EXPRESS, OFFICIAL DENIAL OF NEW YORK STATE HISTORY AND GOVERNORS ISLAND'S HISTORIC MESSAGE TO AMERICAN FREEDOM


April 25, 2008

The Hon. James N. Tedisco
Assembly Republican Leader, Assembly Minority Leader
Room 933, LOB
Albany, NY 12248

Dear Representative Tedisco,

Thank you for your letter of April 14 wherein you state that “Assembly Republicans are committed to preserving and treasuring our national and state heritage."

We presume that you refer to Governors Island as the tangible evidence of that state legacy whereas the Island’s historic message of enduring meaning and substance as well as of 21st-century relevance signifies its thematic national and state inheritance.

Since 1997 we have urged various politicians, agencies and officials at the federal, State and City level to acknowledge this cultural heritage which culminated in the adoption of Assembly Resolution 2708 and Senate Resolution 5476 in May 2002 (see enclosed).

Legislative acceptance was possible thanks only to the federal government dedicating the Island to the theme of education on April 1, 2002, thus enabling New York State to receive the Island for one dollar 16 months past the legal deadline and enabling our proposed Education and Preservation Project to go forward.

Yet, in spite of this achievement, not one federal, State or City agency has been willing to acknowledge the momentous, historical content of these crucial Resolutions in press releases, at public hearings or on web sites. We finally appealed in the year 2004 to Secretary of Education Spellings to help hold federal, New York State and New York City agencies accountable for their oversight in this matter (see letters to the Secretary of Education and the President of the Battery Conservancy).

To date, the omission of that inheritance, as embodied by Governors Island, also includes GIPEC’s web site, the State agency entrusted with the development plans for the Island.

Your April 14 letter is significant in that it confirms that politicians are the ones to restore, protect and preserve “our national and state heritage" rather than agencies, appointees and employees.

The commitment of Assembly Republicans is therefore greatly appreciated as their pledge “to preserve and treasure their State heritage" is critical in the visual recognition of the State’s birthplace as National Symbol. Only a bill can accomplish that by dedicating 30% of the Island to the State’s historic cultural legacy through the envisaged Education and Preservation Project (see letter to you of May 13, 2006).

If the Assembly leadership were to allow a floor vote on the transformation of Governors Island to its iconic reflection of the State’s inheritance of [religious, ethnic and racial] tolerance – the lifeblood of American liberty – it would take just 76 representatives to get it passed. Is it imaginable that more than 74 representatives would vote against the State’s and Governors Island’s legacy?

Would it be possible that you could consider becoming a sponsor or co-sponsor for such a bill?

Sincerely,

Joep de Koning
(212) 737-3216
President@TolerancePark.org
www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com 
www.TolerancePark.org
www.LifebloodofAmericanLiberty.com
www.NationalHeritageTriangle.com 

cc: NY Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno; NY Senate Deputy Majority Leader for Legislative Operations Dean Skelos; NY Senate Deputy Majority Leader for Intergovernmental Affairs John DeFran-cisco; NY Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, NY Senate Deputy Minority Leader Jeffrey Klein; NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; NY Assembly Deputy Speaker Ivan Lafayette; NY Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari; Governor David Paterson; Acting Admini-strator of U.S. General Services Administration David Bibb; Senior Advisor to the Administrator Joshua Sawislak; Regional Administrator Emily Baker; U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey; Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne; Chairman of GIPEC and Downstate COO and President of the Empire State Development Corporation Avi Schick;Attorney General Andrew Cuomo; Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau; Albany County District Attorney David Soares


* The Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam is a non-profit organization which seeks to establish a National Heritage Triangle encompassing America's three primary values in New York harbor. Its core mission is to protect Governors Island―New York State’s birthplace―as the nation’s oldest natural historic symbol (1624) by restoring the island to its historical integrity and sustaining its vital message of tolerance as an ethical force and moral dynamic for the benefit of future generations: the Lifeblood of American Liberty.



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November 2, 2007

Ms. Warrie Price
President, The Battery Conservancy
1 New York Plaza, Concourse Level
NY, NY 10004

Dear Ms. Price,

You may remember that I have attempted to hold federal and New York State and City agencies and officials accountable for accuracy with respect to New York’s 17th-century history especially as it relates to their web sites. Otherwise, the public would get and remain misinformed forever. Perhaps innocently, these officials just repeat the errors of previous writers but after so many years of repeated efforts, there is no longer an excuse.

I lodged an official complaint about this lack of accountability to Ms. Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Educat-ion, in November 2004 (see reverse). After several years now, your web site still states the following today:
1623    Dutch settlers land and established New Amsterdam.
1626     Fort Amsterdam built by the Dutch at the tip of Manhattan Island.

From my previous e-mails on this subject to you and Michael Prete, Joanna Smith and Ira Glazier, you may know that:

(1) Dutch settlers did not establish New Amsterdam in 1623
(2) Fort Amsterdam was not built in 1626.

In its simplest form you could write:
(1) Dutch settlers founded the province of New Netherland in 1624 on Governors Island, NY State’s birthplace and its date of birth.
(2) Fort Amsterdam was started at the tip of Manhattan Island in 1625, the date of birth of NY City.

Previously I had given you longer versions of these events:
1624    Thirty families disembark from the ship New Netherland under the command of Cornelis Jacobsz May as New Netherland’s first director and settle on Governors Island. Pierre Minuyt is among them as volunteer. Their arrival transforms New Netherland into a province of the Dutch Republic from, earlier, a territory for exploration and private trade since its discovery by the East India Company in 1609.
1625     Second director Willem Verhulst and his Council (in a Governors Island fort) select Manhattan Island as the place for Fort Amsterdam.  Land surveyor and civil engineer Cryn Fredericxsz van Lobbrecht arrives June 1625 on Governors Island and starts to lay out Fort Amsterdam at Manhattan’s tip with Verhulst.
1626     For the protection of New Amsterdam and the intended farms outside of it, local Indians sign a written deed effecting the legal disposition of Manhattan Island to the New Netherland administration, Pierre Minuyt now third director.  Cryn Fredericxsz van Lobbrecht departs on September 23, 1626.

I hope that this information may help you in correcting the time line of your web site.

Sincerely,

Joep de Koning
President@TolerancePark.org
www.GovernorsIslandToleranceMonument.com


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November 27, 2004

Ms. Margaret Spellings   
Presidential Advisor for Domestic Policy
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

LIFEBLOOD-OF-AMERICAN-LIBERTY


Dear Ms. Spellings,

In your upcoming position as Secretary of Education we were wondering whether you could or would be interested in the educational value of the National Heritage Triangle of America’s fundamental values.*

Specifically, we are seeking your support and help with the correction of various “official" websites which as government-supported educational promulgations to the world contain gross omissions and distortions. 

Since 1997, we have actively pursued federal, state and city politicians and their appointees with regard to their deliberate oversights and misrepresentations of the historical facts with regard to Governors Island.  Their conduct in the matter has been reprehensible and unethical to say the least.

Naturally, now as Secretary of Education, you could fulfill an important role in getting those websites corrected to reflect the historical truths based on factual, primary source materials.

Doubtless, you are familiar with our efforts of the last seven years.  If there is anything else you could do to help the tolerance park’s regional (state) and local (city) political approval, we would be immensely grateful (for example, your endorsement as Secretary of Education?).

I would be willing to meet with you anywhere at your convenience, when or if appropriate, to discuss this further.

Looking forward to hearing from you, we are.

Sincerely,                                                                                   

Joep de Koning
President@TolerancePark.org           
www.NationalHeritageTriangle.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governors_Island

* On September 11, 1609, the ship “Halve Maen" [Half Moon] of the [Dutch] East India Company sailed into New York Harbor as the covert forerunner for the overt introduction of a republican, non-royal, pluralist culture based on commerce and social mobility.  That culture’s precepts of freedom and liberty, based on the “Right-of-Man" doctrine and the dynamic notion of “Tolerance"(1), became the foundation of the Original Thirteen and are New York’s cultural heritage to the nation. The planting of that legal-cultural tradition took place on Governors Island in 1624 – the birthplace of the New York Tri-State region and the origin of American tolerance. The horrific 9/11/2001 assault - an act of global intolerance - was perpetrated in the name of religion. Not acting upon recognized intolerance affirms that laxity, passivity and apathy are its friends. Tolerance – an active notion – demands. Always a two-way-street, not one-way accommodation, it defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding, generic liberty. Only broad awareness and conscious vigilance of religious, ethnic and racial tolerance as inseparable from liberty will help safeguard and sustain “American" freedom because in an intolerant [disrespecting, discriminatory] society freedom-for-all is not possible. (1)  www.NationalHeritageTriangle.com


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October 31, 2003

Ms. Pauline Lauterbach
Project Manager
NYC EDC
110 William Street, NY 10038

Mr. James Lima
President, GIPEC
110 William Street, 6th floor
New York, NY 10038

The Hon. Randy Daniels
Secretary of State
Chairman, GIPEC
41 State Street
Albany, NY 12231-0001

Dear Ms. Lauterbach, Mr. Lima and Secretary Daniels,

This is an urgent request for the NYCEDC and GIPEC to rewrite the section “History of Governors Island" in their Request for Proposals (RFP).  Specifically, we request that you include a historical matter of great import to the nation – that the island is the legally recognized birthplace of New York State and the source of American toleration (Senate Resolution no. 5476 and Assembly Resolution no. 2708). 

Doubtless, you will understand the significance of these Resolutions when reviewing the historic, republican (non-royal) qualities of economic inclusiveness and social mobility which were first propagated by a merchant class in New Amsterdam (now New York City) interested in the promotion of international free trade, toleration and individual liberty.  These values formed the bedrock of New York from which, later, the foundation of the United States as a free republic was forged.

Three days ago, during the annual White House iftar dinner with Islamic leaders, President Bush said that “America rejects all forms of ethnic and religious bigotry".  His statement confirms that “tolerance is the oxygen of American liberty"  – that tolerance is America’s primary virtue and fundamental to the survival of western civilization.  Governors Island is its historical and historic source!

The meaning of this may best be understood by the three-pronged attack on September 11, 2001, which was, after all, a horrific “act of intolerance" ─ committed in the name of religion and designed to set up one religion against another on a global scale ─ its perpetrators believing in the promise of martyrdom.

The first settlers to what is now Governors Island, New York (a historical fact), had been instructed that “through attitude and example" they were to attract the natives and non-believers to God’s word “without however to persecute someone by reason of his religion and to leave everyone the freedom of his conscience". 

That’s called “toleration". It forever distinguished New York’s cultural heritage from its neighbors’.  Later, toleration became the foundation of American liberty (First Amendment).

The first settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, established at once the Church of England and had been instructed that “ALL proper means" should be used to bring the natives to “the knowledge of God and the obedience of the King, his heirs and successors, under such severe pains and punishments as should be inflicted by the respected presidents and councils of the several colonies". 

That’s called “intolerance" which, likewise, accompanied the first Pilgrim settlers (and the Puritans) to New England (their first landing place, “Plymouth Rock", was a later invention - it never existed).

The current RFP history summary is either an innocent statement demonstrating a profound lack of historical understanding or an intentional attempt to demean the island’s significance to the nation by making it the object of popular ridicule by only stating that it “was purchased from Native Americans for two ax heads, a string of beads and a handful of nails".  Abundant information has been provided to the City and the State over the last six years for the NYCEDC and GIPEC to know that certain stereotypical stories, purporting to be history, are no more than misinformation.

For example, purchase deeds for land were no more than a legal requirement and a bureaucratic afterthought in the same way that Stuyvesant (the seventh director of New Netherland) applied and received the deed for his mansion many years after it had been built, Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan one year after the settlement of Manhattan and after the start of construction of Fort Amsterdam in 1625, and a deed for Noten [Governors] Island needed to be fabricated, 13 years after the island’s 1624 settlement; partly because “the island’s original inhabitants" were only settlers, never native Americans.

The island had its first fortification and sawmill in 1624 and was actively settled during New York’s 17th century period.  Governors Island served as a military base for the fourth Director of New Netherland, Wouter van Twiller, who was stationed there with his troops.  He later built and operated a farm on the island.  Furthermore, we have provided you with information that explains why the island was the region’s first meeting point of three cultures (1613) and, as a small island, served as an important, easily defended transshipment point in New York’s earliest maritime activities and trade with the Hudson River natives (for more information see enclosed letter to Ms. Terry Pristin of the New York Times).

For the above reasons, we would want the NYCEDC and GIPEC to consider the proposed tolerance park ─ Historic New Amsterdam ─ on Governors Island as an element in a National Heritage Triangle symbolizing America's fundamental values.  By now, you are intimately familiar with our envisaged park which is to be designed to provide for a universally deeper understanding of American freedom and to impart a message of importance to the destructive forces of [global] intolerance!

We trust that you can and will include some of the above historically significant aspects of Governors Island in your history section rather than using the modern penchant of trying to imbue significance to something where none exists by merely enumerating “celebrity" names that have no relevance to the island’s momentous function in the cultural history of New York and the nation.

Sincerely,

Joep de Koning

* The Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam is a public, not-for-profit, 501 (C) (3) organization that seeks to establish a National Heritage Triangle in New York harbor.  The Triangle would represent America’s fundamental values of tolerance, freedom and welcome as embodied by Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, respectively.  The notion of tolerance will be symbolized by a 50-acre, not-for-profit, Historic New Amsterdam park as a museum-park-to-tolerance.  Tolerance was planted as a legal-political condition on American shore by New York’s first official settlers who disembarked on Governors Island in 1624 — the birth date of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware.  It was America’s earliest pluralistic community—an enlightened culture of inclusion and diversity—unprecedented at the time. It constitutes the basis of New York’s cultural history and derives from the society that founded the colony among the original thirteen.  Freedom has no meaning in an intolerant society.  Tolerance, therefore, precedes liberty.  It is New York’s unique, historic contribution to the nation and requires one’s respect and considerateness as an implicit gift to another.