After the invasion of the Low Countries by the Catholic King Philip II of Spain in 1567, and the August 29, 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) of French Calvinist Huguenots, there was a Walloon (Belgium) and Huguenot (France) migration to Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, England, West Indies, South and North America, bringing with them Reform theology, and expertise in medicine, iron working and gun making, and textiles. The Huguenots were the intellectuals of France.
In 1600 400 Huguenot and Walloon mercenaries went to work for the Sultan.
In 1624 30 families, mostly Walloons and led by Josse de Forest, arrives in Terra Nova Belgica (New York) and settle New Avesnes (Manhattan) and the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. They wore silver half moons inscribed “Better Turk than Pope” from the statement by the Patriarch of Constantinople “Rather the turban of the Turk than the tiara of the pope.”
From 1661-1700 Walloons and Huguenots settle on the Binne Kill of the Mohawk River, establish Schenectady, Batavia (“better land”), New Rupella (Rochelle), New Paltz in the Walkill valley, Fort Orange (the future site of Albany), and in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to South Carolina.
Irénée du Pont was Huguenot, as were the Roosevelts. Delano was Walloon.
The branch of my family tree that provides me my surname is French Huguenot, who, after a brief stay of a couple decades in England, made their way to the lower Hudson River Valley where they were successful farmers and millers from the second half of the 1600's to the immediate post revolutionary war period of roughly 1792. At that point, after choosing poorly as to which side to support, my ancestors decided life would be better if they got "out of Dodge" so to speak. I'm pretty sure they were promised in a contract a fine cash settlement for abandoning their substantial assets, which the American government has failed to make good on. You guys owe me!
