Submitted by Tabetha Garman, Dec 3, 2007 07:30

Just to set the record straight:

The signers of the Flushing Remonstrance were NOT Quakers! The Quakers only arrived in the colonies in August of 1657, and though a group of the sect, headed by a passionate young preacher John Hodgson, did travel through Flushing, none of the residents converted. The only convert to the religion was a gentleman by the name of Henry Townsend, who converted to the religion AFTER Hodgson was arrested, dragged (literally) to New Amsterdam, and tortured by the Dutch Reformed Calvinist Peter Stuyvesant.

The writers and signers of the Remonstrance wrote the letter in response to both the torture of Hodgson and the stringent Calvinst law enacted by Stuyvesant which stated that harboring, sheltering or listening to a Quaker would mean a steep fine and possible expulsion from the colony. The men of Flushing, no stranger to protests as they engaged in several over the decade preceeding the Remonstrance, believed in "liberty of conscience"-- the right for anyone to believe whatever they liked, without fear of governmental reprisal.

The myth that the signers of the Remonstrance were Quaker has been used for quite some time to keep the Remonstrance out of the limelight-- by implying that the signers were simply defending their own, their heroic deed (which, for the record, caused the writer of the Remonstrance and the Sheriff who delivered it to Stuyvesant to be imprisoned, fined and expelled from New Netherlands) has gone unrecognized. There is clear historic evidence that the story of their stand against tyranny inspired the men who would eventually go on to include Freedom of Religion in the Constitution. And, in given that western Europe had spent centuries warring over which religion would be in charge of which governments, the signers of the Remonstrance expressed an opinion unique for their time! Don't spread the inaccurate information-- we need to let the story of the Remonstrance be told correctly, or the reality of their heroic stance will be banished to the flotsam and jetsom of history where it has languished far too long.

Thank you,

Tabetha Garman

MA American History

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