During the early days of settlement, economics in New Netherland trumped religion or identity. Pragmatism and tolerance were essential conditions of coexisting in a multi-national and multi-lingual colony, not abstract ideals. The Dutch Reformed Church may have been the official religion, but citizens were free to worship other teachings.
A substantial population of Huguenots, Quakers and Calvinists settled along the Hudson River. They were followed by Jewish immigrants. New England did not provide such leniency. Plymouth Pilgrims and the Massachusetts Bay Puritans were separate communities.
Whilst the latter group remained within the Church of England, the Pilgrims were separatists. They were eventually outnumbered by the Bay settlers who obeyed the “divine mandate” to create a New Jerusalem, forcing indigenous peoples into submission.
Gathered in devout communities, Puritans resisted outside intrusion and controlled individual behavior. It was a form of “totalitarianism” (long before the term entered our political jargon) that stemmed from protectionist instincts.
Long Island Quakers
Born in March 1627 in Matlock, Derbyshire, merchant John Bowne arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1648. He married Hannah Feake in 1656 and soon after both joined the Quaker Society of Friends for which they suffered persecution in the English colonies. It forced them to seek the more relaxed religious atmosphere of New Netherland.
Having settled in Vlissingen (Flushing), Long Island, they joined a small group of English-speaking Quakers who practiced their faith there. Dutch settlers had a repute for toleration and Long Island had become home to many refugees from Puritan Massachusetts.
But ever since the arrival of Peter Stuyvesant in 1647, the climate of non-interference had been changing. A hard-line Calvinist, he reversed the colony’s liberal attitude.
In 1654, the Lutheran congregation requested permission to have a minister of their own faith. Stuyvesant refused, stating that his oath to the States General forbade him to tolerate any religion other than the Dutch Reformed Church.
In September that same year, twenty-three Jewish refugees arrived in New Netherland from Brazil. They had fought with the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Portuguese invasion.
Stuyvesant refused their entry into the colony, arguing that these “blasphemers” would create division in the community. The Company disagreed and directed that the newcomers be allowed to settle and trade as long as they would not become a burden to the authorities. Stuyvesant denied the community permission to build a synagogue.
By an ordinance of February 1, 1656, he restricted the religious practices of those who were not adherents of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Netherland to the “reading of God’s Holy Word, family prayers and worship, each in his own house.” His opposition to religious pluralism brought him in conflict with numerous groups, adding to the difficulty of ruling the colony.
From the outset, New Netherland had been a mercantile venture for the WIC. It was neither a tightly controlled commercial outpost nor a well-governed place that could cope with an influx of newcomers.
New Amsterdam no longer fulfilled its financial promise to investors and the social problems were mounting. It was therefore no coincidence that the Company was willing to consider and later: negotiate its withdrawal from the colony.
Flushing Remonstrance
In 1657, twelve persecuted Quakers from Yorkshire on board a dangerously small vessel named the Woodhouse (the “Quaker Mayflower”) landed on Long Island. Two women in the group proceeded to New Amsterdam and began preaching in the streets.
They were stopped and banished from New Netherland. A young man named Robert Hodgson was arrested for sermonizing in the Long Island town of Hempstead, treated harshly in prison, and subsequently removed from the colony.
In spite of these repressive actions, Quaker teachings spread throughout Long Island, threatening the dominance of the Dutch Reformed Church. Stuyvesant introduced ordinances mandating the confiscation of vessels bringing Quakers into New Netherland and imposing heavy fines on anyone sheltering a Friend. All meetings were banned, even at home.
Local Quakers protested against these measures and John Bowne became their spokesman. In 1657 he presented a petition to the Director-General that would become known as the Flushing Remonstrance.
It challenged Stuyvesant’s edict by referring to a freedom of worship guarantee that was signed off in 1645 by the WIC in the Charter of the Town of Flushing. Stuyvesant ignored the document, punished a few of the petition’s signers and maintained the ban on religious diversity. Bowne forced the issue by allowing Quakers to gather in his home for worship (his wife was a minister).
Punishment was inevitable. In 1662, Bowne was arrested and jailed in New Amsterdam. As he was not prepared to repent or pay the fine imposed upon him, he was deported. He made his way to England and traveled from there to Amsterdam to testify at his trial before the WIC.
Once again, he referred to the “Liberty of Conscience” clause in the Flushing Charter. He won his case and the Company ordered Stuyvesant to reinstall the right to assemble in the colony.
On April 16, 1663, he was instructed to “allow everyone to have his own belief as long as he behaved quietly and legally, gave no offense to his neighbors, and did not oppose the government.”
On his return to Long Island in 1664, Bowne helped to acquire land for building the Flushing Quaker Meeting House (which still stands) and the grounds for a cemetery on Northern Boulevard where he was buried in 1695.
The Flushing Remonstrance has been labelled the religious Magna Carta of the New World. John Bowne was one of the earliest activists in the city of New York’s long history of protest and dissent.
Printing & Enterprise
Having challenged Stuyvesant’s authority, the Quaker community was at liberty to meet and worship, but their numbers remained relatively low in the colony. In 1781 about a thousand Friends were recorded in the metropolis, but their influence was considerable. Members of the Bowne family remained amongst the most prominent participants in New York’s socio-economic life.
Robert Bowne was John’s great-grandson. Born in Flushing in 1744, he started his career as a merchant just before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In February 1775 he opened a store at 39 Queen Street, Lower Manhattan.
Its shelves were stocked with writing paper, account books, quills and pens, printing materials, powder, furs, nails, glass, dry goods and many other items. Above the entrance door hung a painted placard that read, “Bowne & Co. Merchants.” The name would endure for more than two centuries, earning its venerable distinction as the oldest business operating under the same name in the history of New York’s commercial activities.
British occupation of the city after General William Howe’s defeat of George Washington’s forces prompted large numbers of New Yorkers to leave. Bowne closed the store and fled with his family, only to return after the British withdrawal. He re-established himself as a general merchant.
During the post-Revolutionary War period, Bowne & Co. increased the sale of stationary. Owing to its proximity to banks and investment firms on Wall Street, Robert began focusing on stationery and printing, specializing in financial documents.
Printers were a huge force in the development of the Port of New York as they produced all manner of documents for the flourishing maritime businesses on South Street.
Bowne was one of hundreds of shops that made up the seaport district. Historians of the printing revolution have tended to concentrate on literary or scientific achievements in the trade and overlook the business context.
In historical terms, the Venetians were among the pioneers of modern banking which instigated the explosive growth of the city’s economy. The diffusion of the printing press was the catalyst. It made a huge impact on business practice and performance.
The earliest printed mathematical document known as Arte dell’abbaco (1478), a textbook in commercial arithmetic written in vernacular Venetian, was designed specifically for the education of merchants. Before long, traders from the Low Countries, England and elsewhere flocked to Venice to be instructed in the new practices of trading, double-entry accounting and banking.
Johann [John] Peter Zenger, an immigrant from Rhineland-Palatinate, set up as an independent printer at Smith Street, Manhattan, in 1725. Five years later he re-published a Dutch textbook by school teacher Pieter Venema (first published in Groningen, 1714) entitled Arithmetica of Cyffer-Konst.
In his preface, the author indicated that he intended to support commerce. This publication, the first arithmetic text printed in the city of New York, was significant. It shows that Dutch merchants were still deeply involved in the city’s commercial activities many decades after the British take-over.
From its origins as a modest mercantile firm, Bowne & Co. gradually turned exclusively to financial printing in order to meet the growing demands of banks, insurance companies and other businesses. New York’s explosion of economic activity was facilitated by a thriving printing trade.
Peck Slip, owing to its East River location, played a crucial part in the city’s urban and maritime expansion. Its significance was strengthened in 1817 when the Black Ball Line was inaugurated, pioneering regular transatlantic routes between Manhattan and Liverpool. It revolutionized international trade and initiated mass migration from Europe to America.
Robert Bowne participated in laying foundations for the full exploitation of New York’s entrepreneurial spirit. On February 24, 1784, he joined a number of prominent business men who met at the Tontine Coffee House in Wall Street to establish the Bank of New York (the nation’s first
commercial bank) and acted as one of its first directors.
Two years later he was involved in the creation of the Mutual Assurance Co., the city’s first fire insurance company. He was also active in structuring the American Chamber of Commerce.
Bowne’s vision and practical understanding of improving commerce became evident when he involved himself in making preparations for the digging of the Erie Canal (opened in 1825), thus connecting the city with the newly settled land to the west.
Social Commitment
As one of the city of New York’s prominent citizens, Bowne was actively involved in improving the urban environment. Driven by a deep-seated sense of social responsibility and belief in the dignity of man, he was committed to projects that supported those afflicted with ills (literally and metaphorically) that were not of their own making nor within their power to correct.
His rejection of slavery was a matter of Quaker principle. In 1785, Bowne was a co-founder of the New York Manumission Society of Slaves. Its mission of support began with highlighting the criminal practice of kidnapping black New Yorkers and selling them as slaves in Southern states. The organization provided practical assistance and lobbied for legal intervention.
In an age of rapid urban expansion, education was another of Bowne’s concerns. He understood the relevance for the fledgling nation to educate its youngsters, many of whom born into immigrant families.
In 1805 he joined a group of prominent citizens who formed the Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, laying the foundation for a later free school system.
Public health was an urgent urban problem for a city that could barely cope with an ever increasing influx of immigrants. Chartered by George III in 1771, the Society of the New York Hospital was reorganized after its buildings were destroyed by fire during the Revolutionary War.
Bowne served as its Governor for thirty-four years and acted as Vice-President for thirteen years. In 1793, with the yellow fever epidemic raging, he formed the New York City Health Committee. As its first Chair, Bowne oversaw the installation of the newly established Bellevue Hospital.
When Robert Bowne died in 1818, he left behind a legacy of forward looking commercial initiative and passionate social commitment. Bowne’s Quaker dynasty represented a chain in the formation of New York City’s unique urban identity.
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Illustrations, from above: Henry Toms’s engraving “A Panoramic View of the New York Harbour Waterfront seen from Long Island in 1727” (New York Public Library); “View of Flushing” and John Bowne House in 1825; “John Bowne before Governor Stuyvesant” (Scribner’s Magazine, 1881); Robert Bowne; and an impression of the Tontine’s Coffee House (on the right) as it appeared from 1772 to 1804.
