Nadene Goldfoot
Tomorrow we celebrate the 247th anniversary of the creation of the United States of America. It's one of the youngest of the countries on this planet. Only 13 colonies were united in 1776 when it became a country.
The 13 original states were the first 13 British colonies. British colonists traveled across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe and were daringly brave to step into small-leaky boats manned only by sails. Who would dare do such a thing today? The first was John Robinson, pastor from Amsterdam's son, Isaac. John stayed on land with the rest of his flock. In time, there were only a few members left as several had between 1629 and 1633 sporadically relocated to the Plymouth Colony. This included Robinson's son Isaac who arrived in 1631 and joined the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony.
I have a ggrandfather, Abiathar Smith Robinson, who was born in Vermont, but often thought it was New York. Vermont was created on March 4, 1791, only 15 years later, out of a piece of New York, evidently. The following are 15 towns near the New York border but now in Vermont:
- Swanton, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
- Saint Albans, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
- Milton, VT (about 13 miles from the border)
- Colchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
- Burlington, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
- Winooski, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
- South Burlington, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
- Shelburne, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
- Williston, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
- Jericho, VT (about 15 miles from the border)
- Hinesburg, VT (about 10 miles from the border)
- Middlebury, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
- Rutland, VT (about 14 miles from the border)
- Manchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
- Bennington, VT (about 3 miles from the border)
New York's name was originally "New Amsterdam." They showed how their people felt about Jews right away; at least Peter did. The Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam of September 1654 was the first organized Jewish migration to North America.
Spain's new Christianity decided not to allow Jews in their country, so in 1492, they made a law expelling all Jews unless they converted to Christianity. 180,000 Jews were kicked out of Spain. 50,000 converted to Christianity -forced to-many becoming Marranos (hiding their Judaism).
When it had become a Christian state, Jews, probably from Spain along with Jews living there over 100 years already, had been living there, in Lisbon, Beja, and Santa-rem. Since the founding of the official Kingdom of Portugal in 1139, the country has been predominantly Christian. The first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, declared a unified church and state under Christianity.
A whole community of Jews had been converted by force in 1497, 5 years after Spain's decision, and they too became Marranos (hidden Jews). When the Spanish Inquisition was introduced in the 16th century in Portugual, the refugees who fled to escape it formed the Portuguese synagogues in Amsterdam. England had expelled Jews earlier, in 1290 as a result of Christianity through the Byzantine Empire's wishes, and Jews were not allowed back into England until 1655, the year after the boat full of Jews turned up near New Amsterdam.
It comprised 23 Sephardi Jews, refugees "big and little" of families fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition after the conquest of Dutch Brazil. It is widely commemorated as the starting point of New York Jewish and Jewish-American history. The Jews had sailed from Recife on the ship Valck, one of at least sixteen that left mostly bound for the Netherlands at the end of the Dutch–Portuguese War. Valck was blown off course to Jamaica and/or Cuba. According to account in Saul Levi Morteira and David Franco Mendes, they were then taken by Spanish pirates for a time. In Cuba, the Jews eventually boarded the St. Catrina, called by later historians the "Jewish Mayflower", which took them to New Amsterdam.
The new Jewish community faced antisemitic opposition to their settlement from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, as well as a monetary dispute with the captain of the St. Catrina, which required adjudication from the Dutch West India Company. They were aided by some Ashkenazi Jewish traders who had arrived just a month earlier, on the ship Peereboom, from Amsterdam via London. This group included Jacob Barsimson, and perhaps Solomon Pietersen and Asser Levy, who has also in earlier sources been claimed as one of the twenty-three. The new community founded Congregation Shearith Israel, which still endures as the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.
Peter Stuyvesant wasn't going to allow them to land because they were Jews. As he wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company in 1654, he hoped that "the deceitful race, — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony." He referred to Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers", and was concerned that "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony."
As it turned out, these Jews were representatives of the Dutch East India Company who paid Stuyvesant his salary. They were all for allowing the Jews entrance to the land and told Peter so.
Jan Pieterszoon Coen who was born in Hoorn on 8 January 1587, and was raised by his family in accordance with strict Calvinist principles,.The five
Jan held two terms as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. In 1601, he travelled to Rome, to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher, where he learned the art of bookkeeping. Joining the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606, he made a trading voyage to the East Indies in 1607 with the fleet of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff.
He was the founder of Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg, mace and clove. A famed quote of his from 1618, Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us, illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, and his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project.
I bet his name was originally Cohen and he came from a Jewish family who had to become Marranos, Jews that had to go underground in hiding the fact they were Jews. They hid it so well that soon the children really were brought up as Christians and this Coen was one of them. All history, knowledge of his ancestors, could have been lost by the time he was born.
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On the West coast, for it took a while for people to travel across this North American Continent that hadn't been known about in Europe: California on September 9, 1850; Oregon on February 14, 1859; and Washington on November 11, 1889. Alaska on January 3, 1959 and Hawaii on August 21, 1959. It was our 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower who was the 1st president to reside over all 50 states with his term from 1953 to 1961.
Dick Bogle speaks at the City of Unity Rainbow Rally, 1989.
In honor of MLK, Jr., and in recognition of the death of a black college student in Portland. Courtesy Oregon Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bd000443
Blacks were not allowed in Oregon originally, but could move to Washington. Dick Bogle's family were affected by that ruling. His ancestor, America, could not follow the wagon train to Oregon and instead was able to live in Washington.
The first Black exclusion law in Oregon, adopted in 1844 by the Provisional Government, mandated that Blacks attempting to settle in Oregon would be publicly whipped—thirty-nine lashes, repeated every six months—until they departed. There is no documented record of any official whipping—the law was written with a grace period, and it was repealed before it had expired—but the concept was clear. In 1849, the Oregon Territorial Government adopted a second Black exclusion law, which was repealed in 1853.
The Oregon constitution, adopted in 1857, banned slavery but also excluded Blacks from legal residence. It made it illegal for Blacks to be in Oregon or to own real estate, make contracts, vote, or use the legal system. Like earlier exclusion laws, the constitutional ban, which took effect when Oregon became a state in 1859, was not retroactive, which meant that it did not apply to Blacks who were legally in Oregon before the ban was adopted.
Resource:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/learn/a-growing-nation/64/learn#:~:text=The%2013%20original%20states%20were,the%20Atlantic%20Ocean%20from%20Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
https://statedistance.com/border-new-york-and-vermont
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_arrival_in_New_Amsterdam
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