MAIN  PAGE

Belgians in the Civil War

Emigrants arrival

links

Sources

BELGIANS   IN   AMERICA:  Belgian settlements by State  

Distribution according to the State of settlement : Illinois

Miners

Chicago

Iroquois & Kankakee

Sending contract miners and workers in Illinois : 1863-1864

Louis Dochez was Born in Willebroeck  (East Flanders) in 1827. After a long service in the East India Company, a few year singing in the European cathedrals, a trip to South America as an attaché of the Belgian Legation, Dochez reached USA accredited to the Belgian Legation at Washington by a letter from Vilain XIIII, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and recommending him as a person able to help Belgian emigration. Going to Chicago, he found work with the Illinois Central Railroad and made a name as a concert-singer, under the musical nickname "De Passio". He married in Glendale, Ohio, June 3rd, 1862 to the 20 years old Miss Josephine C. Dietrich, from French parentage.

In 1863, at the end of May, he secured an contract to procure miners for the Illinois Companies, following a convention of the Illinois coal operators, at St Louis, as a result of the exorbitant demands of coal miners in Illinois regarding wages and a shortage of workers caused by the Civil War.  He left Illinois on June 1863 with a recommendation from Dr Henrotin, Belgian consul in Chicago, for Charles Rogier, the new Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dochez mission was to engage 400 coal miners in Belgium and guaranteeing them wages of $40.00 or 200 francs per month with a reserve of $4.00 or 20 francs during 3 years, to repay the price of the passage from their residence to Illinois and their living expenses during the trip.

Dochez went to Jemappes (close to Mons, Hainaut province) in the Borinage area, and hired the services of a sub-agent. He distributed a 8 pages booklet: "Advice to the miners who wish to emigrate in America" (in French) printed in Brussels, Belgium at his request. In the "Advice" Dochez print a recommendation of Richard Yates, Governor of Illinois, which affirms "there is no danger related to the war, that this is 100 miles of the mines represented by Dochez and no military service is required as long as the immigrants do not ask for the American citizenship.

In the "Advice" appears the names of the coal mine owners in Illinois represented by Mr. Dochez:

Following the campaign of recruitment made by these agents of emigration, the authorities of the towns of Jemmapes and Cuesmes addressed to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs: can we believe Dochez? The local authorities feared that the children and wives of those emigrants would be depending of the public assistance once the men had moved overseas. The local authorities wanted Rogier to distribute an official note in the area warning the inhabitants against the promised of these agents. Rogier answered the request very carefully, basing it on the recommendations of the consul in Chicago and the ambassador of Belgium to the United States of America, but affirming that the government could not take any responsibility in the matter.

In August 1863, the company of Steinmann and Co of Antwerp and Louis Dochez, 23 rue Impériale at Schaerbeek, requested the reduction of the tariffs railroad for "400 to 500  Belgian coal miners" whom they wanted to direct from the depots in the Mons area to Antwerp, during September and August. This reduction was granted. The first coalminers from Borinage will embark in Antwerp for Illinois on board Johann Kepler. About an hundred emigrants started from Jemmapes on August 12. The loading aboard ship of 17 workmen was forbidden by the Maritime Police force, those being still indebted with military obligations. So, it is a group of 85 miners and families which will arrive to New York October 5, 1863, after 54 days at sea.

They were welcomed by John L. Page, owner of the "La Salle coal mining company"  who was in  New York for their arrival and who, with a recommendation from Dr. Henrotin, had met Mr. Mali, the Belgian consul general. Solicitors of any species seeking to hire them, the newcomers asked that Mr. Mali met them at the emigration docks. Mali reassured them on the reputation of their employer and found an interpreter, to be paid by Mr. Page, to help them. They were thus led to La Salle, 60 miles from Chicago.

But hardly was it known in the surroundings of the arrival of the emigrants in the Illinois mines, that they received a delegation sent to them by the workers of the area. The chiefs of the delegation said to the workmen that they were quite wrong to accept work at half of the current rate of the wages, and even less, which, not only, was disadvantageous for them but also threatened the interests of all the working class. At once the Borains, despised their contracts, gave up the company for which they worked, and went to offer their work elsewhere, or, rather, to accept that which was offered to them for 4 or 4 1/2 dollars per day. Several went, it was said, as far as Saint-Louis, in Missouri, where they found a French company which offered work to them and other people speaking their language.

Not yet aware of those troubles, this first convoy was soon followed with a second one, also made up of Borains coal miners, almost all coming for the Paturages area. They left about September 17,  on board ship Adele with 171 coalminers, and  arrived on November 3 to New York. Hardly unloaded in New York harbor, the emigrants were surrounded by recruiting officers of the armies of the North, which quoted to them most tempting offers to join the army. Four Borains accepted these offers. The others went to Illinois, but, to prevent that the disorders caused by the first convoy were repeated, they were guided by another way towards Danville, Vermillion County in Illinois by Joseph Kirkland of the "Carbon coal mines". This precaution being deemed necessary to avoid the emigrants meeting with the first group and join them.

The end of the undertaken.

In December 1863, the United States consul in Antwerp had been very enthusiastic on sending miners towards the United States. 150 already left he said, and 200 are designed to leave next Spring. But these emigrants will never leave. Alerted by the contradictory rumors coming from Illinois, the letters sent by the first emigrants complaining about the received wages not reaching half of what had been promised, the return of several of them, and the negative publicity made by the authorities in the Borinage, The Dochez undertaken will be put to a stop. The volunteers will not present themselves any more.

Some newspapers at the beginning of 1864 will continue to support Dochez and to make a positive publicity, while building contrary testimonies rejecting the failure of the project on the idleness of some emigrants and by affirming that :
“ the Borains, in all their letters, engage their parents and friends to come and join them. According to the information which reaches us from Illinois, the Borains emigrants use, in very diverse ways, the so high wages which fell to them in this country, like a true profit of lottery. Some are satisfied with working two days per week during which time they gain up to 45 Fr., amount of money more than sufficient to maintain them during the five other days, even when they took along their wife with them. They then pass the remainder of time to have fun or gaming in the forests. As would do Negroes or Lazzaroni.

Others are working more arduous, in order to pile up savings which will enable them to return to the country, bringing back with them enough to live more comfortably, or to send to their parents a sufficient sum so that they can come and join them in America and to take part in the wellbeing which is ensured to the active and honest worker there.”

A letter is quoted in example. That of a passenger of the Adele: François Baligant. It also gives a positive note of the adventure. But I'm not sure it cannot be held for very representative of the mail exchanged at the time:

Danville, February 1, 1864.

Dear brother and dear sister,
That the grace and the peace of God, our father and Jesus-Christ, our Saver be and remains on you. Amen. I 'm intrigued not having received yet a reply to the letter I sent you, didn't you receive it?
We are in good health and we are very well in America; I gain much money there,  2 1/2 to 3 dollars per day, which makes francs 13-12 to francs 15-75. I insist on that, because I know that Lerficheux, nicknamed the "One-eyed", returned without almost having worked, hoping to live in America as an idler and hard drinker. As for those which like working, they are satisfied and do not think of turning over nor to leave the place where we are. Several gave up their work in the hope to earn more, some agents having come to engage them under this pretext. But they wrote to us that they had been misled, that they gained less and urged us not to be allured by the promises of these agents.  I do not think of me going away from here, because we are well led and well paid; they gives us 56 FR. by coal wagon load, thus you can appreciate what a workman can gain. I already saved some money, I can now buy a house and pay it cash. It is certain that everybody with a little courage can gather here enough to live, in about fifteen years. Dear brother, I would not like to constraint you to come, but if you voluntarily come, I will receive you with open arms. I finish by greeting you from the bottom of my heart, and we remain for life, your brother and your sister.

BALIGANT François
BAGUET Désirée

At the same time, the end of Dochez undertaking is charged to the bad reputation earned by the emigrants in Illinois: "They forget, the unhappy ones, that the immense bad faith with which the majority of them acted towards the company, which had made the advance of their travelling expenses, put an almost insuperable obstacle at any new emigration of Borains towards America". A statement Dochez will claim everywhere, rejecting his own faults and blaming it on the behavior of the miners.  

But others will publicly accuse Dochez of the failure of the undertaken, one of them Mali, the Belgian Consul General in New York, after inquiring into this business, following a demand from Charles Rogier. At first favorable to the operation carried out by Dochez, Mali will change his opinion when other workers, sent to Pennsylvania in 1864 by the same Dochez, presented themselves at the consulate with the same complaints as those sent in Illinois. In its report, he points that Dochez could not be unaware of the actual value of the Dollar at the time of the contract signature, absolutely not corresponding to reality. The raised rates wages were only apparent, without resulting in any real advantage for the workers. If the rate of exchange of $ 40.00 for 200 francs were correct before the Civil War, it was not true in 1863, and less in 1864. At the time of their arrival, the workers realized that $ 40.00 were not worth more than 100fr. to 125fr. At the moment the contract was signed the dollar was only worth 3.50fr. At the time he wrote his report, in the middle of 1864, Mali valued the dollar at 2.05fr.  

If the miners installed in Illinois with their family could decently live with $200.00, for those having come alone, leaving woman and children in Belgium, the life was much less pleasant. If they sent money in Europe, the expenses taken on the sums were considerable. The $40.00 envoys sent by a miner, that Dochez assured were like being sending 200 francs, made nothing any more but 80 francs when they reached their family. It was not possible for them to save enough money to buy passage for their family from the Borinage, nor were they able to send enough money in Belgium in sufficient quantity to provide for the needs of their families.  Under these conditions, it is not astonishing that almost all of these emigrants broke their contract and tried to find better remunerated work elsewhere. Many, undoubtedly, returned towards New York and, from there, sought the means of embarking for Belgium.

See also the Soldiers recruited by Dochez to be sent to Massachusetts and the miners sent to Brady's bend, Pennsylvania. An interresting thing is the letter he wrote on October 20, 1864, from Brussels and published inthe Chicago Tribune, Friday, November 18, 1864

The « Borinage » area in Hainaut include the towns of Quaregnon, Wasmuël, Pâturages, Wasmes, Warquignies, Boussu, Hornu, Frameries, La Bouverie, Saint-Ghislain, Dour, Jemappes, Flénu, Cuesmes.
But mining also existed in other surrounding villages. Ultimately, the "Borinage" if we stick to this criterion of mining could extend to the villages of 
Bernissart, Boussu-Bois, Cuesmes, Dour, Élouges, Flénu, Frameries, Ghlin, Harchies, Hautrage, Hensies, Hornu, Jemappes, La Bouverie, Pâturages, Quaregnon, Tertre, Wasmes et Wasmuel.
(Flénu was detached from Jemappes in 1870)