Flushing Remonstrance

Kieft's patent granted the English colonists, most of them non-Anglican Protestants, the same freedom of religion which existed in the Dutch Republic, which was one of the most religiously tolerant nations in Europe.

[3] Eleven years later, new governor Peter Stuyvesant, having adopted a hardline stance towards the practice of any faiths which were not part of the Dutch Reformed Church (including the various forms of Protestantism practised by the English colonists), issued an ordinance in 1656 which formally proscribed all religious congregations in the colony not part of the Reformed Church.

[4] Stuyvesant's ordinance, which was immensely controversial in the colony, stood against the approximately hundred-year development of religious tolerance in the Dutch Republic.

During this period when the Dutch were revolting against Spanish rule, rebelling against an imposed Inquisition, attempting to form a national identity, and trying to unify Calvinist and Catholic provinces.

Judith, Stuyvesant's wife, was a fierce advocate for New York's slaves, promoting the practice of baptism as a first step toward freedom.

[7][11] The Flushing Remonstrance was signed at the home of Edward Hart, the town clerk, on December 27, 1657, by a group of Dutch citizens who were affronted by persecution of Quakers and the religious policies of Stuyvesant.

[13] The site of the signing is presently occupied by the former State Armory, now a police facility, on the south side Northern Boulevard between Linden Place and Union Street.

Two immediately recanted, but the writer of the remonstrance, Edward Hart, and sheriff of Flushing Tobias Feake remained firm in their convictions.

Stuyvesant asserted that he was not violating the signers' "freedom of conscience", only their right to worship outside of family prayer meetings.

After a month of deliberation, the Dutch West India Company agreed to support Bowne, and advised Stuyvesant by a letter (1663) that he was to end religious persecution in the colony.

[12] This early handwritten copy suffered singeing in the burning of the New York State Capitol in 1911, yet remains essentially complete.

Descendants of the signers, Bowne, Stuyvesant, and the arresting officer were invited and in attendance, and the original copy of the Remonstrance was brought down from the State Archives in Albany for several weeks' public display.