Peter Stuyvesant - Religious Freedom

Religious Freedom

Stuyvesant struggled bitterly for the rights won by Jews in Holland not to be accorded those in the new world. Stuyvesant referred to the Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers". He wrote to the Dutch West India Company, "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony." Then following multiple protest from Jews in the new world and Holland and after his death they were even granted the right to pray, besides just trade.

Read more about this topic:  Peter Stuyvesant

Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or freedom:

    God from the mount of Sinai, whose grey top
    Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
    In thunder lightning and loud trumpets’ sound
    Ordain them laws; part such as appertain
    To civil justice, part religious rites
    Of sacrifice, informing them, by types
    And shadows, of that destined seed to bruise
    The serpent, by what means he shall achieve
    Mankind’s deliverance.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    Old-fashioned determinism was what we may call hard determinism. It did not shrink from such words as fatality, bondage of the will, necessitation, and the like. Nowadays, we have a soft determinism which abhors harsh words, and, repudiating fatality, necessity, and even predetermination, says that its real name is freedom; for freedom is only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
    William James (1842–1910)