In April, I visited the lovely city of Amsterdam and, of course, documented my time there. I have beautiful photos of the canals, windmills and tulips to share with you but it wouldn’t be a true Soul-O-Travels post if I broke form and didn’t give you the history of the city to start us off.
Amsterdam is the capital and largest city in the Netherlands with approximately 900,000 inhabitants. It is an old city full of charm but with a bit of a tumultuous history – from battling Spain in the Eighty Years’ War to being occupied by the Nazis in World War II. The sum of her history, the good, the bad and the ugly have forged Amsterdam into the liberal, tolerant and accepting city of today.
History
Settlement in the area began around 1024, when land reclaimers targeted swampland known as Aemestelle. They began hollowing out drainage ditches and building dikes. Amsterdam as we know it, originated where the Amstel River formed deltas as it flowed into the Zuiderzee (now called the Ijsselmeer or “IJ). The deltas provided prime fishing opportunities giving rise to Amsterdam’s origins as a fishing village.
With the completion of a dam in the 13th century, ships now had a safe haven for loading and unloading cargo and the area began to flourish. Referred to as “Aemstelredamme” or “Amestelledamme”, the oldest document referencing the settlement dates back to October 27th, 1275 so historians generally agree that the city was founded sometime in the 1300s. However, archaeologists have determined that the region dates back much farther.
“Aemstelredamme” literally means dam in the river Amstel.
During the construction of a Metro line between 2005-12, archaeologists made a startling discovery. Pole-axes, a stone hammer, and pottery dating from the Neolithic era (New Stone Age). This would mean Amsterdam, or its predecessor, would have seen human habitation since about 2600 BCE.
The Names
You may have noticed this city has had its share of nicknames. Aemestelle, Amstelerdam, Amsterdam. These days it is also known by the more trendy moniker “Venice of the North”. This comparison giving a nod to the numerous canals and historic buildings comprising the old center.
Amsterdam’s most enduring nickname, however, is a form of Yiddish-based slang. For European Jewry, Amsterdam was called Mokum or “a safe haven”. Although only a fraction of Dutch Jews survived the Holocaust, echoes of that era remain in the city of canals.
Where did the name “Holland” come from?
Holland is a geographical region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. The area consists of a northern and southern portion, which together include the Netherlands’ three largest cities: the capital city (Amsterdam), the home of Europe’s largest port (Rotterdam), and the seat of government (The Hague). From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the counts of Holland.
Aren’t Holland and The Netherlands the same thing?
Nope. North Holland and South Holland are actually just two of the 12 provinces of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Here’s a brief history before we delve deeper.
The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands
From 1588 to 1795, this area was known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. After the Republic was conquered by French troops in 1795, it became the Batavian Republic, and Holland was one of its administrative regions. In 1806, Napoleon appointed his brother, Louis, king officially turning the country into a kingdom – the Kingdom of Holland. It remained a kingdom after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 but was known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands of which Holland was a province. Due to its economic and cultural dominance within the kingdom, the term ‘Holland’ became the commonly used name for the entire realm.
Belgium was also part of the kingdom at that time. Chafing against Holland’s dominance, the Belgians revolted and separated from the Netherlands in 1830. In an attempt to restore balance among the remaining provinces, Holland was divided into two halves, northern and southern but the name stuck despite it only referencing two of the 12 provinces.
Now, that that is out the way, let’s take a closer look at the history of the Netherlands.
15th century
As you can see, the region which now forms the Netherlands has a history of being politically fragmented. The gradual move towards greater unity got underway in the 15th and 16th centuries.
During the 15th century Amsterdam became part of the Dukedom of Burgundy, under French Duke Philip the Good. The duke sought to unify his territories but faced opposition from Bavaria.
16th century
As a result of strategic royal marriages and political arrangements, the 16th century saw the Netherlands passed to the Spanish. The great-great-grandson of Philip the Good, Charles V, inherited the “Spanish Netherlands” from his grandmother Mary of Burgundy upon her death in 1482.
Political unity of the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) was finally achieved in 1543 under the watchful eyes of the Crown. Unfortunately, religious wars impeded the total unification of the region.
Spain’s dependency and the discovery of the New World contributed to Amsterdam becoming the most important port in the world after Lisbon. Holland soon became involved in trading exotic imports from these regions, initially by collecting cargoes in Lisbon for sale and distribution to wider markets.
While highly prosperous, Amsterdam was not immune to the Reformation which raged through Europe. For a long while it remained a Catholic stronghold, but Protestantism gradually took hold and religious rivalry halted the city’s growth between 1535 and 1578.
The Reformation
When Philip II, Charles V’s son, ascended to the throne of Spain in 1556, he immediately sought to annihilate the Reformation in the Netherlands. Many of the Dutch rebelled wanting to keep their freedom and opposing the idea of religious persecution. The 1560s ushered in an era of crop failures, famine, recession and political blunders creating the perfect storm, sparking open revolt against Spanish rule and the Eighty Years’ War.
The Eighty Years’ War (Dutch Revolt)
The Eighty Years’ War began in 1566 and lasted until 1648. Disparate groups of rebels clashed with the Spanish government over the Reformation, centralization, excessive taxation, and preferential treatment of the Dutch nobility in what has come to be called the Dutch Revolt.
With their demands largely ignored by the king of Spain, they began to repudiate Spanish ideologies, including Catholicism. The Dutch Reformed Church replaced the Roman Catholic Church. Subsequently, the majority of the priests were duly deported, along with all magistrates. Those refusing to convert to the “reformed” religion (Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Mennonites) had to worship in underground churches or flee the city. Religious orders and communities were secularized.
The Duke of Alba
The rebellions rippled through the Dutch territories with the rebels refusing to recognize governance by Spain . In response, the Crown named a new governor to restore peace. In 1567, the harsh Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, the 3rd Duke of Alba was appointed and charged with quelling the rebellions. Upon his arrival, he established the Council of Troubles (known to the people as the Council of Blood) to judge those involved in the rebellions.
The Council was charged with interrogating suspects. Penalties for guilty verdicts ranged from permanent imprisonment to execution, along with confiscation of all personal property. This same Council is reported to have promptly ordered the execution of approximately 1,000 dissidents, inflaming the situation even more. Many of the remaining dissenters fled Amsterdam for France but would soon return, as you shall see.
William the Silent / William of Orange
The Duke and his Council had made a powerful enemy in a wealthy landowner named William the Silent. He was named “silent” as he remained non-commital to the struggle of his countrymen and was unsympathetic to the desires of the Crown. William was one of 10,000 citizens summoned before the Council. When William failed to appear, he was declared an outlaw and his properties were confiscated. To add insult to injury, the Duke arrested William’s son in an effort to force his hand to side with Spain. This only caused William’s silent rebellion to flare into an all-out war. As one of the most prominent and popular politicians of the Netherlands, William of Orange emerged as the leader of armed resistance.
Under his direction, the now-organized army won several territories and brought the Spanish to a stalemate in Holland. Quite naturally, he was assassinated, jeopardizing the hard fought triumphs of the rebels. He was so essential to the cause that after his death, many rebels decided to flee the country. This left the rebellion back on the verge of being crushed.
Luckily, in 1585 the Queen of England sided with the rebels and gave them an assist. Her help didn’t do much for their desperate situation directly, but it definitely angered King Philip. He was so enraged that he focused all of his resources on the Spanish Armada intending to invade England. Needless to say, this didn’t end well for good old King Philip. His ill-fated plan drove him straight into bankruptcy, a position from which he could no longer strike the rebels.
Amsterdam’s Maritime Success
The Spanish, in the midst of all the drama with the Netherlands, annexed Portugal in 1580. With Portugal off limits now, northern Netherlanders now had to sail to the far-off Indies or ‘spice-islands’ (today’s Indonesia) themselves to procure goods for sale and consumption.
Fortunately, many rich merchants from the southern Netherlands had moved to Amsterdam after Antwerp, Belgium fell to the Spanish in 1585. Their arrival gave the city’s business community an extra boost and their wealth funded maritime activities.
The very first trading voyages to the Indies from Amsterdam were a phenomenal success, yielding shareholders an awesome 400% profit. Merchant ships also sailed to the Baltic and the Mediterranean and established colonies in South America and southern Africa opening up new trade routes.
Anxious to share these riches, ships were fitted-out and dispatched from every port in the country. In 1602, all these fragmented efforts were clustered in the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC). The DEI company was the first business entity to link the East and West becoming the first multinational corporation. More on this later.
Spain’s Bankruptcy and other Wars
Now on the defensive, the Spanish were losing territories left and right. The north of the Rhine was now practically all Dutch and nearby France had had it. Thoroughly irritated by all the noise, France declared war on Spain in 1595. What a mess! Now that the war was being waged on Northern France, as well, Spain had less reservations to cede territories to the Dutch. The Spanish Netherlands were ceded to the Dutch in an agreement known as the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609.
End of the Eighty-Year War
The peace the Twelve Years’ Truce brought was temporary and it wasn’t long before Spain reared it’s ugly head again. In 1622, the sieges on different Dutch cities resumed. This time, however, the ex-rebels had gained some strength and challenged Spain’s underpaid troops. Plus, Spain was spread thin fighting too many simultaneous battles, as Portugal and Catalonia had also become problematic. In 1648, after years of fighting, the Eighty-Year War ended with the Peace of Münster.
Under the agreement, Spain retained the Southern Netherlands and formally recognized the Dutch Republic as an independent country. The Münster agreement would also be important as it made the Netherlands and Spain partners in a nefarious line of trade, as you shall see later. For all intents and purposes, the Dutch emerged the victors and this was the end of Spain’s immersion in Dutch affairs.
With all this fighting going on in and around the Dutch region, wide gaps had grown up between the classes. At top top of society were the regents – wealthy families who effectively ran the city with a nepotic hand. Under their influence, basic necessities were heavily taxed and unemployment was widespread. Gradually, a new middle class arose, between the rich regents and the poor at the bottom of the ladder. These new burghers were literate and open to new ideas from England and France setting the stage for the Enlightenment.
17th Century
By the 17th century, Amsterdam had catapulted to became one of the most important port cities. This era was dubbed The Golden Age. The Golden Age was a period in Dutch history where the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands flourished in trade, science and the arts. During this period, the military prowess of the Dutch was second to none.
Amsterdam’s Golden Age (circa 1588-1672)
The Golden Age, ironically, coincided with the period when the Dutch were chafing against Spanish rule. Despite the turmoil at home, the Dutch had an adventurous mercantile spirit that led them to explore the world. This exploration caused their economy to flourish. Their trade partners in Europe, monopoly on trade in Asia, and focus on shipbuilding allowed them to exploit the riches of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean trade routes.
Today, use of the term “Golden Age” as a synonym for the seventeenth century has become a particular point of contention. Historians correctly argue that it does not give an accurate representation of that century, whitewashing the Netherland’s problematic colonial past.
The Dutch East India Company (VOC)
As mentioned previously, the Dutch East India Company was the first multinational corporation. Granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia, the VOC was a money-making machine. By 1669, it was the richest private company the world had ever seen. Investors enjoyed a dividend payment of 40% on their original investment. The VOC had a fleet of more than 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees and a private army of 10,000 soldiers. The company traded spices, silk, porcelain, metals, livestock, tea, grains, soybeans, sugarcane, wine, coffee and, oh, did I forget to mention…slaves.
The Slave Trade
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the VOC obtained, traded and used 600,000 to 1 million slaves, mainly from present-day India, later also from Celebes and Bali (present-day Indonesia) in the Dutch East Indies. The trade in men was the most profitable venture merchants had ever seen.
Drunk with greed, investors were eager to replicate the process with a route to the west. Merchant Willem Usselincx was the first to propose establishing a specific route – the Caribbean. However, there was one problem – the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609 between Spain and the Netherlands. The agreement stipulated, among other things, that the Dutch would withdraw from the Caribbean leaving the west to the Spaniards.
Although the agreement outlined that the Republic would withdraw from the Caribbean, the Dutch clearly had no intentions of doing any such thing. In fact, in 1616 in direct violation of the agreement, they established a settlement in Essequibo (present-day Guyana).
Formation of the Dutch West India Company
When the armistice expired in 1621, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) was formed. Modeled after the East India Company, it was managed by a governing body known as the Nineteen Gentlemen (later known as the Ten Gentlemen). The sole purpose of this company was to wage economic warfare against Spain and Portugal by striking at their colonies in the West Indies, South America and the west coast of Africa.
Dutch overseas territories
In 1624, thirty families led by Captain Cornelius May sailed to the New World and settled on the Delaware River. Their colony became known as New Netherlands. The third governor of New Netherland, Peter Minuit, moved the capital of the colony to Manhattan Island in 1626. The settlement there was called New Amsterdam, the precursor to New York.
In the 1630s, more and more territories fell into Dutch hands. In 1633, the Dutch took possession of Curacao, Bonaire and Aruba. The largest island, Curacao emerged as a center for the notorious slave trade while Bonaire became a plantation island.
Opposition to the slave trade
Initially, the Republic was strongly opposed to the slave trade. When a ship carrying over a hundred enslaved Africans arrived in 1596, there was a fierce discussion about what to do with the captives. The ship’s captain aimed to sell them while the church argued against it based on moral grounds. It is difficult to tell whether the church objected because the Africans were human beings or because slavery didn’t exist there. To this day, it remains a mystery what happened to the “cargo” . However, by 1635 local sentiment toward slavery had clearly changed.
Dutch investors obviously had no use for religion and quickly traded it for profit as the Nineteen Gentlemen plunged the WIC headlong into the transatlantic slave trade. The main reason for this shift was the conquest of Brazil, which gave the company ownership of a large plantation colony in need of slave labor.
Approved by the bible?!
The bible says the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) and it was clearly the love of money that led the Dutch down this path. To assuage their consciences, investors and slave traders alike used biblical texts to justify their actions. Africans were either viewed as pagans who needed to have their faith “corrected” or as descendants of the cursed tribe of Ham who were getting what they deserved.
In 1637, Elmina Castle, a fort on the western coast of Africa (now Ghana) was seized from the Portuguese. The acquisition of more and more forts and settlements on the West African coast followed. The Dutch now had never-ending access to African slave markets.
Transatlantic Slave Trade
By the 1630s and 1640s, the WIC was the largest slave trader in the Atlantic region. Even after the Portuguese reclaimed Dutch Brazil in 1654, the WIC continued to dominate the transatlantic slave trade. This was, thanks again, in large part to the Peace of Münster the Dutch signed with Spain back in 1648. Under the Münster agreement, the Dutch became involved in the Asiento de Negroes supplying the Spanish colonies with slaves.
The Asiento de Negros translates to “agreement of blacks”.
Triangular Trade
Eventually the Spanish, Portuguese and English surpassed the Dutch and became the major players in the slave trade. The Dutch were not perturbed, however, as they had other plans. After 1674, the WIC shifted its focused to the triangular trade. Unfortunately, for the Dutch the prime trade partner they were eyeing in this endeavor just happened to be the British overseas territory known as America.
In the 1600s and 1700s, Europe’s manufacturing sectors were burgeoning and in desperate need of raw materials. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Americas needed a source of labor for their agricultural sector. Under the triangular trade route, European goods were shipped from the Netherlands to Africa in exchange for slaves. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas and exchanged for either cash, promissory notes or agricultural produce, which was then shipped back to Europe.
18th century
A reform movement sprang up in Amsterdam, demanding an end to the corruption of the regents. By 1748, this had grown into a widespread popular drive with rioting erupting and violence directed at the despised tax collectors. The authorities squashed the uprising and many of the ringleaders fled to France. It seems France was home to all the rebels fleeing the Netherlands. They also wouldn’t be there for long as this was on the eve of the French Revolution.
Anglo-Dutch War
London became exasperated with the Dutch during the American Revolution (1775-83), as they continued to expand their profitable trade with the Americas, as well as France. Finally, open hostilities erupted in the fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–84). The Dutch navy, sorely neglected for more than a half century, was utterly unprepared to battle the powerful British fleet. Exhausted by its long land wars, new incompetence at sea and faced with a stagnating colonial economy, the Dutch empire began to crumble. The republic finally collapsed in 1795, right into the arms of invading French armies.
French Dominance
The year 1789 marked the start of the French Revolution. From 1795-1813, the French became unstoppable. In 1795, the Dutch rebels who had fled to France to escape the wrath of Spain’s Duke Alba returned. This time, inspired by ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood from the Enlightenment, and with the assistance of French sympathizers, they took over the Dutch Republic. The city authorities of Amsterdam were ejected and replaced by provisional representatives of the people in an experimental attempt at democracy. This, too, would be short-lived.
Napoleon Bonaparte
This was also the period of the meteoric rise of Napoleon Bonaparte with him becoming emperor of France in 1804. Under his leadership, French influence became French interference and then full-on dictatorship. Napoleon incorporated the Dutch state directly into his “Grand Empire” of vassal states. The territory was renamed the Kingdom of Holland in 1806 and the Netherlands received as its monarch Napoleon’s younger brother Louis. Louis Napoleon selected Amsterdam as his official residence, making it the country’s focal point and capital. In 1813, the allies defeated Napoleon and the French were forced out of the Netherlands. In 1815, William I became the new king. Formally, Amsterdam remained the capital city, but the seat of government shifted to The Hague.
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution arrived late in the Netherlands (1780-1849) but still ushered in a period of expansion in both trade and population. Industrialization was certainly a boost for the city’s battered economy, but it also spurred social unrest. Between 1870 and 1900, the city’s population almost doubled and at the turn of the century there were 510,000 inhabitants.
19th century
The end of the Dutch slave trade
In the 1830s, the WIC lost its privileges signaling the beginning of the end for the company. The route was now open allowing anyone to trade in West Africa and the Dutch Caribbean. With profits from the slave trade essentially dried up, the WIC was facing bankruptcy. The Nineteen/Ten Gentlemen made several desperate attempts to merge with the VOC but they were not interested. Already in a precarious financial state, the large losses the company sustained fighting with Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession (1710-14) ensured that the WIC’s days were numbered. In 1791, the company dissolved.
About eighty percent of the enslaved Africans traded by the Dutch ended up in Suriname. Suriname was known as one of the cruelest colonies in the Caribbean.
The dissolution of WIC did not mean the end of the Dutch slave trade. The Netherlands signed an international agreement to stop trading in 1814 but the practice continued until 1873. In true wicked colonizer fashion, slavery was “abolished” in 1863, yet slaves had to work an additional ten years before being emancipated. The Dutch government then compensated slaveholders for their “losses”. Needless to say, the enslaved received no compensation for their labor or suffering.
The Numbers
From the 15th through the 19th century, about 12.5 million enslaved Africans were shipped across the Atlantic by European countries. Spain and Portugal were the largest slave traders, followed by England, the Netherlands, the United States, France, and Denmark. An estimated 600,000 enslaved Africans were traded by the Dutch; of that number, HALF were supplied by the WIC. It is estimated that the WIC shipped at least 85,000 enslaved people from West Africa to the Americas before 1674 and at least 180,000 after.
To truly understand the immensity of these numbers, one must also understand one thing. These numbers do not take into account the death rate. While it is difficult to say how many slaves died en route, it is estimated that the average death rate aboard WIC ships between 1674 and 1740 was about 16.5 percent. Of that number, there is also a certain group that is, unfortunately, missing – babies born during passage who died en route. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you view it, that statistic has been lost forever.
20th century
The onset of World War I in 1914 disrupted trade worldwide and Amsterdam was no exception. Because of its neutrality, the nation did not face the same war reparations, damage and population loss which plagued other European countries but the economy still struggled. The unrest and economic problems of Germany, one of the Netherlands’ main trading partners, in the early 1920s plunged the Netherlands into a severe depression until 1925.
After 1925, partly because of economic improvements in Germany, the post-war depression in the Netherlands ended and the country seemed to be resetting. The reset was short lived as next came the Great Depression, which held the country in a vice grip until 1936 followed by the onset of World War II in 1939.
World War II
Germany had suffered a humiliating defeat in World War I (1914–1918). Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, Germany was required to accept full responsibility for the war and pay reparations to cover all civilian damage. This sum was later calculated at a staggering £6.6 billion. (Germany finally paid off this sum in 2010).
From 1918 to 1933, reparations payments, hyperinflation and the Great Depression caused severe economic hardship for the German people. It was during this unique period in 1919 that the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP – abbreviated to Nazi) was established.
The rise of the Nazi Party
Dominant themes in Nazi ideology were fierce opposition to communism, rejection of liberal democratic government structures, opposition to big business and a racist and antisemitic German nationalism. Antisemitism, the fear or hatred of Jews, was not a new concept. It had existed in Europe for centuries but not like this. In the late 19th century, eugenics became a popular concept. The Nazi party embraced this believing that people of German descent belonged to a superior or “master race” known as the Aryans. They further asserted that the Jews were the main racial threat to German society, followed by the Roma (Gypsies) and black people.
Eugenics was the theory that humans can be categorized into specific races and some “races” were biologically, culturally, and morally superior to others.
During this period of economic turmoil, the Nazis gained massive public support by promoting the idea that Germany’s woes were the fault of Jewish financiers. A fallacy that exploited existing antisemitic sentiment. Desperate to regain what they had lost, many people believed the Nazi Party would restore Germany’s status as a world power. The Nazis played to the desires of the masses, promising to restore Germany’s economy, and end political instability and violence.
Enter Adolf Hitler
In January 1933, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, was appointed the chancellor of Germany. The Nazi Party quickly turned Germany from a weak new democracy into a one-party dictatorship. Persecution of German Jews began almost immediately and by 1935 they had all been stripped of their citizenship. In 1938, the party began arresting Jewish men and deporting them to concentration camps.
By 1939, Nazi Germany had begun annexing, invading, and occupying neighboring countries to obtain what they called Lebensraum (living space). In September 1939, the German invasion of Poland led Great Britain and France to declare war starting World War II. As Germany’s territory grew, millions of Jews came under Nazi control. German authorities rounded up Jews and forced many of them into ghettos.
German occupation
As they did during World War I, the Dutch attempted to remain neutral and let the Germans, Brits and French fight it out. Unfortunately, their “neutrality” was not respected this time. German forces attacked the nation without warning on May 10, 1940. The Dutch army was severely outmanned and capitulated five days later.
The Netherlands had previously been a “safe haven” for German refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. As a result, many Dutch Jews did not immediately flee the Netherlands when the Nazis invaded. Many took a wait and see attitude towards the occupation, which ultimately proved fatal. While some Jews managed to “go underground” (into hiding) with the assistance of friends, the large majority were taken away to their deaths.
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored, persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.
The Holocaust
By the summer of 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators began to systematically murder European Jews. This plan was known as the “Final Solution”. Sometimes Jews were killed outright with entire villages rounded up and executed or they were shipped to concentration camps. In other areas, Jews were forced into work camps to support the German war effort where they frequently died of overwork or starvation.
From May through September 1943, the Germans launched raids to seize Jews in the city. The residents were killed outright or deported to concentration camps while the Germans confiscated their property. In 1942 alone, the contents of nearly 10,000 apartments in Amsterdam were expropriated by the Germans and shipped to Germany.
There were heroic exploits in Amsterdam by the Dutch Resistance and many quiet deeds of valor in protecting those persecuted by the Nazi regime, such as the family of Anne Frank. However, the city’s Jews and their old quarter were almost entirely eliminated. The Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany in May 1945. By that time, the Nazis and their collaborators had murdered approximately six million Jews, 110,000 from Amsterdam alone.
Post-war reconstruction
After the war there was a difficult period of reconstruction, but by the 1950s the economy was booming. The Netherlands in the 1950s was not a radical place, and Amsterdam was typically staid and proper. The 1960s, however, brought social and cultural change throughout the Western world, nowhere more so than in Amsterdam. The tiny nation began to embrace the libertarian radicalism for which it has been renowned ever since. The reasons for the extraordinary change are still debated but include the long economic boom, the severity of the religious strictures in mainstream Dutch culture in the mid-20th century, and the traditional Dutch tolerance of difference. This same radicalism opened the way for the city’s relatively open tolerance for recreational drug use and prostitution.
The Making of a Melting Pot
Today Amsterdam is a veritable melting pot and has, in fact, been one for centuries. As early as the 15th century people relocated to Amsterdam seeking the religious tolerance the city was famous for. From the 15th to 19th century, Germans were the largest group of immigrants.
In 1570, Amsterdam was still a small city with no more than 30,000 inhabitants but things would quickly change. Hundreds of Jews expelled from Portugal, followed by their coreligionists from the area of modern Germany and Eastern Europe, flocked to the city. Portuguese Jews also arrived from Antwerp, Belgium. These were “double” refugees as they had originally fled Spanish persecution in Portugal by fleeing to Antwerp.
Many inhabitants from the southern Netherlands also relocated to Amsterdam. Their arrival plus that of immigrants of other faiths, such as Sephardic Jews, heavily influenced the Golden Age in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The largest European immigrant population
The city soon became a trading metropolis with the population more than tripling between 1565 and 1618. By the end of the 17th century that number would double again as more than 200,000 people would call Amsterdam home. The city was officially counted as one of the largest in Europe with the largest immigrant population.
As people flocked to the city in search of employment opportunities during the Industrial Revolution, the population doubled again from 250,000 in 1850 to 510,000 in 1900.
Amsterdam – city of immigrants
The turn of the century, however, saw a second World War, which decreased the population by 20% or 110,000 souls. All members of the Jewish community as Hitler’s deadly pogrom invaded the Netherlands. The second half of the 20th century saw Dutch companies recruiting young men from Italy, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Morocco and Surinam with promises of work. The late 20th century also saw the introduction of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as more and more immigrants arrived from these regions.
Today, the greater Amsterdam metropolitan region has approximately 1,450,000 inhabitants and is a true city of immigrants. In 2010, more than 50% of children under the age of 18 had at least 1 parent who had immigrated from abroad with most new arrivals hailing from the UK, US and India.
Up next: My Amsterdam Holiday – Tulips and Windmills
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