On June 17, 1775, Patriot New Englanders faced the might of the British Army in a battle known today as Bunker Hill. Included among their muskets—often without bayonets or lugs at this stage of the war—were arms of English, French, American and Dutch origin. Dutch muskets were common from the very beginnings of the American Revolution and were employed through the end of the epic conflict.

When it comes to arms used by American colonists during the Revolutionary War, the names Brown Bess and Charleville are well known. But “Dutch/Liege” arms played a significant role in winning our Independence, a role that dated back to the start of New World colonization.

As the known world expanded through intense exploration and spawning settlements in North America during the 1600s, the most dynamic traders encouraging this phenomenon were the Dutch. Made up of an association of seven “United Provinces”—of which Holland was the largest—they followed claims based upon the travels of Henry Hudson in 1609, to establish their primary trade fort (later New Amsterdam) in the New World on the present site of New York City in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. Moving up the Hudson River, they then built Fort Orange (Albany, N.Y.) in 1624, which penetrated the lands of the Iroquois and Canadian tribes to establish the base for a major fur-trading network.

At the same time, as English settlements proliferated along the northeast and mid-Atlantic seacoasts, the aggressive Dutch also forged lasting commercial ties with them. To coordinate these activities the Netherlands created the Dutch West India Company with a monopoly of control over their trade throughout the Americas in 1621. After Britain finally occupied New Amsterdam in 1674, the Dutch continued to advance this flow of goods. Even facing England’s Navigation Acts and other restrictions, they were not averse to following the common practice of smuggling on an impressive scale when advantageous.

Importance Of Firearms: A critical item in this trade, especially with frontier colonists and Indians, was the firearm. Although such arms sales were officially restricted in many areas to discourage hostilities, the ongoing willingness of the Dutch to deal in guns and ammunition continued up through the American Revolution. The prime motivation of their aggressiveness was to stimulate trade rather than build domestic manufacturing. Thus, although they established a sizeable arms industry in Amsterdam, Maastricht and Rotterdam, they commonly subcontracted much of their needs to outside sources, such as Liege, Solingen, Suhl or Zella. Of these, Liege, an independent principality on the Meuse River now in modern Belgium and probably the largest private contractor in the world at that time (70 to 80 gunmaking workshops in 1788), was their major back-up supplier. Because of this close association, American collectors today often refer to unmarked Low Country guns from this period as “Dutch/Liege” arms.

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