New York City

Located on the northeastern coast of the United States, New York City (NYC) is a global city with great religious and cultural diversity. It consists of five boroughs, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, and is the most populous in the United States, having a population of approximately 8.4 million people. As a leader in the commercial, financial, fashion, education, art, entertainment, and media industries, NYC's influential networks hold sway over global markets, culture, and innovation. Despite its prominence in all of these areas, NYC remains multiracial, multicultural, and multireligious—a city of immigrants and migrants who live in approximately 500 distinct neighborhoods, comprising 200 separate ethnic groups attending several thousand places of worship.

The first inhabitants of the area that eventually became NYC were the Lenapes, a band of indigenous people that included the Canarsee, Rockaway, Manhattan, Hackensack, Wiechquaesgeck, and Rechgawawank Indians. The Lenape way of life, largely oriented around agriculture, hunting, and trading, was governed by a belief in spirituality and that all people were created by Kishelemukong's (the Creator) thoughts. They also believed that every natural thing possessed a spirit or manetu and was alive. As a result, the land around them was perceived to be a gift from the creator and, thus, was treated with care and respect.

The arrival of Giovanni da Verrazano, the first European to see Manhattan in 1524, marked the beginning of a new phase in the religious history of the region. In the years that followed, several Dutch, English, French, and Spanish explorers visited the area to trade and fish. This diversity and emphasis on trade seen in these early expeditions were to become the defining characteristics of the early Dutch settlement and later the City of New Amsterdam, on two levels. One, because of the diversity among the colonists, toleration of other cultures and religions was necessary for the harmonious functioning of the colony. Second, as a result of the difficulty that the Dutch West India Company experienced in attracting settlers, the company was amenable to accepting religious, cultural, and social diversity within the colony. Thus, in 1654, when Governor Peter Stuyvesant attempted to establish the exclusive rights of the Dutch Reformed Church by preventing the disembarking and settlement of 23 Jews from Brazil, he was rebuked by the directors of the Dutch West India Company for intolerance, an act that in their opinion would interfere with their economic ventures. [Page 916]The city's tradition of religious freedom was further solidified by the “Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of the Town of Flushing” (1657)—a document in which the colonists in the Town of Flushing protested Governor Stuyvesant's proclamation banning Quakers from New Amsterdam and threatening to fine anyone found guilty of “harboring” a Quaker. Both actions served to affirm that the city would be one governed by tolerance and be a place where the oppressed and persecuted from any country would find refuge.

In 1664, the city of New Amsterdam was captured by the British and renamed New York in honor of the Duke of York. With British rule came the establishment of the Church of England and, at different times, several heated disputes between colonists adhering to the Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, and Anglican faiths. Despite these arguments, however, the city's defining characteristics of diversity and tolerance remained. In 1664, the city had a population numbering approximately 1,500 people, consisting of Dutch, English, Flemish, Walloon, French Huguenot, German, Danish, Swedish, African, and Jewish—each living their lives and practicing their religious beliefs in various ways.

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