Walon
Walloon
Financial Districtonored today by the Walloon Settlers Memorial, a number of Belgian Huguenot (Protestant) families, having fled to Holland in the religious wars of the time, arrived as part of the earliest wave of Dutch settlers who came to New Amsterdam in 1624. They spoke Walloon, a Romance language related to French and native to Wallonia, a region spanning parts of France and Belgium. Peter Minuit, the Governor of New Netherland credited with the "purchase" of the island of Manhattan, was also Walloon. Although more concentrated in the Midwest, Walloon speakers have been among and within New York’s small Belgian community ever since.