The Separatists — Why They Left the Netherlands

The Dutch immigrants who founded Holland, Michigan were not simply seeking economic opportunity. They were religious refugees from a very specific conflict inside the Netherlands, and understanding that conflict explains why they were willing to cross the Atlantic and chop down trees in a Michigan forest in winter.

In eighteen thirty four, a group of Dutch Reformed Calvinists formally separated from the state-sanctioned Dutch Reformed Church, which they believed had been corrupted by theological liberalism and government interference. This movement was called the Afscheiding, or Secession. The Dutch government responded harshly, quartering soldiers in the homes of Secession worshippers, imposing fines for holding unauthorized religious meetings, and in some cases imprisoning ministers.

Van Raalte was one of those Secessionist ministers. He had been arrested more than once and had watched members of his congregation suffer official harassment for a decade. By eighteen forty six he had concluded that the Netherlands offered no path forward for his community, and he began organizing emigration. The group that followed him to Michigan was tightly bound: neighbors, co-religionists, and in many cases relatives, united by a shared grievance that had forced them to leave their country. That bond held them together through sickness, hard winters, and the extreme difficulty of breaking new ground in an unfamiliar wilderness.