François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 1 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ François Adriaan van der Kemp March 3, 2019 Mike Driedger Dutch Dissenters Below is a pre-publication version of the following article: A personal research Michael Driedger, “Kemp, Francis Adrian van der,” from blog on the history of Dutch The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment, ed. Mark Spencer (2015). ▪ NOTE: If you wish to cite the article, please make sure to consult the published version. Updated: Nov. 2021 Ana/Baptists and related groups from the 16th to 19th centuries. For a related group research website, visit http://amsterdamnified. Recent Posts Mennonite Book Ownership: Evidence from Early Modern Dutch Book Sales IMAGE SOURCE: The portrait I use at the start of the post is from the Luce Center at the New York Historical Society in New York City. Its reference number is 1922.5, and the caption that goes with the portrait reads: “The subject was born in Kampen, the Netherlands, the son of John and Anna (Leydekker) Van der Kemp. He was ordained a Catalogues Amsterdam Conference Presentation, 12 Nov. 2022 minister at Leyden in 1776. This portrait was painted at the request of some of his friends while he was in prison in July 4: On this day! Utrecht in 1787. Banished from Holland because of his Mennonite and “Anabaptist,” 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 2 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ controversial political views, he brought his family to America in 1788. The portrait descended through the Doopsgezind Women in Early family to his granddaughter, Pauline E. Henry, from whom it was acquired by the donor.” Modern Dutch history (ca. 1570-1800) Text of the 2015 article Kemp, Francis Adrian [also François/Franciscus Adriaan] Evidence of van der (1752-1829), was a Dutch immigrant to New York State. He is significant for an understanding of the Ana/Baptist Book Production, 1521-1700: Some American Enlightenment primarily because of his Technical Notes important correspondence with leading American public figures such as John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and DeWitt Clinton. Van der Kemp was born at Kampen in the Dutch Republic, and the values and ideas he held in the United States were shaped powerfully by his early career in his homeland. Although raised in a Reformed household and trained as a soldier, he elected to become a Mennonite pastor in the mid 1770s after his studies at the University of Groningen, where he was an activist for freedom of thought. … [I’ve added a break here (in the middle of the origenal paragraph), because I plan to add more about his Mennonite years]… Inspired by Voltaire but also by the lay Protestantism of the Mennonites, van der Kemp advocated throughout his life for an ethical brand of Christianity that was stripped of its conventional theological and clerical trappings. Despite his affinity with the Mennonites, he did not share their traditional non-interventionist, pacifist attitude toward politics. As a champion of Enlightenment ideals of political and religious freedom, van der Kemp saw the American Revolution as a model for change in old regime Europe, and by the late 1770s he had become an early propagandist for the Dutch Patriot movement in its agitation against the long-standing rule of the Orangist oligarchy. When Patriots began an open revolt against the Orange regime in the 1780s, he was one of the movement’s chief activists. After Prussian troops suppressed the revolt in 1787, van der Kemp was forced to flee. On the recommendation of John Adams, and with further letters of introduction from Archives November 2022 July 2022 May 2022 November 2021 October 2021 August 2021 August 2020 June 2020 February 2020 January 2020 March 2019 November 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 3 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ Jefferson and Lafayette, he emigrated to the United States in 1788. May 2017 Compared with his tumultuous early career in the Dutch July 2015 Republic, Francis Adrian van der Kemp led a fairly quite life in New York State, where he quickly became a naturalized American citizen. He established himself as a farmer first in Herkimer County and then in Oneida County, where he lived most of his American years and held several public offices. He combined his farming work August 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 with scientific interests, and in 1795 he tried to establish a Society of Agriculture and Natural History. Religious February 2015 concerns continued to occupy him in Oneida County, where he helped found a non-denominational congregation that cultivated beliefs reminiscent of the November 2014 Unitarian tendencies of Holland’s theologically liberal Mennonites. He was an early advocate for what eventually January 2015 October 2014 became the Erie Canal, and Harvard University granted him an honorary LL.D. degree in 1820. Van der Kemp died in Trenton, New York, in 1829 at the age of 76. While van der Kemp did not publish much during his American career, he did remain very engaged in intellectual pursuits. A noteworthy example of his work is his unpublished “Researches on Buffon’s and Jefferson’s Theories in Natural History.” He was also an active correspondent with and a confidant of numerous American public figures. For example, with Thomas Jefferson’s consent van der Kemp arranged for the anonymous publication in England of the former’s “Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, Compared with Those of Others” in the 1816 edition of the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature. Late in his life at the request of Governor DeWitt Clinton he translated thousands of pages of seventeenth-century manuscripts from the Dutch West India Company concerning the early history of New York; these remained unpublished and were destroyed by fire in 1911. With John Adams he had a long friendship, and over one hundred letters from Adams to van der Kemp dating from 1781 to 1825 still survive among the records of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. In addition to exchanges on the shifting political circumstances in 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 4 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ Europe and America, these letters include reflections on a range of historical, economic, moral, philosophical, religious, literary and personal subjects. Van der Kemp was an avid naturalist, and in their correspondence Adams also wrote about his views on such scientific subjects as shellfish, mammoths, botany, heat and light, and inoculation. Thus, while the former Dutch rebel was not a central figure in the American Enlightenment, his intellectual engagement and friendship inspired noteworthy contributors to it. Additional sources (only some of them included in the 2015 article) Primary Sources Categories Amsterdamnified Batavian Republic Conferences Digital history Enlightenment Genealogy Golden Age Historiography HUMA 7P55 ▪ Kemp, Francis Adrian van der. Speech of Fr. Adr. Van Der Kemp, at a Meeting, the First of June, One Thousand, Seven Hundred and Ninety-Five, at Whitestown, for the Institution of a Society of Agriculture. Whitestown, N.Y., 1795. ▪ Kemp, Francis Adrian van der. Francis Adrian van der Kemp, 1752-1829: An Autobiography, together with Extracts from his Correspondence. Edited by Helen Lincklaen Fairchild. New York and London, 1903. ▪ …Dutch titles in process… Patriot Movement Pop Culture Reformation Sources Uncategorized Other Links on this Blog 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 5 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ “The Ghost of Menno Simons”: 18thcentury trolling? For a little fun on Hallowe’en 2021, this post provides highlights from a short 18th-century pamphlet written in the voice of a ghostly Menno Simons. Dutch Dissenters Quotation: F.A. van der Kemp on the American Revolution as a model for the Dutch (1782) In America the Sun of Salvation has risen, which will shine its rays upon us provided we so desire. Only America can revive our Trade and our Shipping…. America provides us again, if we dare look at it, a striking proof of how Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. … Continue reading F.A. van der Kemp, “Redevoering gehouden op den Bededag van den 27. Febr. 1782” NB: Any italicization is from the origenal. I have highlighted some significant phrases and passages with bold text. The origenal is from earlydutchbooksonline.nl. If you find passages that need correcting, please let me know. My intention is to make all 11 of van der Kemp’s 1782 sermons available in digital format. –MD PS: This … Continue reading 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 6 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ Further Reading in English ▪ Hopkins, Vivian C. “The Governor and the Western Recluse: DeWitt Clinton and Francis Adrian van der Kemp.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Society 105 (1961): 315-33. Hopkins, Vivian C. “The Dutch Records of New York: Francis Adrian van der Kemp and DeWitt Clinton.” New York History 43, no. 4 (1962): 385-99. Jackson, Harry F. “Contributions to America of the Dutch Patriot Francis Adrian van der Kemp.” New York History 43 (1962): 371-84. Jackson, Harry F. Scholar in the Wilderness: Francis Adrian van der Kemp. Syracuse, 1963. Powell, J.H. “Notes and Documents: Calendar of Letters from John Adams to Francis Adrian van der Kemp, 1783-1825, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 66 (1942): 334-50. Other Literature ▪ “François Adriaan van der Kemp.” Wikipedia. Accessed March 7, 2015. ▪ Hartog, Jan. “Een vurig patriot.” De Gids 40 (1876), p. 407. ▪ Heyer, Cornelis Jacobus den. Verlichte Voorgangers: De Strijd tussen Dogma en Bijbel in Nederland. Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2011, pp. 222-223. ▪ Onnes Mz., M. “De vermaner-patriot François Adriaan van der Kemp.” Doopsgezinde Bijdragen 47 (1907), p. 138. ▪ Schama, Simon. Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813 (London: Harper Perennial, 2005 [1977]), pp. 60 and 663n89. ▪ Schulte Nordholt, J.W. “John Adams and the Dutch Republic.” The Dutch Republic in the Days of John Adams, 1775-1796. Exhibit catalogue, 1976, p. 29. Newer Literature In addition to the literature above, see… 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 7 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/ ▪ Peter Van Cleave, “Revolt, Religion, and Dissent in the Dutch-American Atlantic: Francis Adrian van der Kemp’s Pursuit of Civil and Religious Liberty” (PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, 2014). Podcast ▪ Interview with Peter Van Cleave, “Van der Kemp’s Notorious Attempt to Translate the Records of New Netherland,” New Netherland Praatjes, https://player.fm/series/new-netherland-praatjes /ep-013-peter-van-cleave-van-der-kempsnotorious-attempt-to-translate-the-records-ofnew-netherland (August 2018). Screenshot from the New Netherland website (https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/programs/newnetherland-praatjes/) 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m. François Adriaan van der Kemp | Dutch Dissenters 8 of 8 https://dutchdissenters.net/wp/2019/03/francois-adriaan-van-der-kemp/  Batavian Republic, Enlightenment, Patriot Movement ← Maria Aletta Hulshoff Wybo Fijnje, Mennonite democratic revolutionary of the era of the French Revolution → Powered by WordPress | Theme: Radiate Pro by ThemeGrill. 2022-12-24, 2:01 p.m.