1643. 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 "being 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 profession of the same Protestant religion and otherwise." The com answer to 28 When the commissioners met, a month afterward, September. Connecticut made complaints on her side, and New Ha- missioners' 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 communicate 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 prespres-18 Sept. ident accordingly wrote to Kieft, recapitulating the injuries which New Haven had suffered on the South River, 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.* July. necticut In 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 Coning to avenge upon Uncas the indignities which he had dians in suffered at Boston, invaded the Mahican country, at the open war. 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. * Winthrop, ii., 129, 130, 140, 157; Hazard, ii., 11, 215, 216. August. CHAP. XI. that he ought to be put to death; and Uncas, receiving back Miantonomoh from his English jailer, conducted him 1643. to the borders of the Mahican territory, and executed their Miantono- judgment upon a former ally.* Murder of moh. The In tack Dutch 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 7 August. general massacre of the Dutch. A shallop coming down dians at- from Fort Orange with a cargo of four hundred beaver trading 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 prisoners. 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 The appalling crisis compelled Kieft to summon the peomons the ple again into council. The commonalty were convoked ty again. at Fort Amsterdam, and asked to elect "five or six persons 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 themselves 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 Fatherland, the people elected "Eight Men" from among themselves, "maturely to consider" the propositions of September. commonal "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. † Alb. Rec., iii., 143; Hol. Doc., iii., 114; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iv., 12; Winthrop, ii., 130. 1643. 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, Isaac Allerton, Thomas Hall, Gerrit Wolfertsen, and Cornelis Melyn.* Assembly Men. Two days after their election, the Eight Men met, at 15 Sept. Kieft's summons, "to consider the critical circumstances of the Eight of the country." Before attending to any other business, they resolved to exclude from their board Jan Jansen Dam, one of the signers of the letter to Kieft, which was the immediate 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 Evertsen Bout, of Pavonia, was selected by the remaining seven 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. 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 prescribed instead; but the praiseworthy order "was not carried into execution by the officer."+ measures Kieft did not delay the warlike preparations which the Eight Men had authorized. The colonists and the servants 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; anté, p. 317. Cornelis Melyn was the patroon of Staten Island. Thomas Hall 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 1643. 29 Sept. Captain 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 taken into 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 settlement at Greenwich, and now offered to the Dutch the benefit of his veteran skill.* the Dutch service. The Weckquaesgeeks destroy Anne son's set tlement. September. But before Kieft could complete his military arrangements, the Weckquaesgeeks dug up the hatchet which Hutchin- they had buried, eighteen months before, on the shores of Bronx River. Approaching "in way of friendly neighborhood, as they had been accustomed," the widowed Anne Hutchinson's blameless retreat at "Annie's Hoeck," they watched their opportunity, and murdered that extraordinary 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 Throgmor- cattle were ruthlessly destroyed. From Annie's Hoeck, the devastating party proceeded downward to "Vredeland," 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 ton's settlement attacked * 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. + 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 before). 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." 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 lives in West Chester.* 1643. Moody's fense. The vengeance which desolated West Chester did not spare Long Island. Lady Deborah Moody, who had been Lady "dealt with" by the Church at Salem for "the error of brave dedenying baptism to infants," having fled for refuge, with June. many others "infected with Anabaptism," into New Netherland, had established herself, by Kieft's special permission, 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 settlements on Long Island.† settlement destroyed. Doughty's settlement at Mespath, or Newtown, did not Doughty's fare so well. During the first year, he had re-enforced at Mespath himself with several new families of colonists. More than 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 even a hovel, let alone to people a colony at his own expense," was employed as minister; and his associates prepared for him a farm, upon the profits of which he lived, while he discharged, 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 The colo remained awhile; but finding that they consumed more nists seek than they could raise, they fled for refuge to Manhattan. Manhattan. * Winthrop, ii., 136; Bolton's West Chester, i., 514. † 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 Gravensande "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. refuge at |