History of Tussenland: Difference between revisions

This page explores the history of [[Tussenland]] in greater detail. Initially, Tussenland was a federation of Dutch colonies and protectorates, before it gained independence in 1905 as a single political unit.

 

The Dutch colonial venture in North America started when Henry Hudson, an English-born explorer working for the Dutch, sailed west seeking a northwest passage to Asia. However, he did not find this passage. Instead, he stumbled upon lush land filled with beaver and natives who were interested in trading. As soon as the Dutch States-General heard of this, they sent more sailors and explorers to establish a presence on this uncharted land. Thus, the colony of New Netherland was established, with New Amsterdam as its capital.

 

Throughout the first half of the 17th century, the Dutch West India Company (GWC) ran the colony. To attract settlers, the GWC established the patroon system: anyone who could bring in at least 50 settlers to the colony would be awarded land grants. This system proved to be successful and bolstered the young colony's population.

 

By the 1640s, multiple settlements already hugged the eastern coast, and several ''factorÿen'' (trading forts) dotted the upstream course of the Noordt River. However, as the population grew, so were the settlers' disgruntlement over the GWC's corruption and the colony's mismanagement. The settlers denounced the GWC and pleaded to the Dutch Republic's States-General to establish a more representative colonial government. The States-General heard their demands and enacted the Municipal Charter of New Netherland (1656), which established a popular government and expelled the GWC out of New Netherland.

New Netherland's municipal charter forbade the GWC from operating in their territory. Despite this, the company was never disbanded. The company knew the fur trade was too invaluable. They would never let the French up north dominate the fur business. Instead, the company moved further west, away from New Netherland and into the American interior.

 

 

The GWC allied with the Iroquois nation (Hoodenoshieöné) and fought against the French trying to expand into the interior. With the French out of the way, the GWC expanded southwestward, following the Ohio and Mississippi rivers' downstream course and into the Gulf of New Spain.

 

Throughout the 17th century, the GWC maintained a stable partnership with the Iroquois and the colonial government of New Netherland. With the bolstered population of New Netherland and an alliance with the Iroquois, the GWC was able to defend their western territorial holdings against the English during the 2nd Anglo-Dutch War.

{{Main|Quiripi Wars}}In 1658, the Dutch Republic signed the Treaty of Perpetual Alliance with the Iroquois confederacy. This treaty stipulated the Dutch recognition of Iroquois sovereignty, a stronger trade partnership, and a <nowiki>''perpetual''</nowiki> mutual defense treaty. This treaty also allowed the GWC to build forts inside of Iroquois territory. The first fort built on native land was Fort Hedel. Additionally, the treaty forbade Dutch settlers from founding new settlements inside native land.

 

In 1659, the Iroquois entangled themselves in the [[Quiripi Wars]], where they fought against the Quiripi tribe (plus several other English-allied tribes) near the English frontier. In 1661, after the Quiripi attacked a band of Iroquois, the Iroquois attempted to invoke the Treaty of Perpetual Alliance to get the GWC to join the war on their side. However, the company refused to participate, not wanting to get involved in a petty conflict against England and the other natives. The GWC justified this decision by saying that the Iroquois were the aggressors, thus rendering the Treaty of Alliance inapplicable. However, the GWC reversed this decision after the Second Anglo-Dutch War erupted in 1664; the war forced the GWC to join the Iroquois in attacking the English-allied tribes. Together with New Netherland and the Iroquois, the GWC successfully repelled the English invaders.

The region covered by the GWC's trade charter did not have an official name or title during its creation in 1656. However, some records show GWC personnel calling the region Tussenland as early as the 1690s (Dutch: ''Tussenlandt''; lit.: ''country in between''). Historians generally agree that this was due to the traders' belief that the region was between two mountain ranges: the Appalachian range on the east and a supposedly uncharted mountain range on the west. There is no clear evidence of what western mountains they were referring to, but historians generally agree that it might have been the Rocky Mountain Range.

 

===Prince Maurice's War (1750-1755), and Acquisition of Meerenland===

 

In the early years of the war, New France saw significant gains on the Western Tussenland front, occupying key areas. However, Dutch forces soon overpowered the invading French troops and marched northeast towards the Great Lakes region in 1751, capturing several important forts. Meanwhile, the rest of the French army had marched south from Montreal to invade the Iroquoian homeland. The French were ultimately unable to take the Iroquoian land, and in late 1752, combined Dutch and British forces occupied Montreal. They then occupied Quebec and other forts along the St. Lawrence River in 1753.

 

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Vienna on 16 February 1755. As part of the treaty, the French renounced all their claims west of the Mississippi River (which overlapped Tussenland's claims) and transferred the Great Lakes region's possession (Pays d'en Haut) to the Dutch.

 

The newly acquired Pays d'en Haut territory was promptly renamed ''Meeranlandt'' (Dutch for "lake country") and became a separate Dutch colony in 1756. The first Director-General of Meerenlandt, Pieter Evertsz de Vries, ruled over a predominantly French-speaking and Catholic population. De Vries won over the loyalty of the people through a policy of appeasement and placation. He allowed the French to practice Catholicism freely and even participate in the fur trade, a privilege that the GWC did not give to settlers in the GWC-controlled territories.

In 1761, to strengthen the legitimacy of Dutch claims on the Mississipi region, the Dutch West India company adopted a policy of inviting settlers from New Netherland, which experienced overpopulation since the 1760s. This policy differed from the earlier colonization schemes they had set in New Netherland decades before. This new policy would have fewer entry barriers and allowed the upper-middle-class to own land plots in the region. This policy had boosted the Dutch population west of the Mississippi River, and many Dutch settlements sprouted up throughout the rest of the 19th century.

In 1795, the French Republic subjugated the Dutch Republic in Europe during the French Revolutionary Wars. The neighboring Dutch colony New Netherland had declared independence. Despite this, the GWC in Tussenland remained loyal to the Dutch Republic government-in-exile in Britain and tried to prevent revolutionary ideas from spreading from New Netherland.

 

During the republic's absence, the Dutch West India company faced an invasion by Britain but was able to repel it. The victories against the British and the mother country's absence helped the GWC consolidate and exercise greater power over the Tussenland colony.

[[File:1848Irokesenlandt.png|alt=|thumb|A map of the Irokesenlandt Land Grant (1816) and the controversial Virginia Purchase (1848).|425x425px]]Despite the treaty back in 1658 forbidding the Dutch from creating new settlements inside Iroquois territory, the Dutch settlers from New Netherland were still able to do so on the interior due to the Iroquois leasing their lands to colonists.

 

===Virginia Purchase (1848)===

The Kingdom of the Netherlands had feared that the contested region in west Irokesenland would lead into a colonial war between Tussenland and Virginia. Additionally, they also feared that a military conflict against the Spanish Empire was imminent, due to Tussenland settlers' continuous westward expansion, and the fact that the kingdom was recently accused by the Spanish Empire of financially supporting separatist rebels in their colony of [[Colombia|New Granada]] in the 1830s. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was faced with a dilemma. However, in 1847, a delegation from Britain sent a formal offer to purchase the contested territory from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was reluctant to renounce their claims, as were the Iroquois. However, as the threat of war with Spain became more imminent, the Kingdom of the Netherlands agreed to the purchase and pressured the Iroquois to give up the contested part to Virginia. However, despite the Dutch West India's efforts to placate Great Britain, in mid-1849 the Kingdom of the Netherlands still get involved in a war against [[Great Britain]] and [[France]] over China.

[[File:RTL Claims before and after the 2nd dutch spanish war.png|thumb|338x338px|American territories before and after the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War]]

With the Dutch now fighting the British and French in Asia, the fear of an imminent war against Spain grew larger. Border tensions in the west came to a head in 1850, when Spain finally declared war against the weakened Netherlands. This war would be known as the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War. The war ended in a humiliating Dutch defeat. In the resulting treaty, the Dutch had ceded a large portion of the Mississippi basin region to New Spain, and they were forced to release Southern Tussenland as an independent nation, effectively locking the Dutch out of the Gulf of Florida. This had soured relations between the Dutch and the Spanish, until in 1881, Mexico had declared their independence as the [[Mexico|Empire of Mexico]]''.''

{{Main|South Tussenland|l1 = South Tussenland (Country)}}Having plantations operated by the Royal Tussenland Company, the southern region of Tussenland had a significant population of slaves. A unique Dutch creole culture had evolved in the southern region of Tussenland. In the midst of the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War, Tussenland saw a slave insurrection beginning to form in the south, spearheaded by a "prophet" who had claimed to be sent by God to liberate the slave-population of southern Tussenland. A religious movement soon formed in southern Tussenland, named the Church of the Second Ascension. To undermine the Dutch, Spain had supported this slave insurrection. The southern region declared independence officially as the United Gemeenten (religious communities) of South Tussenland (Dutch: ''Verenigde Gemeenten van Zuyd Tussenlandt''), led by the ex-slave prophet [[Abayomi van Tussenlandt]]. Spain was the first nation to recognize this new nation. The now independent South Tussenland fought alongside the Spanish against the Dutch.

{{Main|Tussenland Upheavals}}

The loss of the Dutch during the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War caused political and economic turmoil in the various colonies in Tussenland. The unrest culminated in a series of loosely connected revolts in a period known as the [[Tussenland Upheavals]]. The Tussenland Upheavals (also known as the Tussenland Revolution Period) was a series of events that led to radical change within Dutch Tussenlandic government and society. This period saw the transformation of Tussenland from being independent colonies operated by the Dutch West India company and various Dutch protectorates into a loose confederation of several states. This was codified in the Tussenland Act of 1861.

 

The 1861 Tussenland Act also granted parcels of land in southwestern Irokesenland to the Dutch plantation owners who had lost their land after the independence of South Tussenland.

After gold was discovered on the Black Hills in 1874, Dutch and French-speaking Tussenlander settlers came pouring into the Black Hills, which was then part of New Spain territory. Spain, occupied with fighting against a revolution for Mexican independence, did very little to stop the influx of settlers. When the Mexican Empire declared independence in 1881, the Amerikaners also proclaimed an independent republic called the Black Hills Republic, which corresponded to the borders of the New Spain province of Misuri del Norte. Numerous clashes with the plains indians occured from 1875-1885, most of whom were driven north into the unincorporated territories of Tussenland.

 

 

Aside from its direct effects on Tussenland, the war also had lasting domino effects on New Netherland and the [[Kingdom of the Netherlands]] itself, eventually leading to the 1903 revolution of New Netherland, the anti-colonial uprisings in the Netherlands, and the independence of Tussenland.

=== Tensions with the Kingdom of the Netherlands ===