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WALLOONS

WALLOONS, French-speaking people of Celtic stock in northeastern France (present-day Belgium) who became Protestant in large numbers during the Reformation. Many, exiled to Holland, England, and Germany, emigrated to America beginning in the early 1620s. They were the first colonizing settlers in New Netherland (first called Nova Belgica): at Manhattan (called New Avesnes), at Fort Orange (Albany), at Wallabout (Brooklyn), and at Boompjes Hoek on the Delaware River (Gloucester, New Jersey). They later settled on Staten Island and in the Walkill Valley. They brought seed, fruits, and cattle. Immigration continued, and they often intermarried with Dutch and Huguenot settlers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Griffis, W. E. The Story of the Walloons. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923.

Augustus H. Shearer/F. B.

See also Huguenots; New Netherland.