New Netherland and the Dutch Origins of American Religious Liberty

1. Dutch Tolerance

chapter 1 DUTCH TOLERANCE . . . each Individual enjoys freedom of religion and no one is persecuted or questioned about his religion. With the words, ‘‘each individual enjoys freedom of religion,’’ the Union of Utrecht inscribed tolerance into the heart of the Dutch Republic.1 Individual freedom of religion was soon qualified as liberty of conscience, and liberty of conscience became the fundamental law of the land in all the Dutch provinces and colonies. The cornerstone of Dutch tolerance, it evolved along with the Dutch state and empire from the signing of the Union of Utrecht in 1579 until the fall of the republic in 1795. Exactly what it meant varied over time and from place to place. The union was a political alliance binding together the northern provinces of the Low Countries in their eighty-year war for Independence from Spain. It served as the closest thing to a constitution for the Republic of the United Provinces. Ultimately seven provinces had full recognition within the States General, the republic ’s national assembly: Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen and Friesland. Another province, Drenthe, governed itself but had no representation at the national level. Parts of other provinces liberated from Spanish rule, like north Brabant, Zeelandic Flanders, and the Overmaas, were designated as Generality Lands and governed directly by the States General. The Generality lands lacked the sovereignty over internal affairs, including religion, guaranteed the other provinces, which governed themselves through their own provincial assemblies, or estates. The combination of the long-running war for independence and the political union of otherwise quite autonomous provinces proved fundamental to the shaping and evolution of Dutch tolerance. The Dutch carried the political and Dutch Tolerance 21 religious arrangements of the Union of Utrecht to their colonies when they started expanding overseas in the 1590s. The Dutch tolerance, colonies, and nation were created together. Whether at home or abroad, the Dutch never could, or would, force or even expect religious conformity and unity. Herein lies the root of Dutch tolerance. Initially it was not articulated as a positive principle but rather ‘‘a refusal of Catholic monopoly,’’ one Dutch historian explains. Article 2 of the Union of Utrecht specifically opposed reestablishment of Catholicism as the only religion. From this beginning, the emergent Dutch state gradually embraced ‘‘the refusal of any religious monopoly.’’ Instead it ‘‘placed itself under the banner of freedom of conscience.’’ Under it, Reformed Protestants gained hegemony within the Dutch world without ever being an absolute majority of its population. Calvinists could attack and restrict the worship of Catholics and others but ‘‘did not dare attack the fundamental law of freedom of individual conscience,’’ Dutch religious historian Willem Frijhoff emphasizes.2 To this constitutional refusal to question or coerce an individual’s faith one can add the demographic fact that the Dutch Reformed never formed a majority in the Dutch world, though they achieved majority status in various areas. Considering how few the Dutch Reformed were when the revolt began, the growth of the Dutch Reformed Church that accompanied tolerance is quite impressive. Developments in Dutch religion and politics through the 1660s provided crucial context for the events in Dutch America. It is the story of the emergence of a nation called Dutch out of the collection of provinces known as the Low Countries and of Protestants out of Catholics.3 What I am calling ‘‘Dutch tolerance’’ the Dutch themselves called liberty of conscience or freedom of belief (gewetensvrijheid or geloofsvrijheid), ignorant of there being anything particularly ‘‘Dutch’’ about it.4 Yet most nonDutch scholars agree there was something distinctive about the Dutch manner of handling religious diversity. Jonathan Israel, for example, has accorded the Dutch a central role in the broader history of toleration. Unlike myself, Israel believes toleration is an autonomous quality distinct from the contexts in which it takes place and advocates a certain form of toleration as the true sort. Nonetheless his overview is a useful starting point. The Dutch Revolt (1568–1648) was in part a fight for tolerance as well as independence, and ‘‘shaped the toleration debate down to the early eighteenth century’’ across Europe, he claims. Israel is clearly ambivalent 22 Chapter 1 about the revolt’s place in the broader history of tolerance, saying that it was both a victory and a defeat ‘‘for toleration.’’ Though not everyone who fought for Dutch independence was a Reformed Protestant, loyalty to the Reformed Church...