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In April 2003, Walter Cronkite wrote: “The
Foundation’s concept for the conversion of Governors Island provides a moral, philosophic and patriotic base that should
considerably augment the argument to keep that invaluable heritage in the public domain.”
Composing
a triangle of America's fundamental values as National Symbols in New York Harbor—Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome as embodied by Governors Island, Liberty
Island and Ellis Island—by recognizing each island’s unique facet of history: the “National Heritage Triangle.” The magnitude of the emblematic
value of Governors Island as the nation’s oldest natural historic symbol is based on
one’s deeper understanding of three critical historical events: the three primary European landings and settlements
on the North American East coast which led to the formation of the Original Thirteen. They were: Jamestown, Virginia, 1607; New Plymouth, New England, 1620; and Nooten Eyland, New Netherland, 1624
(now Governors
Island, New York). In the discussions of "What to do with Governors Island?", all pertinent officials
and nearly all legislators have denied—through silence from 1997 through 2009—the island's 1624 historic legacy which shaped and became part of our national
identity (similar to express historical unconsciousness of the Holocaust but having distinct opposite effects, i. e., a new
beginning with spiritual rebirth through freedom of conscience in religion versus deportation into an abyss pending death
through ethnic/religious hatred.) Yet, the Governors Island landing/settlement
was the best planned, the most successful one and by far the most important one of the three because it was on the place on
which the first New World expression of religious tolerance took place. As the locus of the political-cultural conception of
freedom of religion and conscience—the basis of pluralism and personal freedom (= liberty) in North America—Governors
Island signifies the origin of American toleration (= religious tolerance). That tolerance, as America’s ultimate value
and dynamic precept, precedes liberty. It is vital in defining and defending the often generic or static notion of [personal]
American freedom. Tolerance and Liberty can both be recognized visually as equal partners in the concept of freedom. We envisage
doing that on the officially recognized 1624 birthplace of New York State because that place—Governors Island—connotes
the womb of New York’s historic legacy and cultural identity of diversity through tolerance, New York's gift to
the nation. (For historical quotes of the official instructions to the Jamestown and
Governors Island settlers go to page three of the 19-page article “ Governors Island, Lifeblood of American Liberty).”
********************************************************************* • Is the UNITED STATES interested
in protecting and preserving its national heritage of historic substance and of profound thematic meaning to AMERICAN freedom?
Will it embrace and endorse the GOVERNORS
ISLAND PRESERVATION AND EDUCATION PROJECT aimed at perpetuating the memory of a
place and a history that is of the utmost importance to humanity, that may help extinguish the fires of intolerance and be
remembered as a symbol of hope to the country, if not the world? Is it ready to accept the Tolerance Monument as the universal embodiment of the dynamic force of tolerance? • Can NEW YORK STATE, or the New York Tri-State region, provide leadership in safeguarding its seventeenth-century
geo-political legacy of toleration as precursor of the Constitution—culturally enduring but lost for a century by
an English Act of Parliament that outlawed the Roman Catholic faith in 1691—by actively reinstating the nation's oldest
natural, historic and cultural monument and turning it into an asset of 21st-century relevance? • Will NEW YORK CITY be generous enough to integrate its most important landmark and yet unexploited
national cultural asset—Governors Island—into contemporary community life, and so achieve a greater shared knowledge
about the nation's past, strengthen the Tri-State's identity of tolerance as the lifeblood of American liberty, fortify New
York's civic pride, and drive New York's artistic and economic vitality (sign PETITION)? ********************************************************************* New York’s legal and political tradition of tolerance,
the basis for its characteristic cultural diversity and pluralism, had its beginnings on Governors Island.
That tolerance is central to the contemporary Western conception of personal freedom which can be defined in terms of
the twin credos of tolerance and liberty. Its origins as an ethical force in the Western Hemisphere and as a legal and political
imperative can be traced to the year 1624, in what is now the State of New
York. (For third-party video CLICK on YouTube).
Tolerance is an active dynamic entailing reciprocity
and reciprocal respect. Always bilaterally demanding, it forges “American” freedom by relentlessly transforming
plurality into constructive pluralism as a never-finished product of American culture. Tolerance defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding
“generic” or “static” freedom. It is the indispensable dynamic component of American freedom and Western
civilization. Without conscious vigilance and broad awareness of that vital, fundamental notion of tolerance, there will be
times when there will be no freedom in the sense that Americans recognize that term today. Left unnurtured and unprotected, simple liberty invites and facilitates
the "friends" of intolerance and extremism—complacency, carelessness, apathy, passivity and insipidness—opening the door to insidious assaults on civil
liberties. A proposed Tolerance Park will halt
historical amnesia and restore Governors Island to its rightful historical importance by extolling America’s vital role in advancing liberty in the world through the moral
force of tolerance. Thus,
the park will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the meaning of American freedom. It will afford them
a deeper appreciation of tolerance and liberty as equal partners in a pluralist society, at the very place where these notions
first took root in 1624. Tolerance builds liberty. Intolerance kills liberty. The Park will therefore preserve Governors
Island's historic symbolism, be an enduring beacon for humanity and extol America's vital role in advancing liberty
through the moral force of tolerance.
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“Diversity breeds tolerance as a practical necessity (in trade-based urban centers for
instance.) Broad awareness of the idealistic version of tolerance as a reciprocal dynamic in the notion of [American] freedom
and precursor to liberty fosters successful pluralism across the land (in non-urban areas for instance.) It extends
the boundaries of liberty for all mankind through conscious vigilance." The verb To Tolerate is a one-way street whereas
the precept of Tolerance is a two-way street in the conception of American freedom.
On June 6, 2009, President Barack H.
Obama said: "As we face down the hardships and struggles of our time and arrive at that hour for which we were born,
we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears
and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore."his Inaugural Address of March 17, 2008, Governor David A. Paterson proclaimed:
"Let us put personal politics, party advantage and power struggles aside, in favor of service, in the interests of
the people...Let me introduce myself...I am the governor of New York State."
Earlier, at the January 1, 2007, Inaugural
Address, Governor Eliot Spitzer declared “New York created the model for the kind of society that would be duplicated
throughout the country and around the globe: Our state was born as an island at the center of the world (Governors Island).”
(For 34-slide presentation in pdf click Governors Island Legacy, New York's Identity.)
Governors Island,
Nooten Eyland (in pidgin language Nutten Island) until 1784, is the place of origin of American tolerance as the basis for
cultural diversity and pluralism and, as such, it embodies a Message of Profound National Importance. Therefore,
the island’s cultural and national heritage has outstanding universal value which could qualify it as a potential
World Heritage Site.
Together with liberty,
the notion of tolerance serves to define the cultural and juridical construct to which American personal freedom refers. In
the face of intolerance, tolerance is a vigilant dynamic — it is neither uncritical acceptance, appeasement or submission,
nor laxity, sloth or indifference.
Embedded in Governors Island—New York State’s legally recognized,
historic birthplace—tolerance is the quintessence of New York’s cultural patrimony since 1624 (CLICK HERE for Legislative Resolutions 5476 and 2708 which recognize this heritage).
With the arrival of the first settlers
to New Netherland on Governors Island in 1624, the legal and cultural traditions of the Low Lands, including the basic
human virtue and jurisprudence of toleration (= religious tolerance) as the basis for ethnic diversity, were first implanted
by law upon North American soil (unlike the first landings in New England and Virginia). This plurality, for instance,
was recorded in a census of 1639 and portrayed on a Manhattan map which shows a large farm owned by America’s first
Muslim planter, Antoni du Turck, a Moroccan from Fez. After sixty years as New Netherland (1614-1674), the region –
now the New York Tri-State area – came under definitive English authority.
The virtuous conception of tolerance,
thus introduced in the Western Hemisphere and rooted in New York State’s very birth, can be considered New York’s
first and unique contribution to American culture. Governors Island is therefore the nation's oldest natural symbol of
primary value. Its message is America's ultimate virtue. One hundred fifty two years
later, in 1776, New York’s birthfather’s fundamental precept of political freedom (and with regard to individual
freedoms, in 1791, by way of the First Amendment) was to become the crucial underpinning of the American Republic with the
adoption of the "Right-of-Man-Doctrine" that formed the basis for the statement that "The United Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States."
That doctrine stated, in 1776, that "whenever
any form of government (the English Crown) becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it and to institute new government."
One hundred ninety five years prior to that Declaration of Independence,
in 1581, the same doctrine was the basis for the United States of the Netherlands when it stated that "when a ruler
of the people (King Philip II of Spain) does not behave thus, but on the contrary oppresses them...they may not only disallow
his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another ruler for their defense."
It was therefore no
happenstance that John Adams wrote, in 1781, that "the originals of the two republics are so much alike that the history
of one seems but a transcript from that of the other...the great characters the Dutch Republic exhibits...have been particularly
studied, admired and imitated in EVERY American state." Later Adams wrote: "I modestly blush for my nation when
I consider the low estimation in which we have held the importance of the [Netherlands] connections with us. Their separation
from England, union with France and Spain and their treaty with us was THE EVENT which ultimately turned the scale of the
American Revolutionary war and produced the peace in 1783."
The analogous republics—the United States
of America and the United States of the Netherlands—were not coincidental. The latter’s DNA and precepts, implanted
on Governors Island in the year 1624 and the building block of America’s earliest childhood, were responsible for the
traits that shaped America's like-minded personality and deeply felt commitment to political freedom and individual liberty.
The right to rebel against tyranny, the right to seek redress of grievances and freedom in religion and of the press,
all can be traced to the New York Tri-State region when it was known as New Netherland with New Amsterdam (now New York City)
at its center.
In summary, Governors Island—as the place of first settlement
between 38 and 42 degrees latitude, sandwiched between Virginia and New England, and as the legally recognized birthplace
of New York State on which the jurisprudence of toleration (= religious tolerance) as a precept in the conception of
American freedom was planted in 1624—is a historical archeological landmark of 21st-century thematic relevance and enduring
value to future generations.
For the above mentioned reasons, the
island is a natural historic National Symbol while representing the Shared Mutual Heritage of two nations.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS SITE AND, WHERE APPROPRIATE, PROVIDE US WITH A LINK ON YOUR WEBSITE TO
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Only by knowing and understanding the legal implications of what happened on Governors Island in 1624 can the original
and enduring cultural contribution of the first (now New York) settlers to American culture be grasped. It requires knowing
and understanding the original form of government of New Netherland (later the New York Tri-State region) – so
named from 1614 through 1674 – with its split existence of a North American province of the Dutch Republic starting
in the year 1624 from theretofore having been only a place for private commercial interests through patents issued by the
States General – the Dutch Parliament – since 1614.
Namely, codification
of common law in both the States of Holland and of Zeeland took place from 1580 through 1624. Because the [Dutch] West India
Company (WIC) was given, in 1621, a dual legal position as trading institute and as sovereign under the authority of the States
General, New Netherland’s colonists had to swear allegiance to both the WIC and the States General. Those Holland
and Zeeland ordinances, together with civil, maritime and commercial laws were placed as legal code onto the New Netherland
province by the Governors Island settlers directly and through incorporation by reference pursuant to the March 1624, January
1625 and April 1625 instructions to the settlers. These instructions contained the legal-cultural code that lies at the root
of the New York Tri-State traditions and, ultimately, American pluralism (diversity) and liberty through the active notion
of tolerance as the basis for ethnic diversity and [American] freedom. It were those first settlers to Governors Island in 1624 who planted the concept of toleration
(= religious tolerance) as a legal right for North Americans as per explicit orders that they had been given on
their departure from Europe. They had to attract, “through attitude and by example”,
the natives and non-believers to God’s word “without, on the other hand, to persecute someone by reason
of his religion and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience” (via “levenshouding en
voorbeeld” moesten zij “de Indianen ende andere blinde menschen tot de kennisz Godes ende synes woort
sien te trecken, sonder nochtans ijemant ter oorsaecke van syne religie te vervolgen, maer een yder de vrijch[eyt] van sijn
consciencie te laten”). Those instructions derived
from the founding document of the Dutch Republic, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, stating “that everyone shall
remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion” (“dat
een yder particulier in sijn religie vrij sal moegen blijven ende dat men nyemant ter cause van de religie sal moegen achterhaelen
ofte ondersoucken”). That statement, unique in the world at the time, became the historic underpinning for the
opening of the first synagogue in the Western Hemisphere at Recife in Dutch Brazil in 1642 as well as the "official"
granting of full residency for both Ashkenazim and Sephardim at New Amsterdam in 1655 The 1624 settlement completed the claim on the territory
transforming it to a North American Province according to the Law of Nations: (1)
Discovery in 1609 (2) Surveying and Charting from 1611-1614 and (3) taking Possession through Settlement. Some of the Governors
Island settlers were geographically dispersed to the Delaware River, the Connecticut River and at the top of the Hudson River
(now Albany) in order to legally delineate the claim to the “Province of New Netherland” (now the New York Tri-State
region). Of the three primary European landings/permanent settlements
on the North-American East coast—Jamestown in
Virginia, 1607; New Plymouth in New England, 1620; and Noten Eylant in New Netherland, 1624 (i.e., now Governors
Island in the New York Tri-State)—the Governors
Island settlement was the best-planned, the most successful and by far the most important one with regard to its contemporary
relevance and significance for the future of our nation. Namely, the Governors Island landing introduced the political-cultural
conception of freedom of religion and conscience as the basis of pluralism and liberty in North America. That latter notion
is to be illustrated, again, on New York State’s very birthplace—Governors Island—in the
form of a Tolerance Park project which is reflective of New York’s historic cultural identity. .
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EXPLORER ADRIAEN BLOCK AND HIS CAPTAIN HENDRICK CHRISTIAENSZ WERE THE FIRST PERSONS
EVER TO SURVEY AND CHART THE COAST LINE BETWEEN THE 38th AND 45th PARALLELS AND NAMED THE TERRITORY NEW NETHERLAND IN 1614.
THIS MAP IS THE RESULT OF FOUR VOYAGES STARTED IN 1611. The
first recorded resident of Governors Island was Jan Rodrigues from Santo Domingo, a Latin-American of African ancestry who
was the first person to summer on the island in 1613. He was employed by the private Amsterdam fur trader and explorer Adriaen
Block who had hired him in the [New York] harbor in May that year and had left him behind on the island to serve as his on-the-spot
factor to trade with the natives. Block was to rendezvous again with Rodrigues in December 1613. Rodrigues was a free man
and served as Block’s interpreter in trade negotiations with the Hudson River Indians. Governors Island, therefore,
carries a meaning of historic as well as cultural importance to the descendants of three continents: American Indians, Africans
and Europeans. Because the island was the original center for European
trade with the Hudson Valley natives and the region’s historical crossroad of three cultures, a vital component of the
50-acre museum-park-to-tolerance will be a Tolerance Hall holding a museum of human servitude with special emphasis
on the Atlantic arena in the 15th through
17th centuries. The relevance of such a museum may best be underscored by the fact that, today, there are more chattel
slaves in the world than ever before: between 12 to 27 million. This is in spite of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, in Article 4, that "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade
shall be prohibited in all their forms." This Tolerance
Hall is envisaged to be encased by the Tolerance
Monument as the park's centerpiece: a 151 ft (46 meters) high iconic emblem as symbol of hope. Because
the Tolerance Monument's image is based on a sculpture which was dedicated by its creator, Barnett Newman, to the memory
of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, this envisaged monument is implicitly a tribute to racial tolerance—recognizing
the fact that, for the African-American segment of the population, liberty was a concept from which they were largely [legally
and culturally] excluded. Specifically,
in a culturally intolerant society, the notion of [constitutional] freedom is of little consequence unless actively defended
through "conscious vigilance." Tolerance, therefore, precedes Liberty in the conception of American Freedom.
As complementary twins they are mutually dependent. Tolerance is
an active attitude prompted by recognizing the fundamental freedom of others. It is harmony in difference—an indispensable
realization in a pluralistic society. The inherent significance of tolerance to freedom-for-all was only legally attained
with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Successful pluralism in a free society requires broad
awareness and conscious vigilance in order to help protect and foster the notion of American freedom.
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In order legally to
dedicate 50 acres or 30 percent of Governors Island to the Tolerance Park of Historic New Amsterdam for the benefit of
future generations, State and City politicians would need to •
understand and accept the meaning of New York’s legacy to America (i.e., the entrance of the Dutch
East India Company ship Half Moon into New York harbor on September 11, 1609, as the forerunner of the introduction of New
York's and America’s first and only republican, non-royalist, enlightened, legal-cultural tradition in 1624); • acknowledge New York’s cultural legacy of toleration (= religious tolerance) as
the source of successful American pluralism—a legacy that endured culturally but was lost legally in
1691 by an English Act of Parliament that outlawed the Roman Catholic faith, and regained 100 years later as a Constitutional
right under the Bill of Rights in 1791 following the formation of the United States of America in 1776; • embrace New York’s
priceless, thematic patrimony of tolerance as the basis for the nation’s tradition and ideal of freedom and
liberty; • unveil a national symbol that currently lies hidden—the nation’s oldest natural, historic symbol that represents a fundamental American precept;
• concede the preexistence of the historic human right of tolerance—rooted in the founding of New York—which represents the legal-cultural
underpinning of the United States of America and, potentially, can have immense visibility to the world and make Governors
Island a World Heritage Site; • transform Governors
Island into an enduring national icon by sponsoring a bipartisan unibill which would grant legislative approval of
a project of momentous national significance which also contains a powerful message of relevance and benefit to
the national good in the 21st century. Up until
now, political inertia and legislative silence have ensured the conscious obliteration of the Tri-State’s colossal seventeenth-century
legacy. Because of this indifference or lack of interest and action, New York’s unique repository of knowledge
about its distinctive, important early history risks to remain lost forever to America's citizens. This passive political neglect of the national meaning of New York State’s birthplace echoes,
if less dramatically, the cultural violation perpetrated by the Afghan Taliban in March 2001 when it destroyed the country’s
most important Buddha statues—the world's two largest ancient, colossal Bamiyan Buddhist relics. Legislative inaction, therefore,
is equivalent to intentional political eradication of New York's most significant relic—the Western Hemisphere’s
only original, historic vestige of the building block of tolerance that lies at the core of American liberty. The ruination of that heritage would be no different from closing
one's eyes to the demolition of Jamestown Settlement for the benefit of a local highway project or a Congressional decision
to eliminate the day of Thanksgiving
as a national holiday.
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Governors Island's Legacy, New York's Identity Following intense and extensive exchanges
by the Tolerance Park Foundation at the federal government level under two White House administrations, fifty acres for the
Education and History Project had been set aside by the federal government as a condition for nominal transfer of jurisdiction
to New York State on February 1, 2003 (see Discussion Details “Moral Conscience” on bottom left). Tacit understanding and the expectation that the New York State and City Legislatures would move to
dedicate the reserved acreage to New York’s cultural patrimony (30% of the 172-acre large island) has not come to fruition
as yet. However, political acceptance of America’s ultimate
virtue of tolerance (i.e., the Lifeblood
of American Liberty) through legislative action is vital for the creation of the nonprofit project because
State/City agencies and special and commercial (=for profit) interests might not respect the ethos of Tolerance, Liberty and
Welcome that the National Heritage Triangle so clearly symbolizes. - What interests have prevented New York State Senate and Assembly members from practicing
the civilities of democracy or exercising their duty, from 1998 through 2009, to restore, preserve and sustain (1) Governors
Island’s momentous legacy, (2) New York State’s historic identity and (3) a fundamental American conception?
- What
special powers have ingratiated themselves with what legislators to deserve their attention or receive their allegiance at
the expense of legislative recognition of New York State’s historic emblematic symbol?
- What has been the seminal lubricant that has corroded the State’s democracy
and a robust democratic process thus silencing the Legislature into inaction regarding a vision of depth and breadth for tomorrow?
Will ethical choice as yet be the
guiding force for a legislative decision, after the year 2009, with respect to the efficacy and conceptual merits of
the not-for-profit, self-sustaining Tolerance Park with its centerpiece "Broken-Obelisk" (CLICK HERE) as Tolerance Monument (click GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com)? Or will legislative silence continue to represent
conscious damnation of national memory thus favoring short-term appeasement of special and narrow constituencies?
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