Note (Return) — TRAVEL-PICTURES.
Reading edition
Thus intimately, by a common faith, friendship, and interest, did the Huguenots unite themselves with the people of Holland, who, about this period, commenced the establishment of New-Netherland in America. We have traced this union the more fully for the better understanding of our general subject. The Walloons and Huguenots were, in fact, the same people—oppressed and persecuted French Protestants. Of the former, as early as the year 1622, several Walloon families from the frontier, between Belgium and France, turned their attention to America. They applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, for permission to settle in the colony of Virginia, with the privilege of erecting a town and governing themselves, by magistrates of their own election. The application was referred to the Virginia Company, 1 but its conditions seem to have been too republican, and many of these Walloons looked, toward New-Netherland, where some arrived in 1624, with the Dutch Director, Minuit.