Dutch diaspora (Napoleon's World)

The Dutch diaspora refers to the emigration of Dutch-speaking peoples out of the traditional heartland in the Netherlands starting in the late 1810s and continuing to present day. Driven largely by the 1810 annexation of the Kingdom of Holland by the French Empire and the reconstitution of the Grand Duchy of Holland as a tiny client state based exclusively around Rotterdam and Amsterdam, many Dutch - primarily Calvinists who chafed at Catholic French rule even after the Universal Declaration of Religious Liberty by Napoleon I in 1820 - emigrated to both the New World and colonies held by the English or by the Dutch East India Company. It is estimated that as many as five million Dutch left the Netherlands between 1816 and 1856.

The emigrants were primarily Protestant Calvinists of the Dutch Reformed Church, many of whom settled in the United States and played a key role in the development of states such as Michigan, Huron, Indiana and New York. The Dutch Reformed Church still plays a crucial role in many states of the Upper Midwest, especially western Michigan's famous "Dutch Belt" and in Southwest Huron.

However, due to a lack of economic opportunities in the "French Netherlands" (departments of the Empire which were previously the Kingdom of Holland), a large number of Dutch Catholics also emigrated, many settling in places such as Pennsylvania or Maryland and a larger number arriving in newly independent American republics such as Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.