1. The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto
- Author:
- Joseph Kellard
- Publication Date:
- 03-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- “[E]ach person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and . . . no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of their religion” (p. 96). Those words evoke America's revolutionary era, but they were penned two centuries earlier. They are part of the Dutch de facto constitution, the Union of Utrecht, drafted in 1579 after thousands of Dutchmen had suffered religious persecution by the Spanish in the form of torture and death. To Russell Shorto, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, these words speak directly to the “tolerance” embodied by the 17th-century Dutch Republic and its colonies, particularly the island colony of Manhattan, or New Amsterdam, after English explorer Henry Hudson claimed the land for the Netherlands in 1609.
- Political Geography:
- New York, America, Spain, Netherlands, Island, and Dutch