Steamship "Zaandam" |
The “Long Depression”, a worldwide economic recession, had had devastating effects on the Argentine economy, resulting in a revolution around the time the Van Engel family arrived in Argentina.
Bastiaan van den Engel en Hermina Peters (“Vrouw van den Engel”) were among the 30 persons who collaborated in sending a letter to a newspaper, outlining the problems the Dutch immigrants faced in Argentina. Most of the emigrants couldn’t get a proper job, and thus weren’t able to feed their families. People with debts were even whipped into forced labor. From august 1891 onwards Dutch Newspapers reported about those problems.
Bastiaan van den Engel lived in Delft with his wife and children. |