Remonstrance returns to Flushing

For only the fourth time in as many centuries, the Flushing Remonstrance, called “the religious Magna Carta of the New World” is on display in the neighborhood where it was signed in 1657.
“It’s like closing a circle of history,” said state archivist Christine Ward, at the official opening of the Remonstrance exhibition at the Queensborough Public Library, 41-47 Main Street, on Thursday, December 6.
The two-page document, including the signatures of some 30 locals who risked banishment by signing it, will be on free public display from Wednesday, December 5 until Monday, January 7, when it will be returned to its high-tech vault in Albany.
The long-forgotten petition was passed along from the Dutch to the English and then to the State of New York along with a mountain of more mundane documents. It was nearly consumed in a 1911 fire.
Despite the scorched edges, Simone Kruetzer, consul for Press and Cultural Affairs for the Kingdom of the Netherlands said she found it, “Beautiful… amazing.”
“The Netherlands is very proud to be a part of this,” Kruetzer said. “We are thankful that the State Archives has kept so many of the colonial documents so well.”
It was first returned to Flushing for its 300th anniversary in 1957, for the U.S. bicentennial in 1976 and to celebrate the millennium in 2000.
For this trip, the Remonstrance made its trip in secret, accompanied by Ward and an armed escort of New York State troopers.
According to Ward, an assistant commissioner of the Archives and CEO of the Archives Partnership Trust, “(We are) committed to getting these and other historic documents around the state in 2009 for all New Yorkers to see their heritage.”
The Netherlands and the State are planning a celebration to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the 1609 discovery by Henry Hudson of the river that bears his name.
The Remonstrance exhibited in Flushing is the 1657 record of the original, copied by a notary onto rag paper and included in the colonial-council minutes of New Amsterdam. The original petition has never been found.
“I learned something today,” said State Senator Frank Padavan, after viewing the transcription. “I thought it was the actual petition,” Padavan, and avid student of history, confessed, speculating, “Stuyvesant was such a nasty guy, he probably just tossed it.”
The International Resource Center Gallery is upstairs at the Flushing Library, 41-47 Main Street, at Kissena Boulevard. For information about the Gallery call 718-661-1229 or visit www.queenslibrary.org/irc/gallery/index.htm