The Dutch Roses

Historical Note: The "Dutch Puritan" movement was properly called “the Nadere Reformatie” (or Further Reformation). It emerged in the 17th-century Netherlands as a response to what was perceived as a stalled, overly institutionalized Protestantism. It was during this time that the Latin phrase “semper reformanda” (always reforming) became a watch cry for the most passionate churches. Influenced deeply by similar impulses in English Puritanism, leading Dutch theologians like G

The Word of God in Dutch Comes to the Low Countries The Breath of God for Goert de Rosa (1560) Historical Note: As dramatized in another chronicle on Goert de Rosa, a fictionalized pirate story during the Spanish Inquisition, I’ve speculated that this first known ancestor in the Netherlands had roots in Spain. The reason for that story was to account for the old family legends about the origin of the first Roses–Rosas Spain on the Catalonian coast. Most careful genealogists

Historical Note: The record of Aldert’s journey to the New World aboard the Dutch ship. Bonte Koe (spotted cow) is well-documented in multiple ways, including the ship’s log of its captain, Pieter Lucasz. The Bonte Koe was one of the fleet traders of the powerful West Indian Company (WIC) whose influence during that era is much overlooked. Very few passengers would have the financial resources to pay upfront. Consequently, the WIC had a mutually beneficial solution: passage