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Sat, 20 Apr 2024 11:41:07 -0500

The curator and author, Russell Shorto, claims that traits distinctive to early New York were more powerful ingredients of the early American character than those of New England, an intolerant theocracy. The point has been overlooked because the Dutch records are only now being recovered and translated. This 1655 document concerns Asser Levy, a Jew who was fighting for full civil rights against the administration of Peter Stuyvesant, who was an intolerant martinet. Levy and his cohort eventually won full burgher status after his superiors at the West India Company told Stuyvesant to leave the Jews alone if they were doing good business. Blacks did not fare as well. In 1645, a visiting Jesuit priest counted 18 languages being spoken in the little village.