Commemoration and Context:

The Flushing Remonstrance Then and Now

Some thoughts offered by Dennis J. Maika

Address Prepared for the Annual Meeting, New York State Historical Association,

Cooperstown, NY, Thursday, 19 July 2007

Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance. The familiar story that has been told about this event begins in December, 1657, when residents of the English town of Flushing (Vlissingen in Dutch) signed a formal protest or remonstrance against a policy issued by ’s Director General Petrus

Stuyvesant restricting the activities of Quakers. The story then jumps ahead five years to

Stuyvesant’s prosecution of Flushing resident for his support of Quaker meetings, and ends with his vindication by the . These events have typically been interpreted by many as marking the cornerstone of the First

Amendment guarantees of religious freedom. Some have even suggested that the

Flushing Remonstrance was America’s first Declaration of Independence.1

I had the privilege of attending one of the first, recent commemorations of this event last May at the Flushing Library. The presentation was interesting, very informative, and made a special effort to connect the ideas of religious freedom to

Flushing’s current ethnically and religiously diverse population. As I listened, I found myself drawn to the visual representation of the Flushing Remonstrance that was on display. After the presentation, I took a closer look and was struck by what the document

1 actually revealed. I noticed that the signatures were all apparently made by the same person, and it was also clear that the handwriting belonged to someone who wrote seventeenth-century Dutch. This was not THE Flushing Remonstrance – it was a COPY of the Flushing Remonstrance, most like made within days of the actual document, probably by Stuyvesant’s Provincial Secretary. So – close examination led to an interesting discovery but would it make a difference in the way this anniversary could be celebrated?

I wondered about the earlier commemorations of the Flushing Remonstrance.

Fifty years ago, in 1957, the national government honored the 300th anniversary with a stamp featuring several simple images - a colonial hat, a book ( most likely the bible), a quill pen suggesting how the document was written, a ribbon to illustrate the passage of time – and a simple message: “Religious Freedom in America.” In New York State, a legislative committee created to celebrate the same anniversary claimed that the Flushing

Remonstrance “established as a permanent part of our theory of government that the right of the people to worship in the manner of their choosing shall not be denied by the government.” The Borough President James Lundy was more enthusiastic – he suggested that Queens residents should “pause in pursuit of their daily occupations to honor the memory of those men who took so brave a stand in the face of tyranny.” He suggested that a booklet be prepared telling the story - and I paraphrase here - of “the courageous stand of our forefathers… in the struggle for true Religious Freedom, that originated in a town located in the Empire State of New York.” 2

These commemorations offered a simple story – American religious freedom arose from a noble fight by Englishmen against Dutch oppression and tyranny – a

2 meaningful story for Americans who had recently fought against the oppression and tyranny of fascism and were fearful of the new Communist threat in the 1950s. The

Flushing Remonstrance was offered as an icon of this struggle when it was included in a collection of eighty historical documents that traveled New York State in 1949 as part of the New York State Freedom Train - tangible evidence of the contrast between free and unfree societies. The official Document Book was prepared for those who wanted to contemplate these documents at home.3

Fifty years ago then, Americans and their political leaders were trying to understand their own world by telling meaningful stories about the past. Many historians have commented on this interaction between Americans and their history, about how public memory is formed and adapted during particular celebrations – a process that is essential and valuable to individuals as they establish their personal and collective political identities.4 As the current commemorations of the Flushing Remonstrance take place, what meaning will WE give to it?

As we make sense of this history, I am concerned about the stories that will be repeated and told. It seems to me that too often, the simple story, the uncomplicated story, the story that is easy to retell – obscures the true complexity of the past and thus interferes with opportunities to form a richer, deeper meaning that can better inform or reflect our present concerns. Put another way, I would argue that a deeper understanding of historical context and complexity would enhance our ability to make the Flushing

Remonstrance more meaningful to us today.

This is what I would like to do for the next fifteen minutes or so – take a closer look at the actual events surrounding the Flushing Remonstrance and the experience of

3 John Bowne as a way to offer some thoughts and ideas that might be useful to all of us as we celebrate this period in New York history. We’ll keep the old narrative framework used fifty years ago and embellish the narrative around these points.

First, how are we to explain the “Aggressive actions of Dutch Director-General

Stuyvesant in 1657”? We must begin with an understanding that the colony of New

Netherland was experiencing significant economic and demographic growth at the time.

The new policies created by the Dutch West India Company in 1640 – giving up their fur trading monopoly, opening up trade to everyone, encouraging individual settlement – had begun to bear fruit in the decade before the Flushing Remonstrance. Although the accuracy of population figures is questionable, it is likely that New Netherland grew from approximately 2500 people in 1645 to close to 9000 in 1664. 5 This new population included a rich diversity of ethnic and religious groups, some of whom were more readily welcomed than others.

At this point, I should explain the company’s position on religious expression.

According to seventeenth-century Dutch tradition, the civil and religious authorities believed that they should work together to “achieve social cohesion and avoid social conflict.”6 The Dutch Reformed Church was “the official public church, but not a state church.” The civil authorities were charged with protecting and supporting it, but church administrators and leaders were not government officials. 7 From its very beginnings, the

WIC supported these goals, which were especially important in the wilderness environment that was New Netherland. In terms of other religious groups, the Dutch tradition of tolerance applied – tolerance meant that individuals have a “liberty of conscience” that allowed private beliefs to be held and practiced within households but

4 public worship – for non-Reformed groups - was not permitted. Full religious toleration, in the way we use the term today, was perceived as a policy that would weaken the fabric of society – witness the religious wars in France, England and the Germanic states, 8 as well as the way in which Stuyvesant perceived threats from Catholics and Jews. In other words, as long as you kept your non-Reformed beliefs out of public view, Dutch authorities would “wink at” them i.e. allow them to be practiced. Prohibited services, known as “conventicles,” would be non-Reformed worship services that took place in public. Thus, in the face of new arrivals in 1656, the Director-General and Council of

9 New Netherland issued a directive prohibiting conventicles.

Members of the Quaker faith were perhaps the least likely to keep their inner lights under a bushel. Founded in 1645 by George Fox, the Society of Friends was among the most radical, extreme religious sects that developed during the English Civil War.

When Quakers first arrived in Puritan New England in the , their sermonizing, taunting, and “jiggling fits of spiritual frenzy, ” 10 created public confrontations with the civil authorities who punished Quakers with flogging, ear-cropping, exile, and hanging.11

Quakers were known for their persistence, however, and many were willing to accept the pain and suffering of martyrdom for their beliefs.

In New Netherland, Quakers had settled in some of the English towns on western

Long Island but did not make up a majority of the population there nor were they universally welcomed by other Englishmen. In the summer of 1657, the Quaker presence was more pressingly felt when a boatload of them arrived in harbor.

The vessel flew no identifying flags, refused to offer the typical cannon salute, and it’s captain, when required to appear before Stuyvesant, refused to show him the proper

5 respect by taking off his hat. The ship left the next day for Rhode Island but left behind two women who, according to an eye-witness, “began to quake, putting their fury at work, preaching and calling out in the streets that the last day was near. The people got excited and assembled, not knowing what to do; one called fire, the other something else”

– such confusion on the streets of Manhattan! The women were soon deported to Rhode

Island, a place one Reformed minister called the “latrine of New England” where all the bandits of New England go.12

Soon after this episode, Robert Hodgson, another recent Quaker arrival, was arrested by an English magistrate of the town Hempstead for trying to hold a Quaker service. He was soon sent to Stuyvesant bound to the back of a cart. For his violation of the proclamation on conventicles, he was offered two alternatives: pay a substantial fine or work for two years chained to a wheelbarrow with a negro slave. Hodgson refused to pay the fine, refused to work once chained to the wheelbarrow, and was then beaten and imprisoned. This harsh treatment aroused sympathy in New Amsterdam and Stuyvesant finally decided to simply banish him.13

It was in this context that Stuyvesant issued his proclamation ordering that anyone who sheltered Quakers would be fined 50 guilders (half going to the informant), and that any ship bringing Quakers into New Netherland would be confiscated.

The next part of the story - “Flushing Remonstrance as an English Response to

Dutch Tyranny.” Several months later, in December, 1657, residents of Flushing held a town meeting where these restrictions were discussed. Twenty-eight Flushing residents and two others from Jamaica signed the document known as the Flushing Remonstrance that apparently reflected their reactions. The document was presented to Stuyvesant on

6 December 29, 1657, by Tobias Feake, who was the Sheriff of Flushing and probably its principle author.

We don’t know why the protestors waited several months to respond, or precisely what was said at the town meeting. But a close look at what the document actually said reveals something very interesting – what I would call a “cultural negotiation.” Rather than a blunt English protest against perceived Dutch intolerance, the protestors seem to be attempting to present their unique views on religion in the manner and language of their host culture. Although the phrasing is difficult at times to understand, the author (or authors) appear to be working within an intellectual framework that offers the prospect of accommodation as well as confrontation. Let me explain.

First, the manner in which the petitioners chose to make their complaints was the

“remonstrance,” a typical Dutch form of protest that had regularly been used in the past by English as well as Dutch residents of New Netherland. Second, the document shows some awareness of religious practices in the Netherlands, stating specifically – and I paraphrase - that “the glory of the outward state of Holland,” extends “The law of love, peace and liberty” even to “ Jews, Turks, and Egyptions.” Third, the protestors recognized the importance of local government in Dutch tradition by making a specific reference to their own town charter, which they believed offered them some religious protection. They make reference to the fact that these guarantees were included in their charter, “given to us in the name of the States General (of the Netherlands), which we are not willing to infringe and violate..”14

As they established the framework they thought their host culture would appreciate and understand, they offered something new - a unique expression of their

7 religious conviction that claims loyalty to a greater law than civil law, the law of God over the laws of men. Here, and in other parts of the document, is a radical statement challenging the Dutch definition of tolerance that would require local officials “to lay violent hands” on those who broke the civil law by unlicensed public worship.

There is an immediately obvious flaw in their argument. Flushing’s town charter specifically says that residents are “ to have and Enjoy the Liberty of Conscience, according to the Custome and manner of Holland, without molestacon or disturbance, from any Magistrate or Magistrates, or any other Ecclesiastical Minister…” 15 If liberty of conscience, according to the custom and manner of Holland, was to be followed, the petitioners would have no case - seventeenth-century Dutch tradition did not support unrestricted public worship. Whether they were deliberately misinformed or purposely trying to manipulate the intellectual framework of their host culture, the protestors clearly recognized the importance of negotiating with the Dutch authorities at the same time they were challenging them.

Stuyvesant’s reaction was also both confrontational and accommodating. His immediate response was to punish the town officials for writing and presenting the document. These officials had sworn an oath to obey New Netherland’s civil authorities and to support the Dutch Reformed Church. Stuyvesant would brook no such insubordination from Flushing’s magistrates. Sheriff Tobias Feake was immediately imprisoned and Stuyvesant then ordered the arrest of town magistrates William Noble and Edward Farrington, as well as town clerk Edward Hart. All those arrested very quickly apologized for their “transgression” and pledged “to offend no more in that way.”

8 It is important to note that the other Remonstrance signers were not arrested for the expression of their beliefs. Only town officials were called to account for their actions. Stuyvesant thus did not repress the new thinking of Flushing townsmen but rather an expression of it, apparently sanctioned by public officials, that seemed to challenge his authority. The laws against conventicles and harboring Quakers remained in force, but Quakers were still allowed to reside in New Netherland. This observation helps us understand the next part of the traditional story told about John Bowne – how aggressive actions were taken against him and how he fought for religious freedom against Dutch tyranny.

John Bowne settled permanently in Flushing in 1656, the year before the Flushing

Remonstrance which he did not sign. Bowne’s wife, the former Hannah Feake, was a

Quaker at the time though Bowne most likely was not. He probably converted to

Quakerism by the time he built his house in 1661. One year later, Bowne and his wife attended a general meeting of Quakers in Rhode Island. Soon after his return, Bowne was prosecuted under Stuyvesant’s previous orders against Quakers. English magistrates of the town of Jamaica informed Stuyvesant that Bowne’s house was being used for conventicles of Quakers from the neighboring villages.16 Bowne was arrested and punished under the old prohibitions. He was ordered to pay a fine of 150 guilders and to abstain from such behavior or face an additional fine and banishment. After refusing to pay the fine, Bowne was imprisoned to give him time to think things over.17 While under this sentence, he was allowed visits from his wife and friends, even allowed to leave his cell for three days to return home, unescorted, to visit his sick children - Stuyvesant probably hoped that he would change his mind or perhaps run away. Bowne returned,

9 however, and Stuyvesant once again gave him the chance to pay the fine. After another refusal, Bowne was ultimately banished from the colony. He initially landed in England where, with the help of friends, was able to travel to Amsterdam to make his case before the West India Company. Surprisingly, the Company was willing to talk to him, and appointed a special committee to hear his complaint. The company’s first suggestion was that Bowne bring his wife and children to Holland. When this offer was refused, they offered him a document acknowledging his transgressions – after signing it, he would be allowed to return. Again Bowne refused, willing to bear his separation from this family in the name of his faith. Finally, the Company simply allowed him to return home. They did not challenge Stuyvesant’s orders against conventicles or Quakers, there was no formal statement revising the Dutch practice of liberty of conscience – they simply overturned Stuyvesant’s banishment and allowed Bowne to go back to Flushing where he continued to practice his Quaker beliefs.

In responding to Stuyvesant, the Company was careful not to undermine local law or Stuyvesant’s authority. They were more concerned that Stuyvesant act more diplomatically and less enthusiastically in the future, so as not to affect the growth of the colony. Finally, they reminded Stuyvesant of what he already knew – “that peoples’ conscience should not be forced by anyone…, as long as he is modest and behaves in a lawful manner and therefore does not disturb others or oppose the government.” 18

So what does this closer look tell us about the Flushing Remonstrance and John

Bowne’s experience? I’d like to offer a few concluding observations for your consideration, ideas that might help make the commemoration of the Flushing

Remonstrance more meaningful to us today in 2007.

10 This clearly remains a story about a quest for religious liberty but one that takes place at a unique moment in time. If the Flushing Remonstrance and the experience of

John Bowne is to remain part of the foundation for freedom of religion in America, the environment in which it was written must be included as part of that foundation.. The seventeenth-century Dutch concept of tolerance, based on liberty of conscience, provided the platform for the Flushing Remonstrance - the ability to hold your own personal religious beliefs, even if religious practice was restricted, was certainly a stepping stone to the principles of religious freedom we value today. And that environment offered the possibility of temporary accommodation in the midst of confrontation. It’s difficult to imagine the same type of negotiation between Quakers and Puritans taking place in New

England, the oft-cited birthplace of American culture. And the possibility for reconciliation in the form of comparatively lenient punishments that offered the prospect for forgiveness, enhanced that environment. No Quakers were hanged in New

Netherland; we might consider further the extent to which the compassionate side of

Calvinism, as identified by historian Firth Haring Fabend, influenced the New Netherland milieu.19 It might help explain how members of what were perceived as a radical, extremist sect were somehow able to maintain a position in the broader society.

Our view of Stuyvesant as the petty tyrant of legend must be modified. Certainly,

Stuyvesant was a man with a mission, sometimes too assertive in his orthodox Calvinism

– in addition to his actions against Quakers, he was also vigorous against Lutherans, Jews and Catholics. But Stuyvesant’s exercise of power can only be understood in the context of seventeenth-century New Netherland - freedom of conscience and limits on public worship defined the parameters of permissible religious practice yet these boundaries

11 could be stretched when they might interfere with immigration. When we view

Stuyvesant in this light, we see him more realistically as a political leader struggling to reconcile his personal faith with the challenges posed by local conditions and the goals and intentions of his superiors in Amsterdam.

These events can no longer be seen as a simple confrontation between English and

Dutch. Many Englishmen in New Netherland were as opposed to Quaker influence as their Dutch neighbors, and English magistrates willingly recognized and accepted their allegiance to New Netherland authorities. Instead of simply seeing ethnic confrontation, we should also be sensitive to the story of cultural accommodation – a willingness to cope with ethnic differences as well as confront them.

A closer look at the actual history certainly reveals a more complex story than the ones popularly used fifty years ago. How we will use this history to commemorate the

Flushing Remonstrance in 2007 depends on, well, how we will use this history to commemorate the Flushing Remonstrance. I look forward to seeing what happens.

12 NOTES

1 Official Document Book – The New York State Freedom Train (Albany, 1949), 22.

2 Jeffrey A. Kroessler, “Demanding Tolerance: The Flushing Remonstrance and the Ordeal of John Bowne,” Paper presented at the Conference on Faith and History, Messiah College, Oct. 7-8, 1994 (Courtesy of Donna Cartelli, Executive Director, The Bowne House), 16-17; Walter Richard Wheeler, “The Bowne House, Flushing, Queens, New York: A Historic Structure Report Prepared for the Bowne House Historical Society,” Hartgen Archeological Associates, Rensseleaer, NY, (Draft), 2006, 1.18-1.21 (Courtesy of Donna Cartelli, Executive Director, The Bowne House).

3 Only two pages of the Flushing Remonstrance are included in the document book. Official Document Book – The New York State Freedom Train (Albany, 1949), 22.

4 See, for example, John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1992), David Glassberg, American Histoircal Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, 1990), Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, 1991), Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelan, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of American History (New York, 1998) and, more recently, David Glassberg, Sense of History:The Place of the Past in American Life (2001), Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformatin of American Rememberance in the Age of Mass Culture (2004), Richard J. Cox, “The Concept of Public Memory and Its Impact on Archival Public Programming, Archvaria 36 (Autumn 1993), 122-135.

5 Oliver Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic andSocial History of Dutch New York (Ithaca, 1986), 158; See also Dennis J. Maika, “Commerce and Community: Manhattan Merchants in the Seventeenth Century” Ph.D., diss. , New York University, 1995.

6 Firth Haring Fabend, “Church and State, Hand in Hand: Compassionate Calvinism in New Netherland,” de Halve Maen: Journal of the Holland Society of New York, LXXV, 1 (Spring, 2002), 3.

7 Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America (Boston, 2005), 273.

8 David William Voorhees, ‘The 1657 Flushing Remonstrance in Historical Perspective,” Keynote Address, New York State History Conference, Cooperstown, NY, June 8, 2007.

9 Stuyvesant also received advice from the two Dutch reformed ministers Drisius and Megapolensis – who were informed by the Classis of Amsterdam, the ruling authority of the Reformed Church, that they could not force the conscience of the Quakers but if they committed their public exercises, they should be prevented. Jacobs, New Netherland, 307.

10 Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America (New York, 2004), 275.

11 Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America, Updated Edition (New York 2003), 27-28.

12 Quote in Jacobs, New Netherland, 305-6; Kroessler, “Demanding Tolerance,” 6.

13 Jacobs, New Netherland, 306-307.

14 A copy of the Flushing Remonstrance is available at the Bowne House Historical Society website. See http://www.bownehouse.org/history/remonst_p.php

13

15 Henry D. Waller, History of the Town of Flushing, Long Island, New York (Flushing, 1899, Cornell U. Library, 1993), 232.

16 .Ibid., 44.

17 Hayes Trebor, The Flushing Remonstrance: The Origins of Religious Freedom in America (Bowne House Pamphlet, c. 1957), 17-29.

18 Ibid., 27.

19 Fabend, “Church and State,” 7.

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