Journal of John Bowne 1650-1694 (review)

114QUAKER HISTORY Journal of John Bowne 1650-1694. Edited by Herbert F. Ricard. New Orleans: Polyanthos, Inc. 1975. Preface by Kenneth Scott, xi, 87 pages, Illus. $5.00. The publication of the late Herbert Ricard's edition of John Bowne's journal is another of the efforts celebrating this country's bicentennial. And it is fitting that Bowne's journal should be published amid current festivities, for Bowne made an important, if generally unknown, contribution to the development of religious liberty, a contribution which merits recognition. John Bowne was one of several Englishmen who settled in Flushing, Long Island after a brief sojourn in New England. For the first decade after settlement (Bowne's Flushing was first settled in 1645, although Bowne himself did not move there until 1651), the English did not encounter difficulties widi Dutch authorities. When Friends arrived in 1656, English communities proved to be fertile areas for convincements, and New Netherland 's officials, led by the redoubtable Governor Peter ' Stuyvesant, temporarily quashed support for Quaker missionaries despite the protestations of some residents of the town of Flushing in 1657. Friends meetings apparently continued to be held, one of the largest being in John Bowne's Flushing home. Determined to stamp out Quakerism in his colony, Stuyvesant had Bowne arrested and attempted to coerce him as he had earlier Flushing protesters by giving him the alternative of paying a 150 gilder fine or of being banished. Bowne was not so easily intimidated, however, and, when sent out of New Nedierland, he used Quaker connections in Ireland, England, and Holland to appeal his case successfully to the Dutch West India Company. His journal details his imprisonment by Stuyvesant and his appeal to the Company, the points of greatest interest to students of church-state relations in general and Quaker history in particular. Included in this edition are the less familiar portions of the journal detailing several Atlantic crossings (of interest to students of maritime history), some of Bowne's finançai accounts, and his genealogical jottings. The editorial committee which supervised this edition apparently added as an appendix the Flushing Remonstrance, the short-lived town protest of 1657. As the first complete printing of Bowne's journal (die last edition in the 1872 American Historical Record contained only the relevant portions of Bowne's arrest and appeal), this edition is certainly welcome. In it there are fairly complete notes identifying most people, places, and terms, although , curiously, Robert Turner; a Quaker merchant resident in Dublin when Bowne passed that way, is not identified. The introduction is inadequate , and readers unfamiliar with religious developments in New Netherland related both to the journal and the Flushing Remonstrance will want to consult George L. Smidi's Religion and Trade in New Netherland: Dutch Origins arid American Development, the latest and best treatment. Unhappily, die Ricard edition does not provide a modernized text, a disappointment to those who have benefited from Phillips Moulton's excellent edition of John Woolman's work. These weaknesses aside, perhaps this publication will stimulate someone to publish biographical sketches of Bowne and other worthy early American Friends. Colorado State UniversityArthur J. Worrall ...