On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1657, Governor Peter Stuyvesant ordered residents of New Netherland to help enforce his campaign against religious dissenters, especially Quakers. Thirty residents of Flushing refused. In a petition now known as the Flushing Remonstrance, they declared that they would not persecute peaceful people simply because they worshiped differently.
Larry Reed, President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, tells the story of this remarkable early defense of religious liberty and the punishment its signers faced for defying Stuyvesant.
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