40 THE QUEENS COURIER • LIVING IN FLUSHING • JULY 26, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
living in fl ushing
Flushing Remonstrance: An early declaration of American values
Religion is both an intensely private
part of our lives and a very public one at
the same time.
Th ere is the inner spirit that drives us
to believe or not to believe. Th en there is
the believer’s own conscience and faith
and tradition that moves us to what we
believe. Th en there is the public manifestation
that allows us to express these
beliefs — or unbeliefs — in the manner
or custom called for.
For centuries, governments and rulers
have attempted to control what people
are allowed to believe and how to manifest
it. In many societies, even today on
the brink of a new millennium, religious
persecution is prevalent.
Th at is why what occurred in Flushing
361 years ago this year was such a
momentous event in the history of religions.
Th e town was part of Dutch controlled
New Amsterdam and ruled under
the iron hand of its Governor, Peter
Stuyvesant. He dictated that only the
Dutch Reformed religion could be publicly
practiced.
When a group called the Society of
Friends (better known as the Quakers)
came to the village to practice their faith,
they were banned. An Englishman John
Bowne, had a home in the town and he
was moved by the group’s plight. He
opened his home to the Quakers to hold
their services in his kitchen.
Meanwhile the leading citizens of the
town who were angered by Stuyvesant’s
edict, bravely gathered to draw up a document
— the Remonstrance they called it
— to declare that Flushing would not tolerate
religious persecution and declared
that the town was open to all faiths to
fully worship.
Th e Remonstrance said “Ye have been
pleased to send up unto us a certain prohibition,
or command, that we should not
retaine or entertaine any of those people
called Quakers . . . We cannot condemn
them . . . neither stretch out our hands
against them, to punish, banish or persecute
them . . . We are commanded by the
Law to do good to all men . . . Th at which
is of God will stand, and that which is of
man will come to nothing . . . Our only
desire is not to off end one of these little
ones, in whatsoever form, name or title he
appears . . . Th ere if any of these said persons
come in love unto us, we cannot in
conscience lay violent hands upon them,
but give them free egresse or regresse into
our town and houses . . . Th is is according
to the Patent and Charter of our town
. . . which we are not willing to infringe
or violate.
“Th e document was drawn up by
the town clerk Edward Hart and on
Dec. 27, 1657 (on which the festival of
Chanukah fell that year) 28 freeholders
of Flushing and two from Jamaica signed
the Remonstrance on the site of what is
today the Flushing Armory on Northern
Boulevard.
Meanwhile Bowne remained fi rm.
Bowne was fi ned and arrested and
put on a ship to sail “wherever it may
land.” Th at turned out to be Ireland and
Bowne would work his way all the way
to Holland where he made his case to
the directors of the Dutch West India
Company. To his amazement, they agreed
with him, released him and they rebuked
Stuyvesant.
Th e directors wrote “we doubt very
much whether vigorous proceedings
against them ought not to be discontinued,
unless, indeed, you intend to check
and destroy your population, which, in
the youth of your existence, ought rather
to be encouraged by all possible means
. . . Th e conscience of men ought to
remain free and unshackled. Let every
one remain free.”
Aft er a two-year exile, Bowne returned
to Flushing and freely practiced his
religious beliefs, as did the rest of the
town of Flushing and the cities of New
Amsterdam. Bowne is buried behind the
17th century wooden Friends Meeting
House on Northern Boulevard.
Th e principle bravely established in
Queens became enshrined over a century
later in the Bill of Rights of the
U.S. Constitution. In 1957, on the
300th anniversary of the signing of the
Remonstrance, the U.S. government
issued a commemorative postal stamp
honoring the occasion.
Today the Bowne House, built in 1661,
still stands on the street that bears his
name. It is a national historic site and
open to the public as a museum, presenting
a quaint and beautiful picture of early
Flushing.
Across the borough, the people from
around the world have established
a house of worship for every faith on
Earth with Baptist and other Protestant
churches, synagogues, Roman Catholic
churches, Orthodox churches, Hindu
temples, mosques, Buddhist temples and
ever-growing new congregations making
Queens a center of international religious
worship.
Th at is fi tting for a place where over
three centuries ago the spirit moved the
citizens of Flushing to take an important
stand. In doing so a little house on
Bowne Street became a clapboard cathedral
of the soul.
Reprinted from the Nov. 18, 1999 issue
of the Queens Courier.