1637. 16 June. CHAP. VIII. the formal confirmation of a tract near the Waal-bogt. * A pleasing tradition asserts, that the Indians had relinquished their title to the Walloons upon the birth of Rapelje's daughter Sarah, in the month of June, 1625, because she was the first white child born in New Netherland.† Soon afterward, Jonas Bronck became the owner of the purchase in "Ranaque tract," on the "main land" of West Chester, east of and "over against" what is now known as Haerlem.‡ Jonas Bronck's West Ches ter. The company se island of in Narra gansett Bay. About the same time, the Indian title to the island of "Quotenis," near the "Roode Island," in Narragansett Bay, Quotenis, was secured for the West India Company, and a tradingpost was established there, under the superintendence of Abraham Pietersen. Not long afterward, Pietersen obtained for the company the possession of another island, lying near the Pequod, or Thames River, which, for many years. after the settlement of Connecticut by the English, continued to be known as "the Dutchman's Island."§ Dutch man's Island. Pavonia and Staten Island. Fur trade in New Nether land, The directors at Amsterdam also succeeded in purchasing from Michael Pauw his territorial rights as patroon, for which they paid him twenty-six thousand guilders. By this arrangement, Pavonia and Staten Island became the property of the company; and the annoyance which Pauw's independent colony had caused was at length stopped. Up to this time the fur trade had steadily increased; and notwithstanding the loss of their sole traffic on the Connecticut, the directors received returns from their province, during the year 1635, amounting to nearly one hund * Alb. Rec., G. G.; Valentine's Manual for 1850, 545, 546. † Judge Benson, in his Memoir, p. 94, gives the following extract from the Council Records in 1656: "Sarah Jorisen, the first-born Christian daughter in New Netherland, widow of Hans Hansen, burthened with seven children, petitions for a grant of a piece of meadow, in addition to the twenty morgens (forty acres) granted to her at the Waal-bogt." In consideration of her situation and birth, Stuyvesant and his council assented to her petition.-Alb. Rec., xi. (P.), 332; Moulton, 371, note; ante, p. 154. Benson's Memoir, 97; Bolton's West Chester, ii., 280, 283, 289, 302; O'Call., i., 250 ; ii., 581. "Bronck's Kill," now known as "Bronx River," derived its name from this Jonas Bronck. Hol. Doc., vii., 78; Verbael van Beverninck, 608; Alb. Rec., i., 89; xviii., 291; O'Call., i., 174. There is an island now marked on the large official map of Massachusetts, of 1844, as "Dutch Island." It is in the channel west of Canonicut, and north of the Beaver Tail Light, Hol. Doc., v., 400; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii., 338; O'Call., i., 199. of provi red and thirty-five thousand guilders.* Besides enjoying CHAP. VIII. the monopoly in New Netherland, the company had open- 1637. ed a profitable commerce with New England; and Dutch Traffic vessels brought tobacco and salt from the West Indies, with New and Flanders mares, and oxen, and sheep, from Holland to Boston. (6 They came from the Texel in five weeks three days, and lost not one beast or sheep." All these commodities bore high prices in New England, where there was now a scarcity of provisions. Potatoes, from High prices Bermuda, were sold at Boston for two-pence the pound; sions. a good cow was worth twenty-five or thirty pounds, and a pair of oxen readily fetched forty. The cattle in Connecticut did not thrive. In Virginia corn rose to twenty shillings the bushel. The scarcity in New England and Virginia affected the prices of provisions and the value of labor in New Netherland. Before the close of 1637, a schepel, or three pecks of rye, was sold for two guilders, or eighty cents; and a laboring man readily earned two guilders a day during harvest. These prices were probably caused, in some degree, by the bloody war which was now raging in Connecticut. Origin of war. July. For the Puritan colonists of New England had become 1634. embroiled with their aboriginal neighbors. The Pequods the Pequod had failed to surrender the murderers of Stone, according to their treaty at Boston; and had tendered, instead, an atonement of wampum. But Massachusetts insisted upon avenging blood with blood. Soon afterward, John Old- 1636. ham, the adventurous overland explorer of the Connecti- Oldham's cut, was assassinated by the Block Island Indians, who murder. seem to have become jealous at his trading with the Pequods, under their treaty with Massachusetts. The magistrates and ministers immediately assembled at Boston, 25 August. and commissioned John Endicott to proceed, with a force Endicott's of ninety men, to Block Island, of which he was directed to take possession, after putting to death all the warriors, and making prisoners all the women and children. From * De Laet, App., 30. † Alb. Rec., i., 89; ii., 59; Winthrop, i., 160, 161, 182, 187, 191, 206. expedition. CHAP. VIII. Block Island he was to go to the Pequods, and demand the murderers of Stone, and a thousand fathoms of wampum as damages: if satisfaction were refused, the expedition was "to obtain it by force." 1636. and devas tated. Endicott promptly executed his "sanguinary orders." Block Isl- The Block Island savages fled at the approach of the English invaders; and Endicott "burned their wigwams, and all their matts, and some corn, and staved seven canoes, and departed." Thence he went to Saybrook, where he was re-enforced by twenty men. In a few days, the expedition sailed for the Pequod River. After burning all the wams de- wigwams, and spoiling the canoes of the Pequods, Endicott returned to Boston, having done more than enough to exasperate, but nothing to subdue the now implacable enemy of the English. The Pe quod wig stroyed. 14 Sept. The fatal consequences of Endicott's expedition were Exaspera- soon felt by the colonists on the Connecticut. The PePequods. quods, aroused to vengeance, lurked about the new fort October. at Saybrook, and killed several of the garrison. During tion of the 22 Feb. the whole winter, the post was in a state of siege; and 1637. Gardiner, the commandant, going with a small party a little beyond the range of its guns, was surprised by an Indian ambush, and forced to seek safety in a rapid reRevenge treat. Wethersfield, too, felt the bitterness of savage reat Say- venge. Sequeen, aggrieved by the conduct of the English, Wethers whom he had been the means of attracting thither, instiApril. gated the Pequods, who killed nine of the colonists, and carried two maidens away into captivity. themselves brook and field. Apprehension was now felt that the Dutch, "who, by their speeches and supplies out of Holland," had excited the suspicions of their New England neighbors, would reSaybrook possess themselves of Saybrook. Captain John Underhill re-en forced. 10 April. was, therefore, promptly sent from Boston to the mouth of the Connecticut, with a re-enforcement of twenty men, "to keep the fort." But Van Twiller, instead of attempting to expel the harassed English from the "Kievit's Hoeck," dispatched a sloop from Manhattan to the Thames River, near which the Dutch had now a trading post, with or ders "to redeem the two English maids by what means CHAP. VIII. English from the soever, though it were with a breach of their peace with 1637. the Pequods." Touching at Saybrook, the Dutch vessel The Dutch was stopped by the English, who would not allow her to rescue the proceed until her officers stipulated, by "a note under captives their hands," to make the release of the two Wethersfield Pequods. girls "their chief design." On reaching the Thames River, the Manhattan officers made large offers to the Pequods for the ransom of the English captives; "but nothing would be accepted." So the Dutch detained six or seven of the Pequods on board of their sloop; and with them they redeemed the two maidens, who were conveyed to Manhattan, and, not long afterward, safely restored to their countrymen at Saybrook. The En to exterm Pequods. Expedition An exterminating war against the Pequods was now 1 May. decreed by the colonists of Hartford, Windsor, and Weth-glish unite ersfield; and Massachusetts and New Plymouth resolved inate the to assist Connecticut. John Mason, who had been bred a soldier in the Netherlands, was solemnly intrusted with the command; and, after a night spent in prayer, an English force of ninety men, accompanied by Uncas, the chief of the Mahicans, and sixty of his warriors, embarked in 10 May. three vessels at Hartford, and dropped down to Saybrook, where the party was re-enforced by Underhill with his twenty men. The expedition soon reached the Narragan- 23 May. sett Bay, where the English were further strengthened by reaches the chief sachem, Miantonomoh, and two hundred of his sett Bay warriors; and the combined forces pressed onward to the strong-holds of the Pequods, on the Mistic River. At dawn 26 May. of day, the assailants, in two divisions, led by Mason and Underhill, attacked the fortified village at the summit of a commanding eminence. The Pequods, taken by surprise, fought with the energy of despair; but their arrows and robes of fur availed them little against the muskets and corselets of the New England men, now "bereaved of pity, and without compassion." No quarter was given; The Peno mercy was shown. Six hundred souls, warriors and lage dewomen, old men and children, perished in the indiscrim Narragan quod vil stroyed. 1637. CHAP. VIII. inate carnage. The rising sun shone on the smoking ruins of the devastated village. A band of warriors from the second Pequod fort pursued the retreating conquerors; but the English safely reached their vessels, where they were joined by Captain Daniel Patrick, who had just come on from Boston with forty men. The victorious expedition returning to Saybrook, was welcomed by Gardiner with joyous salvos of artillery. June. ed down west of Saybrook. 13 July. The fate of the remaining Pequods was now sealed. ages hunt- Stoughton soon arrived at Saybrook with re-enforcements from Massachusetts; and the flying savages were pursued as far westward as "within twenty or thirty miles. of the Dutch." At a head of land, near what is now Guilford, the English beheaded two sachems; "whereupon they called the place Sachem's Head." Near what is now Fairfield, a remnant of the devoted tribe was hunted into "a most hideous swamp," and many warriors perished. Two hundred old men, women, and children were taken prisoners, reduced to bondage, and divided among the conquering European troops; and not long afterward, some of the wretched captives were exported from Boston, and sold as slaves in the West Indies. The scalp of Sassacus, the Pequod chief, was sent in triumph from Connecticut to Massachusetts Bay. Scarcely a sannup, a warrior, a squaw, or a child of the Pequod name surExtermin. vived. An aboriginal nation had been almost exterminated.* ated. The tragedy which was thus awfully accomplished was performed, indeed, within the eastern territories of New Netherland, but by other actors than the Dutch. The victorious warfare of the New England colonists secured for them nearly forty years of comparative peace, and their courageous vigor has well received the most eloquent applause. Yet no habitual veneration of ancestral fame should justify the unvaried panegyric of all ancestral * Winthrop, i., 189, 193-235; Morton's Memorial, 185-195; Hubbard's Narrative; Col. Rec. Conn., 9; Mason, in Mass. Hist. Coll., xviii., 131-151; Gardiner, in M. H. Coll., xxiii., 136-154; Underhill, in M. H. Coll., xxvi., 4-25; Chalmers, 291, 292; Trumbull, i., 69-93; Bancroft, i., 397-402; Hildreth, i., 238-252. |