dutch migration
After 1650 there was more and more subsistence-migration. People did not migrate to earn some extra money, but to make their living. They needed money to buy a piece of land, to pay their taxes and their debts. More and more beggars and wanderers migrated through Europe. Teams of harvesters moved around because large farmers grew one or two crops and needed help only in the harvest season. In Europe, about 1800 seven large seasonal migration-systems existed which each included about 20.000 people. One of these systems was the one concentrated near the North-Sea coasts. People from westphalia (Hollandgänger) went to the North-Sea coast for the season. Most of them were so called Heuerlinge. They moved to the Oldenburger Land or to Holland looking for seasonal work like making hay, cutting peat or fishing. Within these systems so many people were on the move that Napoleon was worried about the recruitment for his army. The circle migration was at its height between 1850 and 1914, but chain migration and career migration had already become more important.
References:
- Hollandgänger, Sträflinge und Migranten; Horst Rössler, Edition Temmen
- 350 Jahre auf der Suche nach Arbeit in der Fremde, Wanderarbeit jenseits der Grenze; Eiynck, A. et al., 1993
- Lucassen, J., Dutch long distance migration: a concise history 1600-1900 in Newcomers. Immigrants and their Descendents in the Netherlands 1550-1995, 1991.
- wikipedia.de, die freie enzyklopädie