River Rhine transports Swiss to New World

The River Rhine transports Swiss to the New World (Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Fribourg) The River Rhine transports Swiss to the New World (Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Fribourg)

Thousands of Swiss poured into the port of Dordrecht in the Netherlands at the start of the 19th century, on their way to the New World and a new life.

Their arduous journey began at Basel, where they climbed on board barges and followed the Rhine – Europe’s busiest waterway – to the sea.

“The two- or three-week journey was no pleasure trip,” recounted Swiss historian Martin Nicoulin. “They were crammed onto boats sailing along a heavily polluted river.”

When the emigrants reached the Rhine delta, many were taken to hospitals in Dordrecht and ‘s-Gravendeel with smallpox and nursed there, explained Cees Esseboom, a local historian.

“Since 1686, there had been no cases of smallpox reported in Europe and so there was quite a scene when smallpox was once again found in Dordrecht,” he said.

Those who succumbed to the disease were buried next to the town’s “New Church”. However, there is little evidence of their suffering. The church is now a supermarket and the cemetery a car park.

The Swiss emigrants who passed through Dordrecht around 1819 had the biggest impact on the region. Around 2,000 Swiss – mostly from Fribourg – were heading to Brazil to found the city of Nova Friburgo.

Driven from their homes by hunger and poverty, the emigrants were anxious to start a new life.

However, they had to spend many months around Dordrecht before they could set sail to Nova Friburgo.

King John VI of Portugal – who had fled Napoleon’s army to Brazil – gave them each the handsome sum of one guilder per day to keep their spirits up before embarking on the journey across the ocean.

The journey up the Rhine was just a foretaste of the treacherous voyage that they were about to undertake.

swissinfo special correspondent, Samantha Tonkin in Dordrecht