History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 247

groups, so that controversy over the “language question” frequently brought the
functioning of the Belgian government to a standstill.
At the same time, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed the economic reconstruction of
Belgium and its gradual integration into what was to become the European Union.
Moreover, the relative position of the country’s two basic regions was reversed.
Flanders experienced industrial and demographic growth, while Wallonia’s older
industries and coal mines declined.
In an attempt to resolve ongoing political friction and to respond to the changed
socioeconomic realities, a new constitution was drawn up in 1970 that transformed the
unitary Belgian state into one that recognized the distinctiveness of three cultural
communities (Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, German-speaking) and of three
regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and the capital region of Brussels). Finally, in 1988, the
constitution was amended once again, with the result that Belgium was transformed
into a federal state. Accordingly, the central government, the cultural communities,
and the regions are equal, each with its own levels of authority and none of which is
able to interfere in matters under the jurisdiction of the other.
At the very same time that Belgium has been decentralizing its internal governmental
and administrative structures, it has also been playing a leading role in the integration
of Europe. In fact, the administrative capital of the European Union is Brussels, which
has ironically at times become for critics of the new Europe a negative symbol of panEuropean “interference” in the affairs of member states.

Migration
From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Belgians/Cornelius J. Jaenen

The Belgians have not been a major colonizing power, although they were involved
soon after independence in the early nineteenth century in schemes to establish
colonies in Tunisia, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. The Belgian Congo (Zaire)
was a personal venture in the interests of King Leopold II. In North America, Flemings
from Antwerp participated in trade with the Viking colonies of Greenland and Vinland
on the east coast of North America during the Middle Ages. After the collapse of these
ventures, they held interests in the fishing vessels coming to Newfoundland waters for
the lucrative walrus hunt in the fifteenth century. Cartographers such as Gerardus
Mercator of Rupelmonde played a key role in the evolution of modern map making
and European knowledge of northeastern North America. None of these early
commercial ventures or cartographic contributions attracted permanent settlers,
however.
The first Belgian immigrants to the New World came either to escape religious
persecution or to build a Utopian colony. Walloon Protestants, driven out of the Liège,
Hainaut, and Namur regions, made their way to Staten Island in 1624 with their
celebrated pastor Pierre Minuit. A few Catholic missionaries, soldiers, and artisans
were among those recruited in the early seventeenth century to work in the colony of
New France. Following the institution of government under the French crown in 1663,
the state sponsored the settlement of a number of soldiers, artisans, and brides, a few
of whom were later discovered to be Walloon Protestants or Flemish Lutherans. The
intendant, Jean Talon, who had served in Hainaut before coming to New France, hired
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