Editing Flushing Remonstrance (section)

==Background==
[[File:FlushingCivilWarMonument.jpg|thumb|Flushing town hall and Civil War monument]]

In 1645, [[New Netherland]] governor [[Willem Kieft]] granted a patent to a group of English colonists from the [[New England Colonies]] to settle in the colony. The majority of the colonists settled down in the newly established colonial settlement of [[Flushing, Queens|Vlissingen]]. Kieft's patent granted the English colonists, most of them [[English Dissenters|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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Driscoll|first1=James|author2= The Voelker Orth Museum Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden |title=Flushing: 1880–1935|date=2005|publisher=Arcadia Pub.|location=Charleston, SC|isbn=0738538426|page=9}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Liberty Mag"/> 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. The Dutch toleration debates were lengthy, bumpy, heated, and full of political intrigue and even assassination. The writer Thomas Broderick states, "I believe the true Dutch legacy is not one of toleration but of discussion. New Amsterdam and the Republic show us that a robust, open public discourse is the surest way to eventual social improvement. Toleration and acceptance are political and moral imperatives, and the Flushing remonstrance and great Dutch toleration debates in Europe and North America teach us that social change takes time, open dialogue, disagreement, and failure before progress is to be made."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Broderick|first1=Thomas|title=New Amsterdam and the Great Dutch Toleration Debates|url=http://www1.umassd.edu/euro/2013papers/broderick.pdf|website=University of Massachusetts|access-date=10 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210133632/http://www1.umassd.edu/euro/2013papers/broderick.pdf|archive-date=10 February 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Stuyvesant's policy was not very different from the one evolving in the Netherlands: an official recognition of the Dutch Reformed Church bundled with broad tolerance within the church and a policy of [[connivance]], turning a blind eye to non-conformist religious practices. At the same time, Stuyvesant also opposed [[Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam]]. On another front, the Stuyvesant family was broadly tolerant.  Judith, Stuyvesant's wife, was a fierce advocate for New York's slaves, promoting the practice of baptism as a first step toward freedom.<ref name=nycreligion>{{cite web|title=Peter Stuyvesant's relentless quest for order in New Amsterdam pushes Africans out of the church|date=March 7, 2012|url=http://www.nycreligion.info/peter-stuyvesant-relentless-quest-order-push-africans-church/|publisher=NYCReligion.info|access-date=16 February 2015}}</ref>

His policy met with resistance from many English colonists in Vlissingen, [[Jamaica, Queens|Rustdorp]] and [[Gravesend, Brooklyn|'s-Gravesande]], all of which had been host to previous [[Quaker]] missions.  Stuyvesant's actions, however, also met with the support of other English colonists, including local magistrates, who informed on those embracing unorthodox teachings and meeting in small and unsanctioned religious meetings of lay people called [[conventicle]]s.  Thus, Stuyvesant found himself drawn into the religious debates of the English [[Atlantic World]]<ref name=Haefeli>{{cite book|last1=Haefeli|first1=Evan|title=New Netherland and the Dutch origins of American religious liberty|date=2012|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-0812244083|page=222|edition=1st}}</ref> and debates in England which culminated in the [[Conventicle Act 1664]].

This policy resulted in numerous acts of religious persecution and harassment. In 1656 ,[[William Wickenden]], a Baptist minister from Rhode Island and William Hallett, Sheriff of Flushing were arrested by Dutch colonial authorities, jailed, fined, and exiled for baptizing Christians in Flushing.<ref name="Riker 1852">{{cite book |last=Riker |first=James |title=The annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New York : containing its history from its first settlement, together with many interesting facts concerning the adjacent towns : also, a particular account of numerous Long Island families now spread over this and various other states of the Union |publisher=D. Fanshaw |publication-place=New York |year=1852 |oclc=85796086 |page= |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/1238088.html |via=HathiTrust}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.reformedreader.org/history/armitage/ch09.htm|title=History of the Baptists, Thomas Armitage|website=www.reformedreader.org}}</ref> In the same year Robert Hodgson was arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years of manual labor with slaves for his preaching of Quakerism.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Haefeli|first1=Evan|title=New Netherland and the Dutch origins of American religious liberty|date=2012|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=978-0812244083|pages=61–68|edition=1st}}</ref> In 1661, in the town of Rustdorp, [[Henry Townsend (Norwich)]] and Samuel Spicer were fined for holding Quaker conventicles and Townsend was banished as well.  Stuyvesant sent three new magistrates, all English colonists, and six colonial militiamen to gather information on dissidents. The militiamen were [[billet]]ed in the homes of the dissidents until they agreed to conform.  In 1662, in 's-Gravesande, Samuel Spicer and his mother, Micha, along with John and Mary Tilton, were imprisoned and later banished.  They moved to [[Oyster Bay (town), New York|Oyster Bay]], then outside of the authority of New Netherland, and returned to their town after 1664 when the English took control of the colony.<ref name=Haefeli/><ref>{{cite web|title=Descendants of John Tilton|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cathie/ctilton.htm|website=RootsWeb|publisher=Ancestry.com|access-date=10 February 2015}}</ref>