Kieft's War

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Kieft's War
Part of the American Indian Wars

Massacre of Native Americans by Dutch settlers
DateFebruary 23, 1643 - August 1645
Location
Vicinity of present-day New York, Staten Island, and Hackensack, New Jersey
Result Dutch victory[1]
Belligerents
New Netherland
Mohawk people		 Main tribes:
Algonquian
Mohicans
Raritans
Wappinger
Lenape
Other Indians of the northern Atlantic seacoast
Commanders and leaders
Willem Kieft
Strength
Unknown Around 1,500 Indian warriors
Casualties and losses
Fewer then 100 dead 1,600 dead

Kieft's War (1643–1645), also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between the colonial province of

Director-General of New Netherland Willem Kieft, who had ordered an attack without the approval of his advisory council and against the wishes of the colonists.[2] Dutch colonists attacked Lenape camps and massacred the inhabitants, which encouraged unification among the regional Algonquian tribes against the Dutch and precipitated waves of attacks on both sides. This was one of the earliest conflicts between settlers and Indians in the region. The Dutch West India Company was displeased with Kieft and recalled him, but he died in a shipwreck while returning to the Netherlands; Peter Stuyvesant
succeeded him in New Netherland. Numerous Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands because of the continuing threat from the Algonquians, and growth slowed in the colony.

Background

The

Pequot tribe during the Pequot War (1636-1638),[4] which eased the way for the English to take over the northern reaches of New Netherland along the Connecticut River. Peter Minuit had been director-general of New Netherland. Still, he left two weeks before Kieft's arrival to establish New Sweden in the poorly developed southern reaches of the colony along the Delaware Valley
.

New Netherland had begun to flourish along the Hudson River. The Dutch West India Company ran the settlement chiefly for trading, with the director-general exercising unchecked corporate authority backed by soldiers. New Amsterdam and the other settlements of the Hudson Valley had developed beyond company towns into a growing colony. In 1640, the Company surrendered its trade monopoly on the colony and declared New Netherland a free-trade zone, and Kieft was suddenly governor of a booming economy.

Skirmishing

Kieft's first plan to reduce costs was to solicit tribute payments from the tribes living in the region. Long-time colonists warned him against this course, but he pursued it, nonetheless. Tribal chiefs rejected the idea. Pigs were stolen from the farm of

Hackensacks had been drinking alcohol at a trading post when a conflict arose over a missing coat which ended in the death of the post's foreman.[7]

The colonists resisted Kieft's Indian initiatives, so he tried to use the Swits incident to build popular support for war. He created the Council of Twelve Men to advise him, and it was the first popularly elected body in the New Netherlands colony. The council was alarmed about the consequences of Kieft's proposed crusade, as they had lived in peace with the Indians for nearly two decades, and they rejected his proposal to massacre the Weckquaesgeek village if the villagers refused to produce the Swits murderer.

The Indians were far more numerous than the colonists and could easily take reprisals against their lives and property. They also supplied the furs and pelts that were the economic lifeblood of the colony. The council sought to dissuade Kieft from war, and they began to advise him on other matters, using the new Council to carry the interests of colonists to the corporate rulers. They called for establishing a permanent representative body to manage local affairs, and Kieft responded by dissolving the council and issuing a decree forbidding them to meet or assemble.[8]

Kieft sent a punitive expedition to attack the village of the Indian who had murdered Swits, but the militia got lost. He then accepted the peace offerings of Weckquaesgeek elders.

Jersey City
and lower Manhattan.

Pavonia Massacre

Colonists from New Netherland descended on the camps at Pavonia on February 25, 1643, and killed 120 Indians, including women and children. De Vries described the events in his journal:

Infants were torn from their mother's breasts and hacked to pieces in the presence of their parents, and pieces thrown into the fire and in the water, and other sucklings, being bound to small boards, were cut, stuck, and pierced, and miserably massacred in a manner to move a heart of stone. Some were thrown into the river, and when the fathers and mothers endeavored to save them, the soldiers would not let them come on land but made both parents and children drown.[11]

About 40 were killed in a similar attack the same night in the Massacre at Corlears Hook.

Historians differ on whether Kieft had planned such a massacre or a more contained raid,[12][13] but all sources agree that he rewarded the soldiers for their deeds.[citation needed] The attacks united the Algonquian peoples in the surrounding areas against the Dutch.

Two years of war

The Dutch began to greatly further arm the Mohawk in 1643 as their allies.[14][15]

In the fall of 1643, a force of 1,500 Indians invaded New Netherland and killed many, including

Captain John Underhill, who recruited militia on Long Island to go against the Indians there and in Connecticut. His forces killed more than 1,000 Indians, including 500 to 700 in the Pound Ridge Massacre.[2]

The colonists wrote letters to the directors of the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch Republic requesting intervention, but they produced no result. Many then banded together to formally petition for the removal of Kieft, writing: "We sit here among thousands of wild and barbarian people, in whom neither consolation nor mercy can be found; we left our dear fatherland, and if God the Lord were not our comfort we would perish in our misery."[16] For the next two years, the united tribes harassed settlers throughout New Netherland. The sparse colonial forces were helpless to stop the attacks, but the Indians were too spread out to mount more effective strikes. The two sides finally agreed to a truce when the last of the 69 united tribes joined in August 1645.

Outcome

peace pipe with an Algonquian Chief after the war at New Amsterdam, 1645. The bystanders are New Netherland
citizens and natives

The outcome is regarded as favourable to the Dutch[17] since the colony's safety was eventually assured, and the siege of New Amsterdam was lifted, after a great offense which devasted the Indians.[18] However, the Indian attacks caused many settlers to return to Europe,[19] The Dutch West India Company correctly blamed Kieft for the war, and the dead settlers. They recalled Kieft to the Netherlands in 1647 to answer for his conduct,[20] but he died in a shipwreck near Swansea, Wales. The company named Peter Stuyvesant as his successor, and he managed New Netherland until it was ceded to the English.[7]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781625131720
    .
  2. ^ a b Walter Giersbach, Governor Kieft's Personal War, (published online, 26 Aug 2006)
  3. ^ Shorto, Russell, The Island at the Center of the World, Vintage Books (Random House) 2004, p. 113
  4. ^ Vowell, Sarah, The Wordy Shipmates, Riverhead books (Penguin) 2008, pp. 166–196
  5. ^ Shorto, p.118-120.
  6. ^ Sultzman, Lee (1997). "Wappinger History". Retrieved July 5, 2006.
  7. ^
    ISBN 0-910746-98-2
    (Hope Farm Press, 3rd ed, 2001)
  8. ^ Shorto, p. 121-120 for Council
  9. ^ a b Sultzman, Lee (1997). "Wappinger History". Retrieved November 23, 2009.
  10. ^ Shorto, p. 123
  11. ^ Henry Cruise Murhy (Translator) Vertoogh van Nieu Nederland, 149, cited in Shorto p. 124
  12. ^ Winkler, David F. (1998). Revisiting the Attack on Pavonia. New Jersey Historical Society.
  13. ^ Beck, Sanderson (2006). "New Netherland and Stuyvesant 1642-64".
  14. ISBN 978-0-88629-062-7
    .
  15. ISBN 978-0-88629-223-2
    .
  16. ^ Dutch Culture in a European Perspective, p. 56]
  17. ISBN 9781598845303
    .
  18. ISBN 9781402798825
    .
  19. ISBN 978-1438450971
    .
  20. ^ "Journal of New Netherland 1647. Written in the Years 1641, 1642, 1643, 1644, 1645, and 1646". World Digital Library. 1641–1647. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
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