USA > New York > History of the state of New York Vol I > Part 37
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1643. Murder of Miantono- moh.
CHAP. XI. that he ought to be put to death ; and Uncas, receiving back Miantonomoh from his English jailer, conducted him to the borders of the Mahican territory, and executed their judgment upon a former ally .*
7 August. The In- dians at- tack Dutch trading boats on the North River.
The spirit of war, at the same time, broke out among the upper tribes on the North River; and Pacham, the subtile chief of the Tankitekes near Haverstraw, visiting the Wappingers above the Highlands, urged them to a general massacre of the Dutch. A shallop coming down from Fort Orange with a cargo of four hundred beaver skins, was attacked and plundered, and one of the crew was killed. Two other open boats were presently seized ; but, in attacking a fourth, the savages were repulsed, and lost six of their warriors. Nine of the Dutch colonists were killed, and a woman and two children taken pris- oners. Others were slain by the savages, who approached their scattered dwellings under the guise of friendship Intelligence of the outbreak was quickly borne to Fort Amsterdam ; and the news of "fifteen Dutch slain by the Indians, and much beaver taken," soon reached Boston.t
September. Kieft sum- mons the commonal- ty again.
The appalling crisis compelled Kieft to summon the peo- ple again into council. The commonalty were convoked at Fort Amsterdam, and asked to elect " five or six per- sons from among themselves," to consider the propositions which the director might submit. The people met ; but remembering Kieft's cavalier treatment of the "Twelve Men" in the previous year, they " considered it wise" to leave the responsibility of selection to the director and council, provided the right should be reserved to them- selves to reject the persons " against whom there might be any thing to object, and who are not pleasing to us." The scruples of the commonalty, however, were overcome; and again imitating the example of the Fa- therland, the people elected "Eight Men" from among themselves, " maturely to consider" the propositions of
"Eight Men" chosen.
* Winthrop, ii., 130, and Savage's note, on page 132; Hazard, ii., 7-13 ; Col. Rec. Conn., 94 ; Trumbull, i., 129-134 ; Bancroft, i., 424 ; Hildreth, i., 292, 293.
t Alb. Rec., iii., 143 ; Hol. Doc., iii., 114; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 12; Winthrop, ii., 130.
365
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
the director. This second board of popular representatives CHAP. XI. in New Netherland consisted of Jochem Pietersen Kuyter, Jan Jansen Dam, Barent Dircksen, Abraham Pietersen, 1643. Isaac Allerton, Thomas Hall, Gerrit Wolfertsen, and. Cor- nelis Melyn .*
Two days after their election, the Eight Men met, at 15 Sept. Kieft's summons, " to consider the critical circumstances of the Eigh: Assembly of the country." Before attending to any other business, Men. they resolved to exclude from their board Jan Jansen Dam, one of the signers of the letter to Kieft, which was the im- mediate cause of the massacres at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook. In vain Dam protested, and charged the director with deceit in procuring his signature. The obnoxious representative was inexorably expelled ; and Jan Evert- sen Bout, of Pavonia, was selected by the remaining sev- en to fill his vacant seat. The Eight Men, having thus purged their board, resolved that hostilities should be im- Warlike mediately renewed against the river Indians ; but that authorized. measures peace should be preserved with the Long Island tribes, who were to be encouraged to bring in " some heads of the murderers." As large a military force as the freemen could afford to pay, was to be promptly enlisted and equipped. Several "good and fitting articles" were also ordained by the Eight Men, " forbidding all taverning, and all other irregularities." A week's preaching was pre- seribed instead ; but the praiseworthy order "was not carried into execution by the officer."t
Kieft did not delay the warlike preparations which the Eight Men had authorized. The colonists and the serv- ants of the company were armed and drilled ; and as the English English inhabitants were now threatening to leave New enrolled. Netherland, they were taken into the public service; the commonalty agreeing to provide for one third of their pay.
* Hol. Doc., iii., 141, 144 ; O'Call., i., 284. Kuyter and Dam had been members of the previous board of Twelve Men ; ante, p. 317. Cornelis Melyn was the patroon of Staten Island. Thomas HIall was the deserter from Holmes's party on the South River in 1635. Isaac Allerton came to New Plymouth in the Mayflower, and, about the year 1638, removed to Manhattan, where he continued to have large transactions as a merchant .- Alb. Rec., i., 70, 71 ; ii., 42, 54, 131 ; Savage's note to Winthrop, i., 25 ; ii., 96, 210.
+ Alb. Rec., ii., 231 ; Hol. Doc., iii., 145, 215 ; v., 323 ; O'Call., i., 285, 286.
residents
366
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
1643. 29 Sept.
Captain Underhill taken into the Dutch service.
CHAP. XI. Fifty Englishmen were promptly enrolled ; all of whom swore to be faithful to the States General, the Prince of Orange, the West India Company, and the director and council of New Netherland, and to " sacrifice their lives in their and the country's service." The command of this force was intrusted to Captain John Underhill, one of the heroes in the Pequod war ; who, having undergone the severe discipline of the Boston Church, had established himself at Stamford, a little east of Captain Patrick's set- tlement at Greenwich, and now offered to the Dutch the benefit of his veteran skill .*
The Weck- quaesgeeks destroy Anne Hutchin- son's set- tlement. September.
But before Kieft could complete his military arrange- ments, the Weckquaesgeeks dug up the hatchet which they had buried, eighteen months before, on the shores of Bronx River. Approaching " in way of friendly neighbor- hood, as they had been accustomed," the widowed Anne Hutchinson's blameless retreat at " Annie's Hoeck," they watched their opportunity, and murdered that extraordin- ary woman, her daughter, and Collins, her son-in-law, and all her family, save one grand-daughter, eight years old, whom they carried off into captivity. The houses and cattle were ruthlessly destroyed.t From Annie's Hoeck, the devastating party proceeded downward to " Vrede- land," and attacked Throgmorton's peaceful settlement. Such of Throgmorton's and Cornell's families as were at home were killed, and the cattle, and barns, and houses were all burned up. A happy accident bringing a boat there at the very moment of the tragedy, some women
Throgmo ton's settle- ment at- tacked
* Alb. Rec., ii., 233 ; Hol. Doc., ii., 377 ; iii., 121 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 13; O'Call., i., 286, 420 ; Winthrop, ii., 14, 63, 97. Winthrop, however, erroneously represents-and. Trumbull (i., 139) copies the error-that the Dutch people were so offended with Kieft, that he "durst not trust himself among them, but entertained a guard of fifty English about his person." The people were, no doubt, offended enough ; and, for that reason, it is not probable that they would have agreed to pay part of the expense of an English body-guard for the director:
t Winthrop, ii., 136 ; Gorton's Defense, in ii., R. I. H. S. Coll., 58, 59; Alb. Rec., ii., 315 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 276 ; Bolton's West Chester, i., 515. Welde, in his " Rise, Reign, and Ruin of the Antinomians," thus records the destruction of their leader. "The Indians set upon them, and slew her and all 'her family, her daughter and her daughter's husband, and all their children, save one that escaped (her own husband being dead be- fore). * *** God's hand is the more apparently seen herein, to pick out this woeful woman, to make her, and those belonging to her, an unheard-of heavy example of their cruelty above others."
367
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
and children fled on board ; and thus the settlement was CHAP. XI. saved from utter extermination. Nevertheless, eighteen victims of the red man's indiscriminating fury lost their 1643. lives in West Chester .*
The vengeance which desolated West Chester did not spare Long Island. Lady Deborah Moody, who had been Lady Moody's "dealt with" by the Church at Salem for "the error of brave de- denying baptism to infants," having fled for refuge, with June. many others "infected with Anabaptism," into New Neth- erland, had established herself, by Kieft's special permis- sion, at 's Gravensande, or Gravesend, on Long Island. But she had scarcely become settled in her retreat before her plantation was attacked by the savages. A brave de- September. fense was, nevertheless, made by forty resolute colonists ; the fierce besiegers were repulsed ; and Gravesend escaped the fate which overwhelmed all the neighboring ,settle- ments on Long Island.t
Doughty's settlement at Mespath, or Newtown, did not Doughty's fare so well. During the first year, he had re-enforced at Mespath settlement himself with several new families of colonists. More than destroyed. eighty persons were soon settled in Mespath, and an air of prosperity prevailed. Doughty himself, who had "scarcely means enough of his own to build cven a hovel, let alone to people a colony at his own cxpense," was em- ployed as minister ; and his associates prepared for him a farm, upon the profits of which he lived, while he dis- charged, in return, the clerical duties of his station. But the savages attacking the settlement, the colonists were driven from their lands, " with the loss of some men and many cattle, besides almost all their houses, and what other property they had." They afterward returned, and remained awhile ; but finding that they consumed more nists seek The colo- than they could raise, they fled for refuge to Manhattan. Manhattan. refuge at
* Winthrop, if., 136; Bolton's West Chester, i., 514.
t Hol. Doc., iii., 135 ; Alb. Rec., xx., 7 ; Winthrop, ii., 124, 136 ; Thompson's L. I., ii., 169-173. Gravesend was not named, as many suppose, after the well-known English port on the Thames ; but Kieft himself gave it the name of the ancient city, 's Graven- sande-" the Count's Sand"-on the northern banks of the Maas, opposite the Brielle, where the Counts of Holland resided before they established themselves at the Hague in the year 1250.
368
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. XI. Here Doughty officiated as minister for the English resi- 1643. dents ; but they not supporting him, two collections were taken up for his benefit, to which both Dutch and English residents contributed .*
The war-whoop, which rang through West Chester and Long Island, was re-echoed through New Jersey. The grumbling Hackinsacks, unappeased by a sufficient atone- ment, soon fulfilled their sachem's foreboding words. A Hackin- sack at- tacked. 17 Sept. sudden night attack was made on Van der Horst's colony at "Achter Cul." The house was set on fire; and the small garrison, "five soldiers, five boys, and one man," after a determined resistance, barely escaped in a canoe, with nothing but their arms. The plantation was utterly The Neve- ruined. The Nevesincks below the Raritan were aroused. sincks aroused. Aert Theunisen, of Hoboken, while trading at the Beere- gat-now known as Shrewsbury Inlet, just south of Sandy Hook-was attacked and killed by the savages. The yacht had scarcely returned to Manhattan with the tidings, before a nearer calamity appalled the Dutch. 1 October. Nine Indians, coming to Pavonia with friendly demon- strations, approached the house of Jacob Stoffelsen, which was guarded by a detachment of three or four soldiers. Stoffelsen, who had married the widow of Van Voorst, Pauw's former superintendent, was a favorite with the savages, who, making up a " false errand," succeeded in sending him across the river to Fort Amsterdam. As soon as Stoffelsen was safely out of the way, they approached the soldiers under a show of friendship. These, incautious- ly laying aside their arms, were all murdered. Not a soul escaped alive, except the little son of Van Voorst, whom the savages carried off a prisoner to Tappan, after burning all the bouweries, and houses, and cattle, and corn at Pavo- nia. At Kieft's earnest entreaty, De Vries, the only per- son who "durst go among the Indians," went up the river, and procured the release of the captive.t
Pavonia surprised.
* Breeden Raedt, 25 ; Hol. Doc., iv., 71 ; v., 360 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 301, 333.
Alb. Rec., iii., 153 ; Hol. Doc., iv., 247 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 302 ; Benson's Mem- oir, 92; De Vries, 183.
369
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
Thus the war began anew. West Chester was already CHAP. XI. laid waste, and Long Island almost "destitute of inhabit- ants and stock." From the Highlands of Nevesinek to 1643. War re- the valley of Tappan, the whole of New Jersey was onee menced. more in possession of its aboriginal lords. Staten Island, where Melyn had established himself, was hourly expeet- ing an assault. The devastating tide rolled over the isl- and of Manhattan itself. From its northern extremity to the Kolek, there were now no more than five or six bouw- eries left; and these " were threatened by the Indians ev- ery night with fire, and by day with the slaughter of both people and cattle." No other place remained, where the trembling population could find protection, than " around and adjoining Fort Amsterdam." There women and chil- dren lay " concealed in straw huts," while their husbands and fathers mounted guard on the erumbling ramparts above. For the fort itself was almost defenseless ; it re- sembled " rather a mole-hill than a fortress against an enemy." The cattle which had escaped destruction were huddled within the walls, and were already beginning to starve for want of forage. It was indispensable to main- tain a constant guard at all hours ; for seven allied tribes, " well supplied with muskets, powder, and ball," which they had procured from private traders, boldly threatened to attack the dilapidated citadel, "with all their strength, now amounting to fifteen hundred men." So confident had the enemy become, that their seouting parties con- stantly threatened the advaneed sentinels of the garrison; and Ensign Van Dyck, while relieving guard at one of 5 October the outposts, was wounded by a musket-ball in his arm. All the forces that the Dutch could now muster, besides the fifty or sixty soldiers in garrison, and the enrolled En- glish, were "about two hundred freemen." With this handful of men was New Netherland to be defended against the "implacable fury" of her savage foe .*
" Fear coming more over the land," the Eight Men The Eight Men again were again convoked. There were two of the company's convoked.
* Hol. Doc., iii., 134-140 ; Alb. Rec., ii., 238 ; Winthrop, ii., 136.
A A
370
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
CHAP. XI. ships at anchor before the fort, which had just been load- ed with provisions for Curacoa. The Eight Men proposed 1643. that the cargoes of these ships should be relanded, and a part of their crews drafted into the service of the province. 6 October. They also recommended an application to their English mendations neighbors at the north, for the assistance of one hundred Recom-
·of the Eight Men.
and fifty men. For the payment of these auxiliaries, the director was advised to draw a bill of exchange on the West India Company for twenty-five thousand guilders, and, as a security for its payment, to mortgage New Neth- erland to the English .*
Kieft re- fuses to stop the Curaçoa ships.
But Kieft did not " consider expedient" the suggestion to divert supplies from the West Indies; and while fam- ine and an overwhelming enemy were desolating the pre- cincts of Fort Amsterdam, the starving population watched the departing vessels, as they bore to Curacoa the wheat which they had raised, and for which they were now pin- Sends to New Ha- n for sistance. ing. The recommendation to apply to New England for assistance, was, however, promptly adopted ; and Under- hill and Allerton were dispatched to negotiate with New Haven. But their mission utterly failed. Eaton and the General Court, after maturely considering Kieft's letter, Refusal of rejected the proposal to assist New Netherland with an New Ha- ven. auxiliary force. They were prohibited, by their Articles of Confederation, from engaging separately in war; and they were not satisfied " that the Dutch war with the In- dians was just." Nevertheless, if the Dutch needed corn and provisions, the court resolved to give them all the as- sistance in its power.t
De Vries leaves New Nether- land.
At this conjuncture, the suffering province lost one of its best citizens. The bouweries where De Vries had at- tempted to establish colonies all lay in ashes, and the In- dians, whose confidence he had never lost, were " restless, and bent on war, or a full satisfaction." The ruined pa- troon determined to return to the Fatherland. A Rotter- dam Herring-buss, whose master, disappointed in selling
* Hol. Doc., iii., 116, 117 ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 13, 14, 22.
t Alb. Rec., iii., 159 ; Trumbull, i., 139 ; iii., Mass. Hist. Coll., vii., 244.
1
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371
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
his cargo of Madeira wine in New England, " because the CHAP. XI. English there lived soberly," coming through Hell-gate to seek a market in Virginia, anchored before Fort Amster- 28 Sept. 1643. dam. De Vries, accepting the schipper's invitation to pilot his vessel to Virginia, called on Kieft to take his leave. For the last time the director listened to the voice which had so often warned him in vain. "The murders in which you 8 October. have shed so much innocent blood will yet be avenged upon your own head," was De Vries's awful prophecy, as he parted from Kieft, and left Manhattan forever .*
The Eight Men soon met again. Cornelis Melyn, the Meeting of patroon of Staten Island, was their president. The utter Men. the Eight ruin which now menaced the province, and the cold re- pulse which his application for aid had met at New Ha- ven, if they did not entirely overcome Kieft's jealousy of the popular representatives, at least prevented him from interfering with their purpose of communicating directly with their common superiors in Holland. The people of New Netherland had never yet spoken to the authorities of the Fatherland. The time had now come when their voice was, for the first, to be heard at Amsterdam and at the Hague. A letter signed by all the Eight Men, was 24 October. addressed to the College of the XIX. In simple and pa- letter to the Address a thetic words the representatives of the commonalty told Company. West India their tale of woe. How " the fire of war" had been kin- dled around them, their wives and children slaughtered or swept away captives, their cattle destroyed, their es- tates wasted. How famine stared them in the face ; for, " while the people are ruined, the corn and all other prod- uce burnt, and little or nothing saved, not a plough can be put, this autumn, into the ground." " If any provi- sions should be obtained from the English at the East, we know not wherewith we poor men shall pay for them." "This is but the beginning of our troubles, especially as these Indians kill off our people one after another, which they will continue to do, while we are burthened with our muskets, our wives, and our little ones."t
* De Vries, 183.
+ Hol. Doc., iii., 134-140 ; Brecden Raedt, 18.
372
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
1643. 3 Nov. Letter to the States General.
CHAP. XI. . To the States General the Eight Men addressed a still more bold remonstrance ; for they were speaking to the statesmen of their Fatherland. "We are all here, from the smallest to the greatest, without counsel or means ; wholly powerless. The enemy meets with no resistance. The garrison consists of but fifty or sixty soldiers, without ammunition. Fort Amsterdam, utterly defenseless, stands open to the enemy day and night. The company has few or no effects here, as the director informs us. Were it not for this, there might still have been time to receive some assistance from the English at the East, ere all were lost ; but we, helpless inhabitants, while we must abandon all our property, are exceedingly poor. The heathens are strong in might. They have formed an alliance with sev- en other nations ; and are well provided with guns, pow- der, and ball, in exchange for beaver, by the private trad- ers, who for a long time have had free course here. The rest they take from our brethren whom they murder. In short, we suffer the greatest misery, which must astonish a Christian heart to see or hear.".
" We turn then, in a body, to you, High and Mighty Lords, acknowledging your High Mightinesses as our sov- ereigns, and as the Fathers of Fatherland. We suppli- cate, for God's sake, and for the love which their High Mightinesses bear toward their poor and desolate subjects here in New Netherland, that their High Mightinesses would take pity on us, their poor people, and urge upon, and command the Company-to whom we also make known our necessities-to forward to us, by the earliest opportunity, such assistance as their High Mightinesses may deem most proper, in order that we, poor and forlorn beings, may not be left all at once a prey, with women and children, to these cruel heathen. For, should suita- ble assistance not very quickly arrive, according to our expectations, we shall be forced, in order to preserve the lives of those who remain, to remove ourselves to the East, among the English, who would like nothing better than to have possession of this place ; especially on account of
----
373
WILLIAM KIEFT, DIRECTOR GENERAL.
the superior convenience of the sea-coast, bays, and large CHAT. XX. rivers, besides the great fertility of this soil-yea, this alone could, yearly, provision and supply with all neces- 1643. saries twenty, twenty-five, or thirty ships from Brazil or the West Indies."*
The same vessel that bore these dispatches convey- ed a distinguished passenger. Van Curler's benevolent visit to the Mohawk castles in the previous autumn, though it failed to procure the release of the French captives, at least prolonged the life of Father Jogues. Through the dreary winter, the solitary Jesuit endured Father hunger and cold, and the bitter contempt of the savages, among the Jogues Mohawks who reviled his holy zeal. Gradually they began to listen to his words, and receive instruction and baptism. His liberty was enlarged ; and twice he was taken, with the trading parties of the Iroquois, to the neighboring settle- ments of the Dutch, who welcomed him kindly, and "left no stone unturned" to effect his deliverance. While at Fort Orange on one occasion, news came that the French had repulsed the Mohawks at Fort Richelieu ; and the 31 July. Dutch cominander, fearing that the Jesuit Father would. be burned in revenge, counseled him to escape. Jogues at length consented ; and, evading the vigilance of the savages, remained in close concealment for six weeks, Escapes al during which Domine Megapolensis, who had become his ange. Fort Or- attached friend, showed him constant kindness. The wrath of the Mohawks at the escape of their prisoner was at length appeased by presents, to the value of three hundred livres, made up by the colonial authorities ; and 15 Sept. Visits Man- Jogues was sent down the river to Manhattan, where he hattan. was hospitably received by the director.
Here he remained for a month, observing the capital of October. the Dutch province, now desolated by war. Fort Amster- dam was without ditches, and its ramparts of earth had Condition of the crumbled away ; but they " were beginning to face the Dutch cap ital.
gates and bastions with stone." On the island of Man- hattan, and in its environs, were some four or five hund-
* Hol. Doc., ii., 323-328 ; O'Call., i., 289-294.
374
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
1643. Languages and Relig- ions.
CHAP. XI. red men " of different sects and nations," speaking "eight- een different languages." The mechanics who plied their trades were ranged under the walls of the fort ; all others were exposed to the incursions of the savages. No re- ligion, except the Calvinistic, was publicly exercised, and the orders were to admit none but Calvinists; "but this is not observed ; for there are in the colony, besides the Calvinists, Catholics, English Puritans, Lutherans, Ana- baptists, here called Mennonists," &c. The heart of the missionary was grieved at the sufferings of the Dutch, whose losses by the Indians were already estimated at two hundred thousand livres. At length the bark, in which Kieft gave him a free passage to Europe, was ready to sail; and the Jesuit Father, supplied with " black clothes, and all things necessary," gratefully took leave of the Hol- landers, who had shown him so much kindness .*
Jogues sails for Europe. 5 Nov.
Fort Or- ange.
Bevers- wyck.
First church at Bevers- wyck.
At this time, the West India Company's reserved Fort Orange was "a wretched little fort, built of logs, with four or five pieces of cannon of Breteuil, and as many swivels." Around it was the hamlet of Beverswyck, " composed of about one hundred persons, who resided in some twenty-five or thirty houses built along the river, as each one found it most convenient." These houses were built of boards, and thatched ; there was no mason-work, except in the chimneys. In the principal house lived the patroon's chief officer ; "the minister had his apart, in which service was performed." A church, however, was now commenced, under the supervision of Domine Mega- polensis, in "the pine grove," a little to the west of the patroon's trading house, and within range of the guns of Fort Orange. A burial-ground was also laid out in the rear, on what is now known as "Church Street." This first church in Albany-the humble dimensions of which were only thirty-four feet long and nineteen feet wide- was thought sufficient to accommodate the people for sev-
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