On Dec. 27, 1657, thirty non-Quakers signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition to Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of the New Netherland colony requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. In 1663, the Dutch West India Company informed Stuyvesant to end religious persecution in the colony, which was the northeast Atlantic coast, including what is now New York City. The petition is considered a precursor to the First Amendment’s provision guaranteeing freedom of religion.
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