The Dynamic Values of Religious+Ethnic+Racial Tolerance Unite us in Freedom A living museum park - the Tolerance Park - on Governors Island
Governors Island's Legacy

Tolerance as dynamic notion is the basis for successful cultural diversity. Restoring Governors Island to its historical integrity and its historic message of tolerance (click Tolerance Park) will foster understanding of the deeper meaning of Liberty Island and Ellis Island in the composition of American freedom. Tolerance is a critical component in the concept of Western liberty and will help bring us together through broad awareness and conscious vigilance.

These conceptions of America’s primary values can be traced directly to the founding of New York State when the legal-political infrastructure and the geo-cultural traditions of the States of Holland were delivered to Governors Island by the first settlers to the New York Tri-State region in 1624. This fundamental New York State history is to be reflected in a Governors Island Preservation and Education Project; the living Tolerance Park as an innovative museum-park to tolerance with a 151 feet high (46 meters) high Tolerance Monument as the universal embodiment of the dynamic force of tolerance as centerpiece. It will transform Governors Island to a primary National Symbol: the nation’s oldest natural monument since 1624. Tolerance is the vibrant basis for cultural pluralism and the Lifeblood of American Liberty (see Lifeblood of American Liberty).

The 1624 planting on the island of these laws and ordinances—the underpinning of the North American province of New Netherland (1614-1674), now the New York Tri-State region—have left an enduring legacy on both American cultural and political life. A private commercial venture since the issuance of patents by the States General of the Dutch Republic in 1614, the territory became a province in 1624. The most important instruction was the one that echoed the 1579 founding document of New York’s birthfather—the Dutch Republic. It promulgated that "everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion."

At the time, this unique legal-cultural instruction of toleration (= religious tolerance) formed the basis for religious and ethnic diversity in New Amsterdam specifically, now New York City. This religious tolerance was preserved by treaty for New Netherlanders exclusively under English authority. It endured as a cultural tradition and was reintroduced two years after the 1787 Constitution and codified as a legal-political condition with the ratification of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights in 1791.

The culture of religious and ethnic plurality was the result of the dynamic conception of tolerance as delivered first to the Western Hemisphere on Governors Island in 1624. This historic message has been New York’s legacy and identity ever since and endures to this very day. This was affirmed by the New York State Legislature in May 2002 (click Legislative Resolution).


In the settlers’ fatherland—a haven for refugees from intolerant or despotic regimes—the city of Leiden especially was a magnet for religious diversity. It was there that the Pilgrims lived for 12 years prior to their departure to North America in 1620. In 1622, sixty-seven percent of its population had come from outside the Dutch Republic in search of toleration. Its population was a kaleidoscope of religious variety.

In 1645, the Antwerper Willem Usselincx, spiritual founder of the [Dutch] West India Company, proclaimed that “it is because of foreigners that the country will be peopled, because its might is derived mostly from those who come from abroad and settle, marry and multiply here. If one were to remove the foreigners, their children and grandchildren from the large cities of Holland, the remaining residents would be fewer in number than those removed.”

This statement reflected the attitude that encouraged religious and ethnic diversity in New Amsterdam before it morphed into New York. Usselincx's statement could have been uttered today in America and is particularly pertinent to New York City. Yet, Governors Island’s legacy and New York’s tradition of tolerance—the basis for its characteristic diversity and identity—have gone unrecognized politically.

The North American introduction, in 1624, of that basic human value gave rise to the most diverse city in the world and the nation’s largest municipality—itself a legal concept introduced, in 1653, in New Amsterdam, now New York City.

May New York’s politicians understand the power of Willem Usselincx’s 1645 statement. His words were reflective of a legal-cultural tradition which became the very foundation of this nation. That legacy originated on Governors Island in 1624. For serious 17-page background article CLICK HERE.

Our proposed education and history project for Governors Island—the Tolerance Park—will unleash the island’s currently concealed historic symbolism for the nation. It will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the twin notions of tolerance (dynamic) and liberty (static) of American freedom and imbue them with a deeper appreciation of the meaning of freedom in a pluralist society through broad awareness and conscious vigilance. For PDF project summary CLICK HERE.
 

 
The French gift of the Statue of Liberty (inaugurated in 1886) transformed Bedloe Island to Liberty Island in 1956 to become an omnipresent, fundamental American symbol.

The 50-acre canvas for the creation of a masterpiece of thematic and visual excellence—the Tolerance Park with the Tolerance Monument as centerpiece—will transform Governors Island, over time, to the third iconic island as a quintessential, fundamental American symbol in New York harbor. Together they will compose the "National Heritage Triangle."

The work of art will visually link the 1624 historic planting of tolerance (that is, the father of American liberty and the basis of successful pluralism) with broad awareness of the indispensability of this dynamic notion in contemporary 21st-century society. It will acknowledge that constructive pluralism is an original precept in “American” freedom since the year in which it took root on the very place where it was planted first.

The Tolerance Park will safeguard America’s ultimate, active virtue to the world while preserving the national significance of Governors Island's historic symbolism as an enduring beacon to humanity. For primary historical background go to Tolerance Park Historic and for 34-slide presentation in pdf CLICK HERE.


In acknowledgment of New York State’s historic beginning on Governors Island and its momentous contribution to American culture, we composed a triad of islands in one iconic whole where each island represents a symbol and exemplifies its own unique facet of American history (see the National Heritage Triangle). 

The sum of this National Heritage Triangle of America’s primary values in New York harbor is worth more than its collective parts. It would promulgate that tolerance and liberty define the juridical and cultural construct to which American freedom refers—that the "dynamic" precept of tolerance distinguishes the specifically American notion of freedom from the "generic" or "static".

TOLERANCE (embodied by Governors Island as the nation’s leading, natural, historic symbol), because it precedes liberty as its building block while also being its partner in the definition of “American” freedom;

LIBERTY (embodied by the island symbol of “Liberty” signified by its statue), because it is a function of tolerance (is liberty possible in an intolerant society?); and

IMMIGRATION (embodied by the Ellis Island symbol of "Welcome" as portrayed by the American Immigration Museum), because it is a function of American freedom which comprises the twin notions of tolerance and liberty.

A two-way street, tolerance demands reciprocity and reciprocal respect rather than unilateral accommodation. Embedded in Governors Island—New York State’s legally recognized, historic birthplace—tolerance is a critical part of New York’s cultural patrimony and its unique contribution to American culture. Without doubt, it is the very foundation for successful pluralism and the lifeblood of American liberty.

Please address any communications to President@TolerancePark.org.

LIFEBLOOD OF LIBERTY
 
Governors Island’s legacy of tolerance with liberty as its partner constitutes American freedom. Its restitution to primary American history reveals the nation’s oldest National Symbol as a crucial pillar of democracy. With the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Governors Island composes a National Heritage Triangle of quintessential American symbols.
 
New York’s legal and political tradition of tolerance, the basis for its characteristic cultural diversity and pluralism, had its beginnings on Governors Island in New York harbor.
 
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.
 
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. In the face of intolerance, tolerance is neither uncritical acceptance, appeasement or submission, nor laxity, sloth or indifference.
 
Tolerance defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding “generic” or “static” freedom. 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 restore Governors Island to its rightful historical importance and extol America’s vital role in advancing liberty in the world through the moral force of tolerance. It will be the place where 350 years of contrasts will visually dissolve harmoniously into a new and unique village, just as divergences and boundaries melt away through the ethical force of tolerance into common humanity.