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:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)