One Brave Little Document

by VorJack

Can you handle an obscure bit of American history? Oh, good.

As you probably know, the Hudson Valley was originally settled by the Dutch. The first colonies were controlled by the Dutch West India Company, which ran the area more like a company town than an actual colony. They brought with them the tendency for religious tolerance that had made the Netherlands the melting pot of Europe.

Enter Peter Stuyvesant, the Director General of the New Netherlands from 1647 until the British takeover in 1664. Stuyvesant was — and here I can’t outdo Tom Lewis’ line — “a slave to ritual, decorum and the God of John Calvin.” Stuyvesant had never gotten the memo about religious tolerance.

Quaking in the Streets

Pullquote: ”You have been pleased to send unto us a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be, by some, seducers of the people.”

Stuvesant ran many religious groups out of the area. Sometimes it seems that Rhode Island gained it’s reputation for religious diversity simply from the groups that fled New Amsterdam. When a group of Quakers arrived and began to quake in the streets of Manhattan, Stuyvesant got them right back on the ship and sent them off.

To be fair to Stuyvesant, the early Quakers had a bit of a reputation. Their faith prevented them from quietly living out their beliefs; they felt the need to proselytize to Christians worshiping falsely. They took their arguments to the streets and into churches, disrupting services and triggering brawls. They embraced the whipping posts and prisons as a type of martyrdom and kept coming back for more. If you valued social order — and that describes Stuyvesant down to his fingernails — you had a problem with the Quakers.

Still, when Stuyvesant pronounced harsh penalties against anyone who harbored the Quakers, some of his citizens decided he’d gone to far. On December 27, 1657, some of the residents of the town of Vlissingen on Long Island put together a petition protesting his treatment of the Quakers and demanding a return of religious toleration, which they called “the glory of the outward state of Holland.” The petition was written by the town clerk, signed by thirty one other townspeople, and delivered to Stuyvesant.

The town of Vlissingen later became known as Flushing (Vlissingen was pronounced ‘Vlishing’, and became ‘Flushing’) which is now part of Queens. A petition of grievance was then known as a “remonstrance.” This gives us that wonderful name by which the document became known: the Flushing Remonstrance. Try dropping that name into conversation and see what kinds of looks you get.

Liberty Sustained

Pullquote: ”The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, sow love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage. “

Stuyvesant reacted pretty much how you’d expect. Several of the petitioners were arrested and some forced to recant their “error.” He continued to reign with an iron hand and heaped abuse on the Quakers. But the Remonstrance managed to make it to Holland, and in 1663 the Dutch West India Company sided with the petitioners against Stuyvesant. Dutch religious tolerance was reaffirmed.

There’s also an undercurrent of mercantile pragmatism to the Company’s response to Stuyvesant. “Look, this whole religious unity thing is great, but we’re trying to make a buck here.” Unfortunately, their practical intentions would come to nothing, as the British would seize the New Netherlands the very next year.

Historians are starting to pay more attention to the New Netherlands, and the Flushing Remonstrance has been described with a lot of impressive language. The NYT recently described it as “a 1657 document that helped lay the groundwork for religious freedom in America.” I’m still a little skeptical of just how influential this one Old Dutch document was to later Americans demanding their religious liberty. However, I do think that the ethic of tolerance that the Remonstrance represents, and the religious diversity that resulted from it, did generally influence the thinking of later generations of Americans.

Probably the most interesting thing about the Remonstrance is who didn’t sign it: none of the petitioners were Quaker. So the Remonstrance represents the first time on American soil that someone stood up and demanded the right for someone else to live and worship as they saw fit. The signers had to know the retaliation they could expect, yet they demanded that Stuyvesant stop persecuting the Quakers. This was a sacrifice made to bring about religious liberty, not as personal privileged, but as a universal right.

Today marks the 352nd anniversary of this brave little document. A contemporary copy of the document survives — a bit singed from a fire in 1911, but it survives — and it’s going on display here in Albany. I probably won’t go to see it, as I’m not one of the seven people remaining who can read Old Dutch, but I believe that today deserves a moment of reflection.

Today, let’s take a moment to remember the actions and sacrifices of those who fought for our right to believe — or not believe — as our conscience guides us.