USA > New York > History of the state of New York Vol I > Part 36
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353
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
six years before, at the fort on the Mistie ; in the number CHAP. X. of victims alone were the murderous exploits of the New Netherland Dutch against the North River savages less 1643. shocking to humanity, than the ruthless achievements of the New England Puritans against the devoted tribe of the Pequods.
Morning at length eame, and the victorious parties re- 26 Feb. turned to Fort Amsterdam with thirty prisoners and the the soldiers Return of heads of several of their vietims. The "Roman achieve- sterdam. to Fort Anı- ment" of the conquerors was acknowledged by largesses to the soldiery, who were welcomed baek by Kieft per- sonally, with " shaking of the hands and congratulations." The example of the exulting director was infectious. Even women joined in the triumph, and insulted the bloody tro- phies. Cupidity, too, followed the track of earnage. A small party of Duteh and English colonists went over to Pavonia to pillage the deserted eneampment. In vain the soldiers left there on guard warned them to return. They persisted ; and Direk Straatmaker and his wife were killed by some outlaying Indians, whose wigwams they attempt- ed to plunder. The English, " who had one gun amongst them," narrowly escaped a similar fate .*
The success of the expeditions against the refugee sav- ages at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hoeek provoked emulation. Wolfertsen, and some of his neighbors at New Amersfoort, signed a petition to the director for permission to attack 27 Feb. the Marechkawieeks, who resided between them and Island In- The Long Breuckelen. But Kieft, yielding to the adviee of Bogar- tacked. dians at- dus and others of his council, refused his assent. The Marechkawieeks had never done any thing unfriendly to the Dutch, and were " hard to conquer ;" to attack them now would only be to add them to the number of already exasperated foes ; it would lead to a destruetive war, and bring ruin on the aggressors. Nevertheless, if these In- dians showed signs of hostility, the director authorized every colonist to defend himself as best he might.
* De Vries, 179; Breeden Raedt, 16, 1 ;; Alb. Rec., iii., 117 ; Hol. Doc., ii., 375 ; iii., 112 ; O'Call., i., 269 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 11.
Z
354
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. X.
1643.
Kieft's proviso was unfortunate. The red man's corn was coveted ; and some movements of the Marechkawiecks were conveniently construed into those signs of hostility for which the ambiguous decree had provided. A secret foraging expedition was presently set on foot, and two wagon-loads of grain were plundered from the unsus- pecting savages; who, in vainly endeavoring to protect- their property, lost three lives in the skirmish which fol- lowed .*
ance.
Despair of the colo- nists. 1 March.
The sav- It only needed this scandalous outrage to fill the meas- ages arous- ed to venge- ure of Indian endurance. Up to this time, the Long Isl- and savages had been among the warmest friends of the Dutch. Now they had been attacked and plundered by the strangers whom they had welcomed, and to whom they had done no wrong. Common cause was at once made with the North River Indians, who burned with frenzied hate and revenge, when they found that the midnight massacres at Pavonia and Manhattan were not the work of the Mohawks, but of the Dutch. From swamps and thickets the mysterious enemy made his sudden onset. The farmer was murdered in the open field ; women and children, granted their lives, were swept off into a long captivity ; houses and bouweries, haystacks and grain, cattle and crops, were all destroyed. From the shores of the Raritan to the valley of the Housatonic, not a single plantation was safe. Eleven tribes of Indians rose in open war; and New Netherland now read the awful lesson which Connecticut had learned six years before. Such of the colonists as escaped with their lives, fled from their desolated homes to seek refuge in Fort Amsterdam. In their despair, they threatened to return to the Fatherland, or remove to Rensselaerswyck, " which experienced no trouble:" Fearing a general depopulation, Kieft was obliged to take all the colonists into the pay of the com- pany, to serve as soldiers for two months. At this con- juncture, Roger Williams, who, "not having liberty of taking ship" in Massachusetts, " was forced to repair unto
* Hol. Doc., iii., 110; v., 320, 337, 338 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 11.
355
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
the Dutch," arrived at Manhattan, on his way to Europe. CHAP. X. " Before we weighed anchor," wrote the liberal-minded founder of Rhode Island, eleven years afterward, " mine 1643 eyes saw the flames at their towns, and the flights and hurries of men, women, and children, the present removal of all that could for Holland."*
Even Vriesendael did not escape the general calamity. Vriesendael The outhouses, and crops, and cattle on the plantation attacked. were destroyed. The terrified colonists escaped into the manor house, in which De Vries had prudently construct- ed loop-holes for musketry. While all were standing on their guard, the same Indian whom the patroon had hu- manely conducted out of Fort Amsterdam on the night of the massacre at Pavonia, coming up to the besiegers, re- lated the occurrence, and told them that De Vries was "a good chief." The grateful savages at once cried out to De Vries's people that, if they had not already destroyed the cattle, they would not do so now ; they would let the lit- tle brewery stand, although they "longed for the copper kettle, to make barbs for their arrows." The siege was instantly raised, and the relenting red men departed. Hastening down to Manhattan, De Vries indignantly de- manded of Kieft, " Has it not happened just as I said, that you were only helping to shed Christian blood ?" " Who will now compensate us for our losses ?" But the humil- iated director " gave no answer." He was surprised that no Indians had come to the fort. " It is no wonder," re- torted De Vries ; "why should they, whom you have treated so, come here ?"+
Kieft now sent a friendly message to the Long Island Fruitless Indians. But the indignant savages would not listen. the Long "Are you our friends ?" cried the Indians from afar ; ages. "you are only corn-thieves ;" and the messengers return- ed to Fort Amsterdam, to report the taunting words with which the red men had rejected the advances of the faith- less chief at Manhattan.#
* Breeden Raedt, 17, 18; Hol. Doc., ii., 375 ; Alb. Rec., ii., 213; Winthrop, ii., 97; R. I. H. S. Coll., ili., 155 ; O'Call., i., 271, 420 ; Bancroft, ii., 291.
# Hol. Doc., iii., 111 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 11. t De Vries, 180.
message to
Island sav-
356
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
1643. Public clamor against the director.
4 March. Proclama- tion for a day of fast- ing.
CHAP. X. All this time the obstinate director had remained safely within the walls of Fort Amsterdam, where flocked the victims of his rashness. It was hard to bear the wrath of ruined farmers, and childless men, and widowed wom- en. To divert the public clamor, several other expeditions were sent out against the Indians, under the command of Adriaensen. But the marauding force, which was partly composed of English colonists, returned without having accomplished any thing ; while Adriaensen himself, in witnessing the destruction of his own bouwery, was made to taste the bitter fruits of that war which his own coun- sels had assisted to provoke. The proud heart of the di- rector began to fail him at last. In one week, desolation and sorrow had taken the place of gladness and prosperity. The colony intrusted to his charge was nearly ruined. It was time to humble himself before the Most High, and in- voke from Heaven the mercy which the Christian had re- fused to the savage. A day of general fasting and prayer was proclaimed. "We continue to suffer much trouble and loss from the heathen, and many of our inhabitants see their lives and property in jeopardy, which is doubt- less owing to our sins," was Kieft's contrite confession, as he exhorted every one penitently to supplicate the mer- cy of God, " so that his holy name may not, through our iniquities, be blasphemed by the heathen."*
The people propose to send Kieft back to Holland.
Kieft's mean sub- terfage.
But while the people humbled themselves before their God, they still held the director personally responsible for all the consequences of the massacres at Pavonia and Cor- laer's Hook; and some of the burghers, and of the for- mer board of Twelve Men, boldly talked of imitating the example which Virginia had set, in the case of Harvey, by deposing Kieft, and sending him back to Holland. The director, in alarm, endeavored to shift the responsibility upon Adriaensen and his coadjutors, who had so wrong- fully used the name of the commonalty in the petition
* Alb. Rec., ii., 214, 215 ; Hol. Doc., iii., 111 ; O'Call., i., 271, 272. The custom of set- ting apart, by the secular authority, days of public humiliation and public thanksgiving, obtained in Holland, as we have seen, before the settlement of New Netherland or New England ; ante, p. 41.
357
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
which urged the war. " For what has occurred," pleaded CHAP. X. Kieft, "you must blame the freemen." "You forbade those freemen to meet, on pain of punishment for disobe- 1643. dience," retorted the indignant burghers ; " how came it, then ?" The convieted director was silenced .*
Finding that Kieft was endeavoring to divert from him- self the odium of the slaughter of the Indians and the misery of the colonists, Adriaensen, now himself an almost ruined man, had no disposition to bear all the bitterness of popular reproach. Arming himself with a hanger and Adriaensen pistol, he rushed into the director's room, demanding director. attacks the " What lies are these you are reporting of ine ?" The 21 March. would-be assassin was promptly disarmed and imprisoned ; but his servant, with another of his men, armed with guns and pistols, hastened to the fort, where one of them, firing at the director, was shot down by the sentinel, and his head set upon the gallows. The prisoner's comrades now crowded around the director's door, demanding their lead- er's release. Kieft refused ; but agreed to submit the question to the commonalty, with liberty to the prisoner's friends to seleet some of their number to assist at the ex- amination. This, however, they deelined to do, and in- sisted that the prisoner should be discharged upon his pay- ing a fine of five hundred guilders, and absenting him- self for three months from Manhattan. The director, wish- ing to show some deferenee to the commonalty, proposed to call in some of the most respectable citizens, to sit with his council in deeiding the case. But the commonalty, unwilling to countenance the abuse which the director had deceitfully negleeted to amend, refused ; and Kieft, 28 March finding that " no one would or dared" assist him, determ- ined to send Adriaensen to Holland for trial.t
* Alb. Rec., iii., 109 : Hol. Doc., iii., 149-154
Alb. Rec., ii., 216-219 ; iii., 94 ; llol. Doc., ii., 112 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 12 ; O'Call., i., 273, 274 ; Winthrop, ii., 97. The New England historians who allude to this case, ac- count for Adriaensen's attack on Kieft on the ground of his jealousy of Underhill. But Underhill was not then in the service of the Dutch ; nor did he enter it until the autumnn of 1643. Adriaensen, returning to New Netherland, obtained a patent on the 11th of May, 1647, for " Awiehaken," on the west side of the North River, now known as Weehaken, just north of Hobcken .- Alb. Rec. G. G., 491
358
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
1643. 4 March. The Long Island In- dians de- sire a peace.
CHAP. X. Meanwhile, the Long Island Indians had begun to re- lent. Spring was at hand, and they desired to plant their corn. Three delegates from the wigwams of Penhawitz, their " great chief," approached Fort Amsterdam, bearing a white flag. "Who will go to meet them ?" demanded Kieft. None were willing but De Vries and Jacob Olfert- sen. "Our chief has sent us," said the savages, "to know why you have killed his people, who have never laid a straw in your way, nor done you aught but good ?" " Come and speak to our chief on the sea-coast." Set- ting out with the Indian messengers, De Vries and Olfert- sen, in the evening, came to "Rechqua-akie," or Rocka- way, where they found nearly three hundred savages, and about thirty wigwams. The chief, "who had but one eye," invited them to pass the night in his cabin, and re- galed them with oysters and fish.
5 March. De Vries sen at At break of day, the envoys from Manhattan were con- and Olfert- ducted into the woods about four hundred yards off, where Rockaway. they found sixteen chiefs of Long Island waiting for their coming. Placing the two Europeans in the centre, the chiefs seated themselves around in a ring, and their "best speaker" arose, holding in his hand a bundle of small sticks. " When you first came to our coasts," slowly began the orator, "you sometimes had no food; we gave you our beans and corn, and relieved you with our oysters and fish ; and now, for recompense, you murder our people ;" . and he laid down a little stick. "In the beginning of your voyages, you left your people here with their goods ; we traded with them while your ships were away, and cherished them as the apple of our eye; we gave them our daughters for companions, who have borne children, and many Indians have sprung from the Swannekens ; and now you villainously massacre your own blood." The chief laid down another stick ; many more remained in his hand ; but De Vries, cutting short the reproachful catalogue, invited the chiefs to accompany him to Fort Amsterdam, where the director "would give them pres- ents to make a peace."
359
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
The chiefs, assenting, ended their oration ; and, pre- CHAP. X. senting De Vries and his colleague each with ten fathoms of wampum, the party set out for their canoes, to shorten The 93- 1643. the return of the Dutch envoys. While waiting for the tide to rise, an armed Indian, who had been dispatched by a sachem twenty miles off, came running to warn the chiefs against going to Manhattan. "Are you all crazy, to go to the fort," said he, "where that scoundrel lives, who has so often murdered your friends ?" But De Vries as- sured them that "they would find it otherwise, and come home again with large. presents." One of the chiefs re- plied at once, "Upon your words we will go; for the In- dians have never heard lies from you, as they have from other Swannekens."
Embarking in a large eanoe, the Dutch envoys, accom- panied by eighteen Indian delegates, set out from Rock- away, and reached Fort Amsterdam about three. o'clock in the afternoon. A treaty was presently made with the 25 March. Long Island savages ; and Kieft, giving them some pres- peace con- Treaty of ents, asked them to bring to the fort the chiefs of the Riv- cluded. er tribes, " who had lost so many Indians," that he might make peace with them also .*
Some of the Long Island sachems accordingly went to Hackinsack and Tappan. But it was several weeks be- fore the enraged savages would listen to the counsels of the mediators, or put any faith in the director. At last, Oritany, the sachem of the Hackinsaeks, invested with a Peace cov- plenipotentiary commission from the neighboring tribes, with the enanted appeared at Fort Amsterdam. Kieft " endowed him with dians. River In- 22 April. presents ;" and peace was covenanted between the River Indians and the Dutch. Mutual injuries were to be " for- given and forgotten forever;" future provocations were re-
* De Vries, 182 ; Alb. Rec., il., 214, 215; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 12 ; O'Call., i., 276. Winthrop, ii., 97, says that the Indians, "by the mediation of Mr. Williams, who was then there to go in a Dutch ship for England, were pacified, and peace re-established be- tween the Dutch and them." But Winthrop errs in this statement. Williams, in his let- ter of the 5th of October, 1654, to the General Court of Massachusetts, in which he speaks of the war (R. I. H. S. Coll., iii., 155), says nothing whatever in respect to his own agency with the Indians in bringing about the peace. Indeed, he seems to have sailed for Eu- rope while the war was yet raging. On the other hand, De Vries's own minute and faith- ful journal seems to be conclusive.
chems visit Fort Am- sterdam.
360
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. X. ciprocally to be avoided ; hostile movements of other tribes, 1643. not included in the treaty, were to be prevented within the territories of the Hackinsacks, Tappans, and West Chester Indians ; while timely warning was to be given to "the Christians" of any brewing mischief.
The In- dians still ed. But the savages went away " grumbling at their pres- discontent- ents"-for their young men would think them only a tri- fling atonement. Nor was confidence fully restored. The trembling farmers planted their corn, in peace indeed, but in constant dread of the murmuring Indians' sudden war- whoop. The director himself distrusted the ominous re- 18 June. pose ; and a new proclamation from Fort Amsterdam pro- hibited all tavern-keepers, and other inhabitants of New Netherland from selling any liquors to the savages.
20 July.
Kieft's vain attempt to bribe a chief.
At midsummer a neighboring chief visited Vriesendael in deep despondency. The young Indians. were urging war; for some had lost fathers or mothers, and all were mourning over the memory of friends. "The presents you have given to atone for their losses are not worth the touch ;" "we can pacify our young men no longer," said the well-meaning sachem, as he warned De Vries against venturing alone into the woods, for fear that some of the Indians, who did not know him, might kill their constant friend. At the patroon's entreaty, the chief accompanied him down to Fort Amsterdam. "You are a chief-you should cause the crazy young Indians who want war again with the Swannekens to be killed," said Kieft, as he treach- erously offered the sachem a bounty of two hundred fath- oms of wampum. But the indignant red man spurned the proffered bribe. "This can not be done by me," he replied ; " had you, at first, fully atoned for your mur- ders, they would all have been forgotten ; I shall always do my best to pacify our people ; but I fear I can not, for they are continually crying for vengeance."* And so the boding sachem went his way. .
* Alb. Rec., ii., 220, 224 ; De Vries, 182 ; O'Call., i., 277 ; Bancroft, ii., 292.
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
361 /
CHAPTER XI.
1643-1644.
THE "Old Colony" of Plymouth was founded by emi- CHAP. XI. grants who, as we have seen, had learned valuable les- sons in popular constitutional liberty, during a twelve. years' sojourn in Holland. The example which the union of the Northern Provinees of the Netherlands had given to gland. Europe in 1579, was now, after more than sixty years' experience, to be followed in America. Troubles were prevailing in England ; the Puritan colonies were threat- ened with danger ; the savages and the French were both to be feared ; and Connecticut alone could not overawe and "erowd out" her Duteh neighbors in New Netherland. New Plymouth, Massachusetts, Conneetieut, and New Haven, therefore, determined to form a political league for offense and defense. Commissioners from these sev- eral colonies assembled at Boston in the spring of 1643; and, on the nineteenth day of May, agreed upon Artieles 19 May. of Confederation, by which the " UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND" became " all as one."
The administration of the affairs of the confederaey was intrusted to a board, consisting of two commissioners from each eolony. They were to assemble annually, or oftener, if necessary. The commissioners were always to be " in church fellowship." They were invested with extraordi- nary powers for making war and peace ; they had the ex- clusive management of Indian affairs ; and they were to see that the common expenses of the confederaey were justly assessed. The spoils of war, "whether it be in lands, goods, or persons," were to be proportionably di-
1643. The United Colonies of New En-
362
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP XI. vided among the confederates. Specific provision was 1643. made for the surrender of runaway servants, and of fugi- tives from justice ; who, upon proper proof, were to be sent back to their masters, or to the authorities of the colony from which they might have escaped. Neither of the col- onies was to engage in a war without the consent of at least six of the commissioners. Local "peculiar jurisdic- tion and government" was carefully reserved to each sep- arate colony in the New England confederation, as it had been carefully reserved, sixty years before, to each sepa- rate province of the United Netherlands. The doctrine of "State Rights" is nearly three centuries old. The Union of Utrecht-the first Constitutional Union of Sov- ereign and Independent States-was essentially the model for the first Union of American colonies .*
Kieft ad- dresses the commis- sioners. 20 July.
As soon as intelligence of the New England confedera- tion reached Manhattan, Kieft, wishing to open a commu- nication with the commissioners, dispatched a sloop to Boston, with letters in Latin, addressed to "the Governor and Senate of the United Provinces of New England." Congratulating them on their recent league, the director complained of the "insufferable wrongs" which the En- glish had done to the Dutch on the Connecticut, and of the misrepresentations of Lord Say, Peters, and others to the States' ambassador at London ; and desired " a cate- gorical answer," whether the commissioners would aid or desert the Hartford people, that so the New Netherland government "may know their friends from their enemies."
Winthrop replies.
The commissioners were not in session when the Dutch sloop arrived at Boston. But Governor Winthrop, the pre- siding commissioner, after "advising with some of the August. elders who were at hand, and some of the deputies," re- plied in his own name. Referring Kieft to their " chiefest authority," from which he " should receive further answer in time convenient," Winthrop expressed his grief at the differences with his brethren of Hartford, which, he suggest-
* See Articles at length, in Hazard, ii., 1-6 ; and in Winthrop, ii., 101 ; Morton's Memo- rial, 229 ; Hutch., i., 119, 120 ; Bancroft, i., 420-422 ; Hildreth, i., 285, 286 ; post, p. 445.
363
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
ed, "might be composed by arbiters, either in England or CHAP. XI. Holland, or here." The confederates were bound " to seek the good and safety of each other ;" but the difficulty " be- 1643. ing only for a small parcel of land, was a matter of so little value in this vast continent, as was not worthy to cause a breach between two people so nearly related both in pro- fession of the same Protestant religion and otherwise."
When the commissioners met, a month afterward, September. Connecticut made complaints on her side, and New Ha- missioners'
answer to
The com- ven handed in statements of the grievances which their Kieft. people had suffered from the Dutch and Swedes on the South River. Winthrop was now instructed to communi- cate their complaints to Kieft, " requiring answer to the particulars, that as we will not wrong others, so we may not desert our confederates in any just cause." The pres- 18 Sept. ident accordingly wrote to Kieft, recapitulating the in- juries which New Haven had suffered on the South Riv- er, the charges against Provoost, the Dutch commissary at Fort Good Hope, " for sundry unworthy passages," and expressing the opinion of the commissioners in favor of the " justice of the cause of Hartford in respect of title of the land." This opinion the commissioners "could not change," unless they could see more light than had yet appeared to them " by the title the Dutch insisted upon." But Kieft, dissatisfied with this reply, again asserted the 1644. right of the Dutch to their lands at Hartford, and renew, March. ed his complaints of injuries .*
In the mean time, the red men were thirsting for blood ; and a general war between the Indian and the European appeared to be at hand. The valley of the Connecticut 1643. again became the scene of strife ; and Miantonomoh, burn- The Con- ing to avenge upon Uncas the indignities which he had suffered at Boston, invaded the Mahican country, at the August. head of a thousand warriors. But the fate of war threw the Narragansett chief into the hands of his rival, who transferred his prisoner to the custody of the English at Hartford. The commissioners, meeting at Boston, agreed September.
July. necticut In- dians in open war.
* Winthrop, ii., 129, 130, 140, 157 ; Hazard, ii., 11, 215, 216.
364
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
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