Troubles with Indians

In view of the increasing demand for homesteads, Governor Kieft purchased from the Indians nearly the whole of the present Queens county on Long Island, and the lower part of Westchester county. Meanwhile the New Englanders and become as troublesome in their territorial encroachments, as the Swedes on the Delaware. Like busy ants they were spreading over the fertile country westward of the Housatonic River. At the mouth of that stream they had planted the flourishing village of Stratford and they had made settlements at Norwalk and Greenwich. It being evident that the New Englanders intended to push their settlements to the Hudson River, Kieft, in 1640, purchased of the Indians all the islands near Norwalk and the domain westward, which comprised nearly the whole of Westchester county, and raised thereon, at Cow Bay, the arms of the States-General. For awhile the New Englanders disregarded Indian title-deeds and Dutch proclamations; and fillibusters from Connecticut cut down the arms of Holland and mocked the officials at New Amsterdam. But they soon learned that Kieft was a more energetic man than Van Twiller, who had excited their contempt. The new governor soon put a stop to these encroachments, and compelled the settlers on the newly-purchased domain to take an oath of allegiance to the States-General.

Had Kieft' policy and conduct been as wise and just as it was firm and energetic, his administration might have been marked by peace and great prosperity. But he pursued a policy toward the Indians which inflamed whole tribes with resentment against the Dutch. His partiality for the Mohawks, with whom the Dutch came in immediate contact at Fort Orange, excited the jealously of the River Indians. Their anger was also kindled by the bad conduct of dishonest traders, who sold them rum and cheated them in traffic while they were intoxicated. Kieft's avarice having obtained the mastery of his justice, he winked at these offences and shared in the plunder. He also exacted tribute of furs, corn and wampum from the tribes around Manhattan; but when they came with the costly offerings and cast them at the feet of the oppressor, they turned away with a bitter curse against the Hollanders.

Kieft saw that a cloud of vengeance was gathering, and his fears awakened his cruelty. With the instinct of a bad nature, he sought to further injure those whom he had wronged. Some swine had been stolen by white people from De Vries's plantation on Staten Island. The governor charged the innocent Raritans of New Jersey with the crime and sent an armed force to chastise them, with a belief that a show of power would disarm the vengeance of the savages. Several Indians were killed. The event was the foreshadowing of the fate of others; and all the neighboring tribes were aroused, and prepared for war. The River Indians refused to pay tribute any longer. The Raritans murdered Hollanders whenever they met them in the forests of New Jersey, and the innocent settlement on Staten Island was ruined by them. The Raritans were outlawed, and a bounty was offered for the head of every member of the tribe.

Fifteen or twenty years before, some of Minuit's men had murdered an Indian belonging to a tribe seated beyond the Harlem River. His nephew, then a boy, who saw the outrage and made a vow of vengeance, had now grown to be a lusty man. He proceeded to execute his vow by murdering an unoffending Dutchman in his wheelwright shop high upon Manhattan Island. While the mechanic was stooping over his chest of tools, the young Indian seized an axe and almost severed his head from his body. With his scalp and the plunder of his dwelling, the savage returned in triumph to his tribe. Kieft demanded the murderer, but his chief would not give him up, saying he had been revenged according to the customs of his race.

The governor determined to chastise that tribe as he had the Raritans. He called upon the people to shoulder their muskets for the fray. They saw the danger to which the rashness of Kieft was leading them, and refused. They had been witnesses of his rapacity and greed, and they now charged him with seeking war that he might "make a wrong reckoning with the Company." They also reproached him with a selfish cowardice. "It is all well for you," they said, "who have not slept out of the fort a single night since you came, to endanger our lives and our homes in undefended places."

This bold attitude of the people transformed the autocrat. He invited all the heads of families in New Amsterdam to meet him in convention to consult upon public affairs. They assembled at Fort Amsterdam, and promptly chose twelve select men to act as their representatives. So appeared the first popular assembly, and so was chosen the first representative congress for political purposes, in New Netherland. So were planted the seeds of a representative democracy, in the year 1641, almost on the very spot where, a century and a half later, our Republic, founded upon similar principles, was inaugurated, when Washington took the oath of office as first President of the United States.