Brooklyn & Give me Liberty or Give me Decadence?

[Terrance Flaherty]

http://www.fortklock.com/fallacies.htm

Historical Fallacies Regarding Colonial New York
An address delivered before the Oneida Historical Society, Utica, NY
at its second annual meeting, January 14, 1879.
By Douglas Campbell of New York
F. J. Ficker, Law & Job Printer, 79 & 81 William St., New York, 1879.

Sir Robert Walpole, during his last illness, desiring a friend to read
to him was asked to select the book. "Anything but History," he
answered, "that must be false." 

These conditions threw the writing of colonial history into the hands of
the New Englanders, and there were special reasons why that people never
understood New York. From their first landing at Manhattan Island the
Dutchmen found themselves engaged in a boundary quarrel with their New
England neighbors, which continue even after the Revolution, and at
times almost culminated in open war. New York was generally in the
right, and it was so adjudged by the authorities in England, but her
victories only intensified the bitterness against her. This, with the
English dislike for foreigners
inherited by our eastern brethren, sufficiently accounts for the
prejudice, of which we see so much among the New England revolutionary
writers. But that is only a part of the story, a more potent cause of
misunderstanding was actual want of materials relating to our history.
We must remember that in the last century these colonies were very far
apart. We are much nearer Central Europe today than we were to Virginia
a hundred years ago.

As Mason went North and as Dixon went South and stuff? 

Several causes combined to make New York the most important of all the
colonies, although far down the scale in point of population. The chief
of these was her geographical position, which gave her, through the
Hudson and Mohawk, the key to the American Continent. Upon this subject
I need not dwell. The learned and eloquent President of this society
(Hon. Horatio Seymour) has on other occasions treated it so exhaustively
that gleaners in the field find nothing to reward their industry.

The second marked feature of the colony was the character of her
population. New England and Virginia were peopled almost exclusively by
Englishmen, but New York was always cosmopolitan. The America of today
is not English in its character, it has engrafted ont he original stock
shoots from all the modern European nations, and this heterogeneity
makes it what it is, with all its virtues and short comings. Such as
America is today, New York has ever been, except that her settlers were
culled from nations whose virtures are all historic.

Thus the people were gathered from all nations, Dutch, French, English,
German, Irish and Scotch, and yet they had one bond of union. They had
all suffered for their religion, and all had a keen sense, not only of
their religious but of their civil rights.

The third peculiarity of New York was the fact that it was settled
purely for purposes of commerce. New England had its origin in a
religious movement. Virginia grew up on tobacco culture. New York alone
was planted solely for commercial reasons. The character thus impressed
upon the colony at birth was never lost. The New Yorkers have always
been emphatically a commercial people.

Looking back at the world's history, we find that few ideas regarding
civil liberty have
emanated from classical universities. They have sprung from a very
different quarter.

For the first forty years of her existence, New York was the property of
the Dutch West India Company.