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Commemoration and Context: the Flushing Remonstrance Then And 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Prepared for the Annual Meeting, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY, Thursday, 19 July 2007 Please do not cite or reproduce without permission of the author.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 New Netherland’s Director General Petrus Stuyvesant restricting the activities of Quakers. The story then jumps ahead five years to Stuyvesant’s prosecution of Flushing resident John Bowne for his support of Quaker meetings, and ends with his vindication by the Dutch West India Company. 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 Queens 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 1650s, 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 New Amsterdam 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.
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