians, and soon New Netherland began to draw
Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, and German immigrants with promises of free land and
bountiful harvests. However, for various reasons – including Dutch-Native relations
– it always remained a fledgling colony. The Native peoples became increasingly
frustrated with encroachment onto their lands and resources by newcomers, and
this resulted in periodic violent resistance.4 With the transition to English control
in 1664, the Dutch settlers became part of the British colonial enterprise in North
America, and in the era running up to the American Revolution many served as
civil administrators and military commanders in dealings with the Iroquoian and
Algonquian tribes of the Great Lakes region.
The Netherlands was the first nation to officially recognize the republic of
the United States of America. Dutch investment into the development of the new
nation was intensive and thus influenced the future of the Native peoples of the
eastern states in an indirect way. For example, the 1803 Louisiana Purchase was
funded primarily by Dutch financial institutions. As a consequence the territory
of the U.S. doubled in size, the Native tribes of the Plains came under American
jurisdiction, the forced removal of eastern tribes to the west became possible, and
expansionist ideology was reinvigorated.
Approaching the Plains frontier: the Upper Midwest
The 1840s witnessed a virtual exodus of Dutch from the Netherlands to
North America. Their emigration was prompted by religious and economic causes
conspiring to ferment dissatisfaction with living conditions and resulting in a
search for better prospects far beyond the shores of the North Sea. The Dutch
settled in substantial numbers in Ottawa County, Michigan, Marion County, Iowa,
38
and the Fox River Valley and Sheboygan County in Wisconsin, during the second
half of the 1840s and began to build the close-knit ethnic communities that have
retained significant aspects of their Dutch character and identity to the present day.
From these new establishments on the western margins of the Eastern Woodlands
a new generation would move westward to settle on the Plains and beyond.
The Dutch generally settled just short of the frontier, in areas where Indian
title to the land had recently been extinguished. The federal government had forced
land cessions from the Indian tribes through treaty negotiations that were followed
by the removal of Native Americans to supposedly permanent territories further
north and west (albeit only on a temporary basis, as history would demonstrate).
However, the Dutch settled sufficiently close to the frontier to experience, at least
for a number of years, frequent encounters with Indians who had difficulty coping
with the upheaval, which was not only physical and geographical, but also spiritual
and emotional.
The Dutch Dominican Father Theodore Van den Broek was a pioneer in
this westward movement, both as Indian missionary and emigrant leader. In 1836
he established a mission at Little Chute on the Fox River in Wisconsin among the
Menomini tribe. Through the process of planting a vegetable patch and establishing
a small herd of livestock, he taught interested Indians to till the soil and tend animals
the American way. In this way he hoped to induce the Natives to give up a migratory
existence focused on hunting, gathering, and fishing, and become sedentary farmers
living in permanent homes and settlements. Their children could go to school and
receive instruction in academic subjects and vocational training; and both they and
their parents could attend religious instruction and services before being baptized as
Christians. A similar program for encouraging “civilization” was almost universally
employed on the frontier by two powerful allies: the federal government and the
churches. Spurred on by the promises of Manifest Destiny, they united in their
endeavor to gradually transform the Indians’ savage and heathen lifestyle into a
civilized and Christian American way of life. Many Dutch Catholic and Protestant
missionaries participated in this program of intentional cultural transformation from
the 1830s until the late 1890s as the frontier across the North American plains crept
39
westward and a familiar pattern of Indian-white relations reemerged in each new
context until the frontier finally dissolved.
Van den Broek went to Holland in 1847 and promoted the settlement of the
Fox River Valley, bringing back hundreds of countrymen to Wisconsin.5 This instituted
a new pattern: Dutch clerical emigration leaders journeyed with their countrymen
to the New World to settle in frontier regions where proximity dictated some form
of communication with the Native population. Similar patterns of emigration,
settlement, and Indian-Dutch interaction occurred after 1847 in Sheboygan County,
Wisconsin, where Reverend Zonne settled with his Dutch countrymen; in Ottawa
County, Michigan, where Reverend Van Raalte and his band founded Holland in
the midst of the wilderness, and subsequently spread to satellite communities in the
southwestern part of the state;6 and in Marion County, Iowa, where Reverend Scholte
and his Dutch followers decided to establish the town of Pella. Here in central Iowa
the eastern woodlands gradually faded and shifted to tallgrass prairie – the eastern
margin of the Great Plains.
According to Scholte’s sources, the Fox or Meskwaki Indians had been
removed to Kansas. On 16 October 1842, the lands west of the Red Rock Line had been
opened to settlement, and one early Marion County settler remembered: “Precisely
at midnight there were heard loud reports of fire-arms which announced that the
empire of the redman had ended forever, and that of his master race had begun. … all
understood that civilization had commenced her reign in central Iowa. … Before the
night had entirely worn away, the rough surveys were finished, and the Indian lands
had found new tenants. … Settlers rushed in by the hundreds and the region lately
so tranquil and silent, felt the impulse of the change and became vocal with sounds
of industry and enterprise.”7 Here Reverend Scholte pinpointed and purchased free
and fertile lands on which to establish Pella, the “City of Refuge.” However, his
compatriots soon discovered that Meskwaki Indians were still present in the area, a
cause for some anxiety among the newcomers. Small groups of Meskwaki had stayed
behind and tried to survive without any recognized title to land by traditional hunting,
fishing, and gathering of wild foods. Wildlife (primarily deer and rabbits) was still
available but dwindling because of growing population pressure from white settlers.
40
The small-scale horticulture from which they had derived part of their staple food
became virtually impossible. The influx of white settlers into Marion County had
immediate tragic consequences when an influenza epidemic broke out in the winter
of 1847-1848, resulting in the deaths of many Meskwaki.
The Indians and Dutch settlers in Central Iowa made the best of their
situation and initiated trade relationships: the Natives offered ponies in exchange for
western clothing and foodstuffs from the Dutch. The history of encounters between
Indians and Dutch settlers in Marion County is remarkably friendly, marred only by
anxiety on the part of the settlers for whom the Natives represented the fearsome
wild men of the woods so pervasive in European folklore. In common Christian
belief, Natives were heathens, given to idolatry and even devil worship. Essentially,
their very humanity was in doubt. Moreover, the colonists realized that they were
settling on former Indian lands and that the previous occupants had been coerced
into accepting unilaterally dictated treaty stipulations. In some cases they had even
been defeated in armed encounters. The immigrants therefore had an inkling of the
mistrust and trepidation Natives must have felt upon their arrival and settlement,
which in turn exacerbated their own preexisting anxieties. However, a modus vivendi
soon emerged, and a pattern of peaceful intermittent contact and social interaction
ensued in which trade dominated relations.8
Indian missions
The early American Republic was thoroughly Protestant, the legacy of
almost two centuries of predominantly Anglo-Saxon immigration, settlement, and
joint authority by church and state. The new American Constitution clearly separated
these two entities, and soon after the American Republic gained indepen­dence, the
Catholic Church under­took initiatives to more firmly establish a foothold in the new
nation. To that end a number of Dutch and Flemish Jesuit priests crossed the Atlantic
and began missionary work among the Indian tribes of the trans-Mississippi West. On
the woodland-plains frontier, Dutch Jesuits began laboring among the Kickapoos,
Potawatomis and Osages in Iowa and Kansas during the 1830s and 1840s and later
moved further west into the northern Rocky Mountains. In the latter part of the
41
19th century more Dutch Jesuit fathers became involved with missions among the
Indians of the Plains. Catholic priests worked among Native peoples in Wisconsin,
the Gulf Coast states, and the Pacific Northwest. At that same time the Reformed
Church became engaged in missionary work among Indian tribes in Oklahoma,
while the Christian Reformed Church opened missions among the Navajos and
Zunis; both employed several Dutch and Dutch-American ministers. The history
of the involvement of Catholic and Protestant Dutch and Dutch-American clergy
in North American Indian missions is the subject of a book in progress, as well as
several prepublications.9
The Sioux frontier
The Dutch emigrant communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa
prospered. Soon all the available land was settled and cultivated, causing land
prices to skyrocket. For the new generation of Dutch-Americans and newcomers
from the Netherlands, the only available option was to cast their eye further west.
However, the main obstacle for moving west was the mighty Dakota or Sioux
Nation. Dutch and other settlers in the Upper Midwest wanting to move westward
were stopped in their tracks when Indian troubles broke out. In 1857 Sioux Chief
Inkpaduta and his band attacked settlers in northwestern Iowa who had invaded their
territory. The perpetrators of the Spirit Lake Massacre escaped unpunished, and this
contributed significantly to the sense of insecurity among settlers.10 The Dutch in
Pella and Marion County were kept well informed about the Indian troubles on the
frontier in northwest Iowa through reports in the local and regional papers. In early
1862 discontent among the Sioux in Minnesota mounted after continual encroachment
onto their reservation by settlers that resulted in wildlife depletion, food shortages,
and starvation. In August the Indians under Chief Little Crow initiated attacks on
white settlements. When the Minnesota Indian Uprising was finally quashed, forty
Indians were executed and several hundred imprisoned. Because of the scale of the
affair, the rebellion was reported upon in the newspapers of the Dutch communities
in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa.11
After the Indian uprisings in Iowa and Minnesota, the Civil War temporarily
42
delayed the settlement of western Iowa, but by the mid-1860s settlers began arriving
in droves. Pella mayor Henry Hospers became a driving force behind establishing
a new Dutch colony on the Plains of northwestern Iowa in the appropriately named
Sioux County, where Orange City was founded in 1869. Encounters between the
Dutch and the Sioux in northwestern Iowa were intermittent, usually occurring
when bands of Indians journeyed away from their reservations to hunt, trade, and
visit relati­ves. A band led by Chief Yellow Smoke fre­quently visited the banks of the
Floyd River near Hospers. The settlers often had mixed feelings about the sudden
appearance of such traveling Indian groups as fear and attraction competed with each
other for supremacy. However, the Indians were rarely troubleso­me to the settlers,
and on the whole no conflicts arose from such encoun­ters. Nevertheless, newspaper
reports about occasional attacks by Indians on settlers and about unrest among western
tribes occasionally fuel­led further anxie­ty among colonists. In April 1874 the Sioux
County Herald even predicted a large-scale Indian war, and in June and July 1876 it
suspiciously warned about the hostile intentions of several hundred Indian warriors
congregated at Canton, Dakota Territory, which lay directly across the Missouri River.
At the latter occasion citizens of Be­loit, Iowa, hurried to Sioux Center to purchase
extra ammunition. Sioux County residents themselves then rushed to arms, but after
a few days the scare died down. This pattern repeated itself frequently among the
Dutch and other frontier settlers in Iowa.12
It did not take long before lands in northwestern Iowa filled up, land prices
rose, and young farmers and newcomers from the Netherlands were forced to
again look further west. Small groups of Dutch from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
and the Netherlands moved west in 1874 and settled in Bon Homme County as
neighbors of the Yankton and Santee Indians. In 1880 two Dutch settlers from Iowa
visited Dakota Territory to attend a government sale of Indian ponies confiscated
from Sitting Bull’s people. They returned with glowing reports about fertile and
boundless prairie land. The seed for new settlements further west was sown, and
in 1882 Dutchmen coming from Iowa or directly from the Netherlands established
new communities in Douglas and Charles Mix Counties in what would soon
become the state of South Dakota. It did not take long before the Dutch fanned
43
out west again when the Milwaukee Railroad encouraged Dutchmen to settle
along its tracks. From 1884 groups of Dutch and Dutch-Americans settled on the
eastern bank of the Middle Missouri River and on opposite sides of the South and
North Dakota border in Campbell and Emmons Counties, in the process becoming
neighbors of the Standing Rock Sioux who lived across the river.13
In the Dakotas Indian-Dutch encounters usually resulted from interethnic
competition over resources. Indians and Dutchmen valued highly, such as seasonallyavailable wild food resources that offered an important source of vitamins for the diets
of both peoples. Thus they competed for the harvests of chokecherries, plums, grapes,
berries, and nuts, along with the gathering of the eggs of ducks and mudhens. It was
the task of Indian women to bring in such harvests, parts of which were subsequently
traded with or sold to white settlers and traders. Indians and settlers both hunted
pronghorn antelope as a source of meat (soon depleting the population). The Indians
usually settled along riverbanks and creek beds – the only wooded areas on the arid
Plains. They gathered firewood and cut fenceposts which they exchanged in trade
with nearby settlers or sold for cash. Competition for wood became increasingly
fierce as this resource was gradually depleted with the growing number of settlers
who needed building material, fences, and firewood. Occasionally groups of Dutch
sett­lers banded together and sur­reptitiously trespassed on reserva­tions to cut wood on
the banks of the Missou­ri River.14
Frequent encounters between the Indians and the Dutch settlers in the
Dakotas also resulted in mutually profitable trade. The Sioux offered ponies and
horses, wild fruits, wild birds’ eggs, fence-posts, firewood, beaded moccasins, and
carved tobacco pipes, as well as woolen coats, blankets, and shawls issued by the
government by treaty mandate. Sale of annuity goods by Indians was essentially
prohibited and the government tried to curtail this practice by branding horses and
ink-stamping blankets. The settlers keenly desired these foodstuffs, raw materials
and goods, however, and in exchange offered items valued by their Sioux trading
partners: bread, milk, eggs, chickens, dogs, iron and copper kettles, and sometimes
cash. The result? Trade blankets were transformed into clothing and the marked parts
discarded. In almost all cases, interethnic trading created no problems and therefore
44
continued for years and sometimes decades.
In addition, Indian trading parties offered a welcome distraction from the
monotony and hard work typical of life on the farms and ranches of the vast Dakota
plains. In addition to the valued goods and foodstuffs, the spectacle of a band of
Indians in gaily beaded dress, feathers in their hair, accompanied by cute little babies
on cradleboards and pretty girls, offered much-appreciated entertainment. The Dutch
and other settlers also occasionally attended Indian powwows on reservations or
asked traveling bands to perform songs and dances in exchange for food or cash.
On the Fourth of July many communities staged their own festivities, and frequently
Indians were invited to participate. The grandest spectacle took place in Grand View
in 1885 when a thousand Yankton Indians were present in the Dutch town, and in full
and colorful regalia participated in the parade, staged a raid from Grand View Hilltop
into Main Street, and performed a variety of dances. The Dutch congregated around
the Indian camp that night, and one can only imagine their feelings and thoughts as
they watched the war and scalp dances being performed around blazing campfires by
painted and feathered warriors.15
Several Dutch settlers in the Dakotas further supplemented their farming
income by hauling freight for the army garrisons stationed at forts on or near Indian
reservations. The treaty-mandated rations and annuities that the federal government
distributed among the Indians served as a major source of freight. Henry Van Beek was
the main contractor for Fort Yates, and he engaged several countrymen to transport
freight from Eureka (the railroad terminus) to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation
using the two ferries across the Missouri River connecting Emmons and Campbell
Counties. In 1890 settlers in South Dakota were also contracted to haul provisions for
the soldiers stationed in the Black Hills, and several Dutch jumped at the opportunity
to earn much-needed cash. Farmers also sold parts of their harvest to Army garrisons
and to the Indian Department for use as food rations to Natives. Thus the Indian
presence near the Dutch settlements was a major stimulus for the frontier economy.
When the boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation were established, settlers
rushed into Dakota Territory to claim the vacated lands, and the Dutch and DutchAmericans again became neighbors of the Indians in the Dakotas. It did not take long
45
before farmers began to encroach upon Indian land by letting their cattle graze across
reservation boundaries. In May 1884 Indian police visited farms and settlements
on the reservation borders to inform the settlers that they should keep their animals
from the reservation or have them confiscated if they were found inside reservation
boundaries. Despite the warning, some settlers went even further and extended their
fields of corn and grain onto Native land. The Sioux were dismayed at this new threat,
and they asked the federal government to re-survey reservation borders. Lieutenant
John Biddle and his company of engineers carried out the survey in the summer of
1884 and noted the transgressions of the settlers. Some white homesteaders, including
several from the Dutch Dakota settlements, accused him of changing the boundary
line in favor of the Indians. During a stay in the Dutch town of Harrison the Harrison
Globe interviewed the surveyor. Biddle denied such practice, and the editor was soon
convinced, assuring his readers that the new survey had been a completely impartial
affair.16
The Ghost Dance, 1890
Native confinement on reservations did not cement friendly Indian-white
relations in the 1880s; Indian scares continued throughout the Dakota Territory, albeit
irregularly. White settlers continued to mount incessant pressure on the Sioux to
give up large parts of their original reservations. The Dutch in the ethnic enclaves of
Iowa, Dakota Territory, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota also eagerly awaited
developments, looking for new opportunities for their American-born sons and other
family members back in the Netherlands who planned to emigrate. The Pella Blade
of 16 July reported that the Sioux lands offered fertile soils and lush prairies, crosscut
by rivers lined with groves of trees. The editor stated unequivocally: “To allow
such a vast body of rich land to remain longer in the possession of a few thousand
lazy, vagabondish savages would be almost a crime against civilization, and if the
arguments of Sitting Bull and a few others of the greedy chiefs of the different tribes
against any acceptance of the terms offered by the commission should prove a bar
to carrying out the purchase, the government will be expected to show no sickly
sentimentality in its further dealing with the Sioux.”
46
By early November 1890 newspapers across the Dakota Territory began
reporting about the growing excitement among the Sioux concerning a prophecy
about an Indian Messiah and the possibility of an Indian uprising. The Dutch and other
settlers followed the news closely, and as most frontier newspapers only came off the
presses once every week, more stories about the Indians circulated orally, leaving
them vulnerable to the distortion of each storyteller’s own anxieties and prejudices.
Newspapers in the Dakotas wrote that the Sioux believed that the arrival of an Indian
Messiah was imminent, and that this holy man would destroy all the whites, bring
back dead Indians to life, and restore the land and buffalo herds to the Sioux and
other Indian nations. Subsequently, newspapers noted that Indian employees left
their places of work, Indian farmers abandoned their fields, and Indian parents kept
their children away from school to attend and participate in special “spirit dances”
to bring about the prophesied new world. Accounts depicted Sitting Bull as the evil
genius behind the movement who used hypnotic powers to mesmerize the Indians
and spread a perverse ideology stemming from his deep-seated hatred for the white
man.17
When Sitting Bull was accidentally killed during an attempt at his arrest,
colonists in the central Dakotas panicked. Many Dutch and other settlers near the
Standing Rock Agency left their homes and fled eastward to Eureka, the railroad
terminus, to safeguard their families. Near the Yankton Reservation haystacks went
up in flames – reputedly arson by Ghost Dancers. Soon the Dutch and other settlers
in southeastern South Dakota packed their belongings on wagons and trekked to
Plankington, where women and children boarded eastbound trains. Local and regional
newspapers reported about Indian movements to and from Standing Rock and Pine
Ridge, along with the federal army’s high state of alert and its close surveillance
of the Indians and the dispatch of reinforcements from other frontier army posts.
Clearly there was something in the air.
Indeed, not everything was quiet on the western front. In November 1890
the Sioux Ghost Dancers of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations congregated at
Pine Ridge. Pine Ridge Indian agent Daniel F. Royer panicked and called in the army,
whose arrival further provoked the Indians. On the morning of 29 December 1890,
47
Big Foot and 350 of his people were camped on Wounded Knee Creek, surrounded,
out­numbered and outgunned by a well-equipped army. During a scuffle a shot was
fired; Indians and soldiers immediately went for their guns, and Big Foot was one
of the first casualties. The soldiers shel­led the Indian camp from their position on
a nearby hill, leaving little chance for Indians to survive. Within an hour about 150
Indians were killed and 50 wounded; about 25 soldiers lost their lives. The Indian
uprising was essentially quashed by what whites preferred to call the “Battle of
Wounded Knee,” but in essence it was a massacre.18
On the reservation
The General Allotment Act of 1884 (also known as Dawes Act) aimed to
civilize and Americanize the Indians by breaking up communal tribal ownership of
the land and encouraging individual ownership and private enterprise. Most Indian
tribes lost significant portions of reservation land when allotment was introduced,
since their previous land base generally exceeded the acreage necessary to give each
enrolled tribe member 160 acres. The surplus land reverted to the public domain and
was sold to white farmers, cattlemen, and other entrepreneurs, most of whom sett­led
on the new reservation borders. However, even in the reservations sections assigned to
Indians were not always contiguous, and these extra parcels could also be purchased
by outsiders. In this way new white landowners came to settle on reservations and
live among the Indian population. Many Indian landow­ners discovered that their land
was too infertile to be used profitably for ranching, let alone farming, and so they
put up their sections for lease. These were quickly taken up by surrounding whites
who grazed cattle, planted crops, and sometimes built new homes if permission was
granted.. In time many Indians sold their land to pay debts, and whites slowly took
over lands within reservation boundaries – including Dutchmen who settled in the
Dakotas.19
The Dutch and Dutch-American newcomers settled among Indian families
trying to make a living on their allotments. However, the Sioux were nomadic hunters
and had much difficulty in adapting their lifestyle to sedentary farming and ranching.
Also adverse climatic conditions and plagues of grasshoppers conspired against
48
Indians and whites alike. Farming also required capital, machinery, and specialized
knowledge – resources Indians could hardly command. Therefore many Indian
families leased their allotments and congregated in hamlets with related families or
in reservation towns. The apparent loss of their erstwhile gene­rous and protective
spiritual powers and their livelihood seemed to have broken the Native spirit almost
completely. Powerlessness to retain their cherished traditional values and lifestyle
and inability to grasp the wave of strange white power that engulfed them often resul­
ted in an anomic lethargy so often described by early obser­vers, including Dutch
settlers. By the time that the General Allotment Act was ended in 1934 by the Indian
Reorganiza­tion Act, Dutch-Americans became increasingly involved professionally
with Indians on reservations as physicians, nurses, teachers, extension officers, federal
civil servants, etc.20
The American Indian in science and art
Both scientists and artists have played major roles in understanding the
American West, and the imagery they created has had an impact that is still felt
today. For instance, Herman ten Kate spent two years of anthropological fieldwork
and archaeological excavation among the Indian tribes of the American West.
On the Plains and in the Far West he encountered tribes who were partially still
engaged in war against white settlers and the United States Army, while others
he met had recently surrendered or grudgingly accepted white dominance and
settled on reservations. Ten Kate’s aim was to study the origins of and relationships
between the American Indian peoples and to achieve a better understanding of
the process and direction of tribal culture change and Indian-white relations. His
ethnographic collection of over 400 specimens, curated at the National Museum
of Ethnology in Leiden, is one of the earliest systematically aggregated by an
academically trained anthropologist in North America.21 Ten Kate also published
several articles on Native Americans in popular journals, resulting in wider public
knowledge about Indian victimization from the onslaught of white settlement,
Christian missions, and government policy. He also pioneered studies of imagery
of Indians in literature and art, and American colleagues later followed up on this
49
seminal research.22
In 1910 and 1911 the internationally renowned comparative linguist C.C.
Uhlenbeck spent two summers among the Blackfoot of Montana and afterward
published a grammar, two vocabularies, and an extensive series of articles on
Blackfoot specifically and Indian languages generally. A major collection of Plains
Indian art and material culture was accumulated by the Dutch emigrant Mijnhard
Sprenger while operating a cattle ranch in southern Alberta in the late 19th century.
The beaded clothing, weapons, and horse equipment he obtained are also curated
at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden and are the subject of a current
study. A number of other Dutch emigrant families made donations to the Leiden
museum: stone axes, arrowheads, and spearpoints found on farms and ranches,
ethnographic artifacts, and historic photographs of Native Americans. These
donations will be presented in a future exhibition and related book. Several Dutch
artists also became intrigued by Native Americans and painted them on the basis
of occasional encounters in Europe or North America. Hendrik (Henry) C. Balink
(1882-1963), who trained at the Royal Academy of Amsterdam in the style of the
Old Masters, settled in New Mexico and for many decades concentrated on Indian
portraiture, traveling across the American West and painting on reservations in the
Plains. He has appropriately been called the “Rembrandt of 20th century Indian
painters.” (His biography is forthcoming.)23
Epilogue
This preliminary article provides only a glimpse of the history of DutchIndian relations in North America and more specifically the Plains area. Ten years
of research have yielded a wealth of material. The first books and articles in a
series on this topic have been published and will be added to in the upcoming
years. Advice, suggestions, and contributions to the research from anyone are
greatly appreciated and will be explicitly acknowledged in the future publications
and planned exhibition on Indian-Dutch relations in North America.24
50
ENDNOTES
Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” In
Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1883.
2
Major studies include: H.J. Brinks, ed., Dutch American Voices: Letters from the
United States, 1850-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); R. Kroes and H.O.
Neuschafer, eds., The Dutch in North America: their Immigration and Cultural Continuity
(Amsterdam: VU Univer­sity Press, 1991); Annemieke Galema, et.al., Van de Ene en de
Andere Kant: Noord­-Nederlandse en Noordwest Duitse Migratie naar de VS in de 19e
Eeuw (Groningen: Universiteitsbibliotheek, 1993); H. Ganzevoort and M. Boekelman,
eds., Dutch Immigration to North America (Toronto: Multicultural History Society of
Ontario, 1983); Henry S. Lucas, Dutch Immigrant Memoirs and Related Wri­tings (Assen:
Van Gorcum, 1955); H.S. Lucas, Netherlanders in America: Dutch Immigration to the
United States and Canada (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955); P. Stokvis,
De Nederlandse Trek naar Amerika, 1846-1847 (Leiden: Universitaire Pers, 1977); Robert
P. Swierenga, ed. The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement and Cultural Change
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1985); R.P. Swierenga, Faith and Family:
Dutch Immigration and Settlement in the United States, 1820-1920 (New York: Holmes &
Meier, 2000); Jacob Van Hinte, Nederlanders in Amerika: een Studie over Landverhuizers en
Volksplanters in de 19e en 20ste Eeuw (Groningen: Noordhoff, 1928); H. Van Stekelenburg,
Hier is alles Vooruitgang: Landverhuizing van Noord Brabant naar Noord Amerika (Tilburg:
Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 1996); Larry J. Wagenaar and Robert P. Swierenga,
eds., The Sesquicentennial of Dutch Immigration: 150 years of Ethnic Heritage (Holland, MI:
Joint Archives of Holland, 1998).
3
E.g. Alan W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1960); Paul Otto, New Netherland Frontier: Europeans and Native Americans along
the Lower Hudson River, 1524-1664 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
4
C.f. note 4 and F. Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1900); Henri and Barbara Van der Zee, A Sweet and Alien Land: the Early
History of New York (New York: Viking Press, 1978).
5
On Van den Broek’s Indian mission and the settlement of Dutch in Wisconsin: Th.J. Broek,
v.d., Reize naar Noord Amerika (Amsterdam: Van Langenhuy­sen, 1847); M.A. Corry, The
Story of Father Van den Broek (Chicago: Ainsworth & Company, 1907); Frans H. Doppen,
“Theodore Van den Broek: Missionary and Emigration Leader,” U.S. Catholic Historian 3,
no. 3 (1983): 202-225; Henry S. Lucas, “De Reize naar Noord Amerika van Theodoor J. Van
den Broek,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 41 (1956):96-123; Yda Schreuder,
Dutch Catholic Immigrant Settlement in Wis­consin, 1850-1905 (New York: Garland, 1989);
H. Van Stekelenburg, Landverhuizing als Regionaal Verschijn­sel van Noord Brabant
naar Noord Amerika, 1820-1880 (Ph.D. diss., Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, 1991).
6�
On the Dutch settling in Michigan and notes on their relations with Indians: A.
Brummelkamp and A.C. Van Raalte, De Toestand der Hollandsche Kolonisatie in den
Staat Michigan (Amsterdam, 1849); A. Hyma, Albertus C. van Raalte and his Dutch
1
51
settlements in the United States (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947); J. Jacobson, E.J.
Bruins, and L. Wagenaar, A.C. Van Raalte: Dutch Leader and American Patriot (Grand
Rapids: Vanderheide Publ. Co., 1996); Charles Lorenz, The Early History of the Black
Lake Region, 1835-1850 (Holland, MI: Joint Archives of Holland, Michigan, 1987); H.J.
Prakke, Drenthe in Michigan: ‘n Studie over het Drentse Aandeel in de Van Raalte-trek van
1847 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1948); Henry J. Ryskamp, The Dutch in Western Michigan (Ph.
D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1964); William Van Appledorn, Chief Waukazoo: from
Roots to Wing (Holland: privately printed, 2001).
7
Union Historical Company, The History of Marion County, Iowa (Des Moines: Union
Historical Company/ Birdsall, Williams & Co., 1881), 297-8, 304-5.
8
On the settlement of the Dutch in Central Iowa and their relations with Indians: Cyrenus
Cole, Souvenir History of Pella, Iowa, 1847-1922 (Cedar Rapids: Torch Press, 1922); H.S.
Lucas, Dutch Immigrant Memoirs and Related Wri­tings (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1955); Pella
Historical Society, History of Pella, Iowa: 1847-1987 (Dallas: Curtis Media Corporation,
1988); H.P. Scholte, Over Volksverhuizingen in het Algemeen, en die naar Noord Amerika
in het Bijzonder (Amsterdam: Fikkert, 1846); Lenora Scholte, A Stranger in a Strange Land:
the Story of a Dutch Settlement in Iowa (Des Moines: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1939);
J. Stellingwerff, Amsterdamse Emigranten: Onbekende Brieven uit de Prairie van Iowa
(Amsterdam: Buijten & Schippereijn, 1975); G.A. Stout, Souvenir History of Pella, Iowa
(Pella: The Booster Press, 1922); Jacob Van der Zee, The Hollanders of Iowa (Iowa City:
Iowa State Histo­rical Society, 1912); Kommer Van Stigt, Geschiedenis van Pella en Omgeving
(Pella: Weekblad Drukke­rij, 1897); Pella’s Weekblad, 26 May 1922. On the Meskwaki (Fox)
Indians: William T. Hagan, The Sac and Fox Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1958); G. Bataille, et.al., eds., The World Between Two Rivers: Perspectives on American
Indians in Iowa (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1978).
9
Pieter Hovens, “Kruistochten in Indiaans Noord Amerika: het Nederlands Aandeel in
Missie en Zending, 1840-1940,” De Kiva 37, no. 5-6 (2000): 157-162; idem., “Moccasins
and Wooden Shoes: Dutch Jesuit Superiors at St. Stephen’s Arapaho Indian Mission, 18901904,” Annals of Wyoming (in press); idem., The Indian and the Cross: Dutch Missionaries
in Native North America (in preparation).
10
Abbie Sharp Gardner, History of the Spirit Lake Massacre (Des Moines: Mills and Co.,
1885).
11
R.F. Meyer, History of the Santee Sioux: U.S. Indian Policy on Trial (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press; Lincoln, 1967), 109-132.
12
On the settlement of the Dutch in northwestern Iowa and notes on their relations with
Indians: John Buntsma, ed., Orange City, Iowa: 125th Anniversary, 1870-1995 (Orange
City: Pluim, 1995); Gerrit Draaiom, Herinneringen aan Vroeger Daagen in Sioux County,
Iowa (Hospers: privately printed, 1924); Charles L. Dyke, The Story of Sioux County
(Orange City: Verstegen, 1942); Peter B. Mouw, Sioux Center’s First 75 Years, 1891-1966
(Sioux Center: Sioux Center 75th Anniversary Committee, 1966); Nelson W. Nieuwenhuis,
Siouxland: a History of Sioux County, Iowa (Orange City: Sioux County Historical Society/
Pluim, 1983); N.W. Nieuwenhuis, A History of Hospers, Iowa (Hospers: Siouxland Press,
52
1990); Sioux Center Centennial Committee, A People with Convictions: a History of Sioux
Center, Iowa, 1870-1991 (Dallas: Curtis MC, 1991); Mike Van den Bosch, A Pocket of Civility:
a History of Sioux Center (Sioux Falls: Modern Press, 1976); Van der Zee, The Hollanders of
Iowa, 150-155.
13
On the settlement of the Dutch in the Dakotas and notes on their relations with Indians:
Bon Homme County Historical Committee, History of Bon Homme County, South Dakota
(Stickney: Argus Printers, 1961); Charles Chrutchett, “Grand View: Douglas County’s
Ghost Town,” South Dakota Historical Collections 30 (1960): 373-435; Douglas County
History Committee, Douglas County Histo­ry and Centennial Observances, 1961 (Stickney:
Argus Printers, 1961); Gerald F. DeJong, “The Dutch in Emmons County,” North Dakota
History 29 (1962): 253-265; G.F. DeJong, “The Coming of the Dutch to the Dakotas,”
South Dakota History 5 (1974): 20-51; Adeline S. Gnirk, Epic of the Realm of the Ree
(Gregory: Gregory Times Advocate, 1984); G.W. Heeringa, “The Christian Reformed
Church in South Dakota,” (M.A. thesis, University of South Dakota, 1955); H. Hollander,
et. al., One Hundred Years Harrison, SD, 1882-1982 (Stickney: Argus Prin­ters, 1982); H.T.
Hoover and C.G., eds., Bon Homme County History (Freeman: Pine Hill Press, 1994); R.F.
Karolevitz, Douglas County: the Little Giant (Armour: Douglas County Historical Society,
1983); Nelson Nieuwenhuis, A History of Dutch Settlement in South Dakota to 1900 (M.A.
thesis, University of South Dakota, 1948); E.F. Peterson, History of Charles Mix County,
South Dakota (Geddes: H.C. Tucker, 1906); Maxine Schuurmans, One-Hundred Years of
Tyndall: a Centennial History (Tyndall: Tyndall Centennial Committee, 1979); A. Vanden
Hoek, Harrison: Fiftieth Anniversary Bulletin (Harrison, 1934); Henry Van der Pol, On the
Reservation Border: Hollanders in Douglas and Charles Mix Counties (Stickney: Argus
Printers, 1969); Ellen Woods and Euvagh Wenzel, eds., Emmons County History (Linton,
ND: Emmons County Historical Society, 1976).
14
Van der Pol, On the Reservation Border, 40-41, 162, 262-263, 268; Harrison Globe:
12, 26 June; 17 July 1884; 18 June; 20 August 1885; Woods and Wenzel, Emmons County
History, 23-24.
15
Harrison Globe: 19 July 1885; Douglas County History Committee, Douglas County
Histo­ry and Centennial Observances (Stickney: Argus Printers, 1961), 68-71.
16
Harrison Globe: 29 May; 14 August 1884.
17
S. Vestal, Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1932).
18
C.f.: Elaine Goodale Eastman, Sister to the Sioux: the Memoirs of Elaine Goodale
Eastman, 1885-1891 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985); Charles Alexander
Eastman, From Deep Woods to Civilization (Boston, 1916); Lucas, Dutch Immigrant
Memoirs, 344-345, 353-354, 359-360; Van der Pol, On the Reservation Border, 40-41,
267-72; James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890
(Washington, DC: Fourth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1896). The clash
of Indian and white cultures during the era of the Ghost Dance is the theme of Jim Schaap’s
captivating novel Touches the Sky (Grand Rapids: Revell-Baker Book House, 2003) in which
the Dutch-American protagonist grasps at a cross-cultural understanding of faith, humanity
53
and destiny.
19
Nellie Schryvers Seegrist, The Van Arendonk-Haga story (McLean, VA: privately printed,
1973); idem., The Schryvers-Rysdam Story: a Family History, 1575-1978 (McLean, VA:
privately printed, 1978); idem., Lakeview Settlement, Rosebud Sioux Reservation, South
Dakota (McLean, VA: privately printed, 1981); Betty Jean Van Balen Ankrum, Raised on
the Rez: Views, Visions and Wisdom of the West (Freeman: Pine Hill Press, 1996); Van der Pol,
On the Reservation Border, 42, 48-49, 60, 197-198, 262, 272-274, 342-343.
20
A
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
book-length study of Indian-Dutch relations on the Sioux frontier is in preparation.
21
A catalogue of the Ten Kate collection – a collaborative project of the National Museum
of Ethnology in Leiden with American and Canadian experts – is scheduled for publication
in 2007.
22
Pieter
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Hovens, “Between Survival and Assimilation: the Visit of the Dutch Anthropologist
Herman ten Kate to the Iroquois in 1882,” in: Hovens, ed., North American Indian
Studies: European Contri­butions to Science, Society and Art (Göttingen/Aachen: Alano
Verlag/Edition Herodot, 1984), 36-42; idem., Herman F.C. ten Kate (1858-1931) en de
Antropologie der Noord Amerikaanse Indianen (Ph.D. thesis/Krips, Radboud University,
1989); idem., “Native North American Studies in the Netherlands,” Euro­pean Review of
Native American Stu­dies 7, no. 2 (1993): 1-5; idem., “Early Anthropology on the SouthwestGreat Basin Frontier: the 1883 Fieldwork of Herman ten Kate,” Journal of the Southwest
46, no. 3 (2004):529-558; Pieter Hovens, W.J. Orr, and L.A. Hieb, eds., Herman ten Kate’s
Travels and Researches in Native North America, 1882-1883 (Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2004); Pieter Hovens and Anneke Groeneveld, Odagot: Photographs
of American Indians (Amsterdam: Fragment Uitgeverij, 1992).
23
Pieter Hovens, A Portrait of Native America: Henry C. Balink (1882-1963) and the
Art of Taos and Santa Fe (in preparation). On
��������������������������������������������
Balink and other Dutch Indian painters:
idem., Alexander Loemans (18??-1898); Hubert Vos (1855-1935); Balink, Henry C.
(1858-1963); Adriaan Barnouw (1877-1968); Dirk Van Driest (1889-1989), The American
Artists Bluebook homepage, http://www.askart.com/ (2000); idem., “Indiaanse Portretten:
Nederlandse Kunstenaars in Indiaans Noord Amerika,” De Kiva 41, no. 3 (2004):100103.
24
The assistance of the following people in the course of research for this paper is gratefully
acknowledged: Duane Anderson (Museum of Indian Art and Culture, Santa Fe, NM),
Sharon Avery (Iowa Historical Society, Des Moines, IA), Mrs. Henry B. Balink (Santa Fe,
NM); Jim Davis (North Dakota Historical Society, Bismarck, ND), Valerie Hanson (South
Dakota Heritage Center, Pierre, SD), Dena Kennedy (Northwestern College, Orange City,
IA), David Kingma (Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA), Hans Krabbendam (Roosevelt
Study Centre, Middelburg, The Netherlands), Patsy Kringel (South Dakota State Library,
Pierre, SD), Christine Mak (Central College, Pella, IA), Nancy Merz (Midwest Jesuit
Archives, St. Louis, MO), Jim Schaap (Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA), David Wilcox
(Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ), and the staff at the Wicsonsin State Historical
Society in Madison and Green Bay. Financial support for parts of research was provided
by the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Culture (The Hague), Ms. Ilse Boon (The Hague),
54
the National Museum of Ethnology (Leiden), the Netherlands Research Council (NWO,
The Hague), and United Airlines (Amsterdam). The research would not have been possible
without���������������������������������������������������������
the continuing support and assistance of my wife Jeanne.
55