A biography of A.C. Van Raalte (1811-1876), founder of a major settlement of Dutch immigrants to America. It discusses the causes for emigration, the hardships of travel to and arrival in a new land, and the tensions between Americanization and maintenance of ethnic and religious heritage.

Albertus Christiaan Van Raalte was born in 1811, a time of extreme social and religious stress. A stagnant economy, premodern agriculture, and high population growth had led to a sense of hopelessness. Then Enlightenment rationalism and political discontent cast the Dutch Reformed Church adrift in a sea of doubt and uncertainty. This set the stage for the welcome by Dutch liberals of invading French "liberators" in 1795 and the formation of the Batavian Republic, which disestablished the public church. Young Albertus received the best education the Netherlands could offer in the nineteenth century-parochial day school and became an itinerant pastor who planted congregations in the largely rural province of Overijssel. When desperate poverty drove thousands of these Separatists to emigrate to America in the 1840s, Van Raalte himself decided to emigrate and lead his followers to safer pastures. Emigrating overseas never entered his mind until midlife, but doing so lifted him to a dynamic role in a period of change in both countries, with different speeds, directions, opportunities, and threats.The two major Dutch Reformed colonies in the 1840s were those of A. C. Van Raalte in Holland, Michigan, and Rev. Hendrik P. Scholte in Pella, Iowa. Van Raalte and Scholte, erstwhile friends in the Netherlands, faced a role reversal in America, and they became rivals, competing for settlers and influence. The poverty-stricken Holland colony was isolated and twenty miles from the nearest market towns. But thanks to its harbor, wood products shipped to insatiable Chicago markets paid for provisions and supplies that were brought back on return sailings. Holland lay astride the two most productive agricultural counties in Michigan-Ottawa and Allegan. The Holland area today has five or six times the population of the Pella area. And Holland's diverse industrial economy far surpasses that of Iowa's agricultural economy. In the rivalry with Scholte, Van Raalte's accomplishments became the embodiment of what Scholte had hoped to achieve.

The celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Albertus C. Van Raalte in October 2011 provided a distinct opportunity to evaluate the enduring legacy of one of the best-known Dutch immigrants of the nineteenth century. This book of essays demonstrates his unique role not only in the narrative of the migration to America but also in the foundation of theological education for Seceders (Afgescheidenen) prior to his emigration. These essays were all presented at an international conference held in Holland, Michigan, and Ommen, Overijssel, the Netherlands, with the conference theme of "Albertus C. Van Raalte: Leader and Liaison." Three broad categories serve as the organizing principle for this book: biographical essays, thematic essays, and reception studies. Van Raalte began to emerge as a leader within the Seceder Church (Christelijk Afgescheidene Gereformeerde Kerk) in the Netherlands, but his leadership abilities were both tested and strengthened through leading a group of Dutch citizens to the United States in 1846. In his role as leader, moreover, he served as liaison to the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in America in the eastern United States (renamed the Reformed Church in America in 1867, to the Seceder Church in the Netherlands, and to the civil authorities in the United States, as well as between business and their employees. These fifteen essays illuminate the many facets of this energetic, multi-talented founder of the Holland kolonie. This collection further enhances and strengthens our knowledge of both Van Raalte and his Separatist compatriots.