The Odyssey of Belgian Emigrants to Wisconsin in the Mid-19th Century

“The high forests which cover the country have an aspect which, at first glance, can make clearing them impossible, so thick and gigantic are the trees there (…) crossing each other in all directions and forming almost impenetrable masses. This is the setting that awaits the few thousand Belgian emigrants who, between 1853 and 1856, flee the misery of the Brabant and Hesbignon countryside, and try the American adventure in northeastern Wisconsin. After the hell of the steerage and the traps of the “passenger smugglers”, those who force themselves to clear the land are not at the end of their sentences. They will experience one of the worst wildfires in US history, and some of them will be drawn into the Civil War. But with courage and perseverance, and sometimes with the help of the “sôvadjes” (savages, as they call the Indians), they will achieve the well-being that they could not achieve in Belgium. Today, their descendants constitute the largest community of Belgian origin in the USA. They preserve a heritage made up of architectural details, cooking recipes and a few words of Walloon patois.