The Van der Linde gang (also referred to as Dutch's Boys) is an outlaw gang featured in Red Dead Redemption 2 as the main protagonist faction. It is also mentioned in Red Dead Redemption, alongside the appearances of several of its former members.

The gang's roots lie in a fateful meeting between two petty hustlers, Dutch van der Linde and Hosea Matthews, around the mid-1870s. Van der Linde and Matthews met each other at a campfire on the road to Chicago. Hosea attempted to con and rob Dutch, but realized that Dutch had done the same and stolen from him in the meantime. They both saw the skill that the other had and laughed, deciding to team up and face the future together. The Van der Linde gang was thus founded. Around this same time, Hosea met a woman named Bessie, who would eventually become his wife.

Dutch convinced Hosea, who described himself as a "degenerate", that they could find redemption from their sinful lives by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, similar to the medieval tale of Robin Hood. Dutch had an anarchistic vision of a world without government or corporate interference, a "savage utopia" free from the pressures and intolerance of civilization. He saw himself as a revolutionary and thought that the gang could be an example to others who would follow their lead. They began pulling tricks and ripping off people they believed deserved it the most.

The pair found themselves in the town of Kettering, Ohio, where they began conning several people. They posed as international merchants, conning twelve locals into buying $300 worth of shares into a fictional Portuguese shipping company. They were eventually discovered and arrested by Sheriff Carmichael. On March 9th, 1877, the pair escaped from their cell by unknown means, tying up and robbing the sheriff in the process.

Later that year, the pair stumbled across a fourteen-year-old orphan named Arthur Morgan. He was an unruly child, and they decided to take him under their wing, teaching him to read, write, shoot and other useful skills. Around this same time, Dutch became romantically involved with a woman named Susan Grimshaw, who also became a member of the gang. The gang acted as a family, caring for each other. At some point, the gang acquired a pet dog named Copper, who Arthur grew close to and took care of.

During the early years of the gang, Hosea and his wife tried to leave the gang and go straight. But, Hosea slowly drifted back to the gang, unable to fight against his own criminal nature. Bessie understood his struggle and stuck by him. Dutch ended his relationship with Susan, but she still remained in the gang. Dutch, at some point later, became romantically involved with a woman named Annabelle.

In 1885, Dutch came across a group of Illinois homesteaders preparing to hang a twelve year-old boy for stealing from them. He saved the child, named John Marston, and brought him into the gang, teaching him to read and shoot just as he had done with Arthur. Arthur and John became like brothers, and Dutch often read to them from books by Evelyn Miller and Waldo Emerson, even though most of the concepts went over the young boys' heads.

Dutch filled the minds of the boys with his anarchistic worldviews, instilling them with distrust and hatred for the government. He told them that America was designed to produce apathy in people. He would preach that revenge was a fool's game and that they should never kill in cold blood. Over the years, many members of the gang came to believe that John and Arthur were Dutch's favorites as he considers them as his sons, much to the envy of others.

In 1887, the gang committed its first major bank robbery. At 2 o'clock, Hosea, Dutch and the now young-adult Arthur burst into the banking house of Lee and Hoyt. The gang made off with $5000 in gold. After the robbery, they lingered in town, going to hovels, shanties, and orphanages handing out money, still going with the 'Robin Hood' ideals of Dutch. It was around this time (likely because of this bank robbery) that Dutch became a wanted man with a price on his head. Between 1887 and 1899, the gang carried out roughly 37 different bank robberies in various locations around the country.

At one point in the past, Dutch and Colm O'Driscoll, the leader of the rival gang the O'Driscoll Boys, had an uneasy truce between them. Dutch disliked how Colm treated the members of his gang as disposable while Colm mocked Dutch for his philosophies about trying to make a "better world". Though the exact reason is unknown, Dutch broke the truce when he killed Colm's brother. In retaliation, Colm killed Dutch's lover, Annabelle - an event which greatly angered and devastated him. These events led to a blood feud between the two gangs which would last for years.

During the early beginnings of the gang, they truly did help people in need and tried to make a difference. Dutch even once scolded Arthur for stealing from a poor man's house, saying that it made them no better than the people they were fighting against. As the years went on, Dutch gradually became disillusioned with society as the world around him grew more and more organized and "civilized", with increasing government centralization continuing to encroach on his idea of freedom.

The acts of charity, giving money to the poor and helping others, slowly faded away, and the gang became fully dedicated to enforcing Dutch's anarchistic ideals and securing their own survival. Dutch even allowed the gang to become involved in loansharking through Leopold Strauss, which often targeted the type of lower class people the gang previously used to fight for. Instead of just thieving, the gang also began killing their opponents, much to Hosea's dismay. Despite his objections, Hosea stuck around out of loyalty to Dutch, though his faith in their "mission" gradually declined and eventually vanished over the years.

For just over a decade, following the gang's first bank robbery in 1887 and the gang's arrival in Montana during 1898, the travelled all across the frontier and recruited almost a dozen and a half new members, usually people who wished/were forced to escape and live away from the encroaching borders of modern society. It is unclear in exactly when, and in what order, these people joined, but they included:

Mac Callander and Davey Callander, two brothers described as “a vicious pair of bastards” who served as gunmen for the gang. Karen Jones, a scam artist and trigger woman with a large love of alcohol. Mary-Beth Gaskill, a street urchin turned petty criminal who was taken in by the gang to protect her from a man pursing her, after she was caught pick-pocketing him. Tilly Jackson, a member of the Foreman Brothers gang, who had recently fled them due to killing a cousin of Anthony Foreman, the gang's leader. She was alone and sleeping rough until she met Dutch, who took her in and taught her to read, just as he had done for Morgan and Marston. Simon Pearson, a former Navy Chief who was rescued by Dutch from other loan-sharks, who's cooking abilities earned him a similar role within the gang's camp.

Orville Swanson, a reverend with both severe alcoholism and morphine addiction who saved Dutch's life in an unknown incident, and as thanks was offered a permanent place with the gang. Uncle, a petty thief and drunk, known only by his nickname, Uncle. His laid-back nature and repeated excuse making earned him reputation as a freeloader, similar to what Swanson would turn out to be, but he was allowed to stay due to his entertaining personality and the fact he could do what was needed when push came to shove.

Sean MacGuire, a young Irishman who attempted to rob Dutch and Hosea after following them out of a bar in North Elizabeth, believing them to be easy marks. He was stunned when the pair revealed they had been on to him since the beginning, emptying his revolver without his knowledge before they had even left the bar; and rather than killing him, the two men suggested Sean should join them instead.

In 1893, a US Army veteran named Bill Williamson, who had recently received a dishonorable discharge on the grounds of "Deviancy," drunkenly attempted to rob Dutch. However, Dutch simply laughed at him, which infuriated Williamson at first. Sensing the struggles of his would-be robber, Dutch decided to help Williamson by bringing him into the gang, giving him a newfound purpose and reason to live. Though Bill lacked conventional intelligence, he made up for it with his unwavering loyalty to the gang, more so to Dutch himself, whom he felt greatly indebted to.

In 1894, Uncle introduced the gang to a prostitute named Abigail Roberts, who joined the gang and had sexual relations with several of the gang's male members. Abigail eventually formed a more romantic relationship with John, and soon after, showed signs of being pregnant. John refused to accept responsibility for the child, insisting that it may not even be his. Due to his father's lack of commitment, the baby, Jack, was collectively raised by rest of the gang during his first year of upbringing. As he grew older, Jack came to view many of the gang's members as his "aunts" and "uncles" due to the family-like environment.

In 1895, while stealing chickens, Dutch ran into a young Mexican exile named Javier Escuella, who also happened to be in the process of stealing said chickens. Escuella was starving and alone, so Dutch took him into the gang, feeding and clothing him. Javier, a former revolutionary wanted for the murder of a powerful military official, found a strong affinity towards the gang's philosophy and began to idolize Dutch himself; like Bill, his loyalty to Dutch himself became near unbreakable. Javier would go on to prove himself as one of the gang's most skilled gunmen.

By 1896, when the young Jack Marston had reached just over a year old, John left the gang, abandoning his son in the process. His actions provoked notable animosity from Arthur, who saw it as both an act of betrayal towards the gang and cowardice in John's responsibility as a father.

The following year, 1897, John returned to the gang and accepted his share of responsibility for the baby boy. Arthur never truly forgave him for his actions, and their relationship was further worsened by Arthur believing John was forgiven far too quickly by the rest of the gang, especially Dutch, which Arthur viewed as an act of pure favoritism. As a result, the rift between the two men continued to steadily grow over the next few years.

By 1898, the gang found itself in Montana. Hosea caught several large salmon, planning a feast for the whole camp until Copper, Arthur's dog, found and ate the fish. Sometime after this, Copper passed away. After a fire and some trouble up in the north, the gang travelled south and east, taking a slow and tortuous trail down through the Northern Grizzlies to throw off anyone tracking them. They then spent several months in the wilderness. During the winter, they stuck mostly to the western foothills of the mountain. Food was plentiful, and for a time, the gang lived in peace. Dutch eventually got a lead on some land for the gang to buy for their "savage utopia", but it either did not match up to Dutch's criteria or he grew suspicious that law enforcement was watching them and the gang began wandering again.

While traversing the Grizzlies, the gang picked up four new members, the first of which were Lenny Summers and Charles Smith. Lenny was only in his mid-teens at the time, on the run for the murder of his father's own killers. Hosea was cautious about letting Lenny join to begin with, but the two grew to mutually respect each other and became good friends. Lenny was literate and reasonably well-educated, even before joining the gang, and tried to use his knowledge to teach others members like Sean how to read.

Charles was a drifter used to the woodsman lifestyle and had moved between other criminal gangs often, but was surprised by how fairly Dutch treated him despite his race and decided to stick around, feeling as though he had found a group he belonged in. Sometime later, the gang came across Jenny Kirk, a young woman found abandoned on the roadside, and took her in. Lenny developed feelings for her, which was known to several other members like Arthur, but he never had the chance to act upon them due to how short Jenny's time with the gang would become.

The last Grizzlies recruit, and the most recent member by the start of the Colter Chapter, was Micah Bell. He was a hot-headed career outlaw who stepped in and saved Dutch's life at somewhere named Crenshaw Hill, after a deal arranged by the latter to sell some stolen gold to the locals went sour, ending in an offer by Dutch to join them as thanks.

By 1899, the gang arrived in the state of West Elizabeth and decided to camp outside the town of Blackwater, a town undergoing the process of industrialization. Eventually, Micah convinced Dutch to rob a riverboat carrying money from the bank. Arthur and Hosea protested, believing the risks involved to be too great and had their own lead on a profitable job. Despite this, Dutch thought the heist would be worth the risk and went ahead with it. They scoped out several safe spots in the state of New Austin for the gang to use as a fallback after the robbery.

The heist did not go as planned, with Pinkerton agents arriving unexpectedly fast, and chaos ensued. In the heat of the moment, spurred on by Micah, Dutch brutally shot an innocent young mother named Heidi McCourt in the head, though the true circumstances and reasoning for the killing remain hazy. The resulting standoff between the gang and the Pinkertons lead to Mac, John, Davey and Jenny all being wounded by gunfire. The latter three were able to escape with the rest of the gang, but only John's injuries were fairly minor, and the other two were left in critical condition.

​The injured Mac was separated from the rest gang and supposedly did not make it very far. He was detained by Detective Andrew Milton, on the verge of death, and questioned about the gang. However, Mac refused to tell them anything, and was killed by the agent personally, who would then go on to sarcastically describe it as a "mercy killing." Sean was also left behind, but was able escape Blackwater himself uninjured. However, in the end, he was eventually captured by bounty hunters who then planned to sell him to the Pinkertons.

After escaping from the disastrous Blackwater heist, the gang fled to the northern state of Ambarino to evade law enforcement. The game opens with the gang being high up in the mountains of north Ambarino. Becoming caught in a massive blizzard, which inadvertently helps stall the Pinkertons trailing them. Not wanting any more surprises, Dutch sends John and Micah to scout ahead.

​Along the way, Jenny, then Davey, succumb to their wounds sustained during the previous heist. Arthur discovers an abandoned mining camp, Colter, for the gang to take shelter in. After enduring the storm and the deaths of their comrades, the morale of the gang is at an all-time low. Dutch gives a speech, asking the gang to keep their faith in him and to make camp for a few days until the storm passes. He assures them that they will survive and be able to outrun the law enforcement tracking them.

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