CHAPTER V

DOMINES AND SCHOOL-TEACHERS

BECAUSE the Netherlanders were not, like the
New Englanders, fugitives from persecution at
the hands of their fellow-countrymen, the Dutch
colonization in America is often spoken of as
a purely commercial venture; but in reality the
founding of New Netherland marked a momen-
tous epoch in the struggle for the freedom of con-
science. Established between the long contest
with the Inquisition in Spain and the Thirty
Years' War for religious liberty in Germany, this
plantation along the Hudson offered protection
in America to those rights of free conscience for
which so much blood had been shed and so much
treasure spent in Europe.

The Dutch colonists were deeply religious, with
no more bigotry than was inseparable from the
ideas of the seventeenth century. They were de-
termined to uphold the right to worship God in

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