Dutch Americans
While the Netherlands was a small country, the Dutch Empire was quite large so emigrants leaving the mother country had a wide variety of choices. New Amsterdam was not high on their list, especially because of the Native American risk. The major Dutch cities were centers of high culture, but they still sent immigrants. Most new arrivals were farmers from remote villages who, on arrival, in America scattered into widely separated villages with little contact with one another. Even inside a settlement, different Dutch groups had minimal interaction. With very few new arrivals, the result was an increasingly traditional system cut off from the forces for change. The people maintained their popular culture, revolving around their language and their Calvinist religion. The Dutch brought along their own folklore, most famously "Sinterklaas" (the foundation of the modern day Santa Claus) and created their own as in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". They maintained their distinctive clothing, and food preferences and introduced some new foods to America, including beets, endive, spinach, parsley, and cookies.
Dutch Americans
Prominent Dutch American political figures include Presidents Martin Van Buren, Warren G. Harding and Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt and U.S. Senators Philip Schuyler, Nicholas Van Dyke, Hamilton Fish, John C. Ten Eyck, Daniel W. Voorhees, Arthur Vandenberg, Peter G. Van Winkle, Alan Simpson, Fred Thompson, John Hoeven and Christopher Van Hollen. Two of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Egbert Benson and John Jay, were also of Dutch descent. Governors John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Harold G. Hoffman and Thomas Kean of New Jersey, George Bell Timmerman Jr. of South Carolina and Cornelius P. Van Ness of Vermont were also born to Dutch American families.