It all started last year when the book The Poor man’s paradise of the journalist Suzanne Jansen was published. The book concerns the 19th century poor man’s colony Veenhuizen, where sentenced vagrants were sent. It was a labour camp, where people were educated and taught routines.
Church of the labour camp in VeenhuizenThere were also voluntary colonies (Frederiksoord, Willemsoord en Wilhelminaoord), where people could go to do farming work voluntarily. A charity foundation could propose a family to be sent to a colony. When the family accepted and was placed in such a voluntary colony, they had a mortgage for clothing and furniture, which they had to pay off with the agricultural products. When a family member left the farm before the mortgage was paid off, it was seen as desertion. Orphans did not have any choice at all as the charity foundation had an agreement with the government.
The colonies were later on acquired by the Dutch ministry of Justice and used as penitentiary institutions. When they were freed they often stayed in the neighbourhood of Veenhuizen as they did not want to became known as people from Veenhuizen. In many a family there was a deafening silence about relatives sent to Veenhuizen.
The database contains 74.000 names of colonists in this labour camp, who were inmates from 1818 till 1921. There are also 5.600 photographs and descriptions of vagrants and beggars from 1896 and 1901. More data will be added. There were also voluntary colonies (Frederiksoord, Willemsoord en Wilhelminaoord), where people could go to do farming work.
The launch of the database is celebrated in the Prison museum at Veenhuizen with two presentations about the colonies, a workshop on genealogy and tour of the colony.
Blog Posting Number: 1109
Tags: genealogy
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