Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam Part 14

It would seem that no experience, however dreadful, could dissuade individuals of the Dutch Colonists from supplying the natives with brandy. At Esopus, in August, 1659, a man by the name of Thomas Chambers employed eight Indians to a.s.sist him in husking corn. At the end of their day's work he insanely supplied them with brandy. This led to a midnight carouse in which the poor savages, bereft of reason, howled and shrieked and fired their muskets, though without getting into any quarrel among themselves.

The uproar alarmed the garrison in the blockhouse. The sergeant of the guard was sent out, with a few soldiers, to ascertain the cause of the disorder. He returned with the report that it was only the revelry of a band of drunken savages.

One of the soldiers in the fort, Jansen Stot, called upon some of his comrades to follow him. Ensign Smith, who was in command, forbade them to go. In defiance of his orders they left the fort, and creeping through the underbrush, wantonly took deliberate aim, discharged a volley of bullets upon the inebriated savages, who were harming n.o.body but themselves. One was killed outright. Others were severely wounded.

The soldiers, having performed this insane act, retreated, with the utmost speed to the fort. There never has been any denial that such were the facts in the case. They help to corroborate the remark of Mr.

Moulton that "the cruelty of the Indians towards the whites will, when traced, be discovered, in almost every case, to have been provoked by oppression or aggression."

Ensign Smith, finding that he could no longer control his soldiers, indignantly resolved to return down the river to New Amsterdam. The inhabitants of Esopus were greatly alarmed. It was well known that the savages would not allow such an outrage to pa.s.s unavenged. The withdrawal of the soldiers would leave them at the mercy of those so justly exasperated. To prevent this the people hired every boat in the neighborhood. Ensign Smith then decided to send an express by land, to inform Governor Stuyvesant of the alarming state of affairs and to solicit his immediate presence.

A party of soldiers was sent to escort the express a few miles down the river banks. As these soldiers were returning, they fell into an ambuscade of the Indians, and thirteen of them were taken prisoners.

War, horrible war, was now declared. The war-whoop resounded around the stockade at Esopus from five hundred savage throats. Every house, barn and corn-stack within their reach was burned. Cattle and horses were killed. The fort was so closely invested day and night that not a colonist could step outside of the stockade. The Indians, foiled in all their attempts to set fire to the fortress, and burnt ten of their prisoners at the stake. For three weeks this fierce warfare continued without interruption.

When the tidings of this new war, caused by so dastardly an outrage, reached Manhattan, it created a terrible panic. It could not be doubted that all the Indians would sympathize with their outraged brethren. The farmers, apprehending immediate attack, fled from all directions, with their families, to the fort, abandoning their homes, grain and cattle. Even many villages on Long Island were utterly deserted.

The administrative energies of Governor Stuyvesant were remarkably developed on this occasion. In the following terms, Mr. O'Callaghan, in his admirable history of New Netherland, describes the difficulties he encountered and his mode of surmounting them:

"Governor Stuyvesant, though laboring under severe indisposition, visited in person all the adjoining villages, encouraging the well-disposed, stimulating the timid and urging the farmers everywhere to fortify and defend their villages. He summoned next the burgomasters, schepens,[10]

and officers of the militia of New Amsterdam, and laid before them the distressing situation of Esopus. They proposed to enlist by beat of drum, a sufficient number of men, and to encourage volunteers by resolving that whatever savages might be captured should be declared 'good prizes.'

"Stuyvesant, however, was opposed to this mode of proceeding. It would cause, in his opinion, too great a delay, as those at Esopus were already besieged some nine or ten days. He was left, notwithstanding, in a minority. Two more days were thus irretrievably lost; for at the end of that time only six or eight had enlisted, 'such a terrible horror had overpowered the citizens.'

"Captain Newton and Lieutenant Stillwell were now dispatched to all the English and Dutch villages, and letters were addressed to fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck, ordering out the Company's servants, calling for volunteers and authorizing the raising of a troop of mounted rangers. The half-dozen servants in fort Amsterdam, every person belonging to the artillery, all the clerks in the public offices, four of the Director-General's servants, three of the hands belonging to his brewery and five or six new comers, were put under requisition."

"Nothing could overcome the reluctance of the burghers. The one disheartened the other; the more violent maintaining that they were obliged to defend only their own homes, and that no citizen could be forced to jeopardize his life in fighting barbarous savages.

"Discouraged and almost deprived of hope by this opposition, the Director-General again summoned the city magistrates. He informed them that he had now some forty men, and that he expected between twenty and thirty Englishmen from the adjoining villages. He therefore ordered that the three companies of the city militia be paraded next day in his presence, armed and equipped, in order that one last effort might be made to obtain volunteers. If he should then fail of success, he announced his intention to make a draft.

"The companies paraded before the fort on the following morning according to orders. Stuyvesant addressed them in most exciting terms. He appealed to their sense both of honor and of duty, and represented to them how ardently they would look for aid, if they unfortunately were placed in a situation similar to that in which their brethren of Esopus now found themselves. He concluded his harangue by calling upon all such as would accompany him either for pay or as volunteers, to step forward to the rescue.

"Few came forward, only twenty-four or twenty-five persons.

This number being considered insufficient, lots were immediately ordered to be drawn by one of the companies and those on whom they fell were warned to be ready on the next Sunday, on pain of paying fifty guilders. 'However,' said the governor, 'if any person is weak-hearted or discouraged he may procure a subst.i.tute provided he declares himself instantaneously.'"

In this way the governor raised a force of one hundred and eighty men.

Of this number one hundred were drafted men, sixty-five volunteers, twenty-five of whom were Englishmen, and there were also twenty friendly Indians from Long Island.

With this force the governor embarked on Sunday evening, October 10th, after the second sermon, for the rescue of Esopus. Upon his arrival at that place he found that the savages, unable to penetrate the fort, had raised the siege and retired beyond the possibility of pursuit.

They had doubtless watched the river with their scouts, who informed them of the approach of the troops. The governor, leaving a sufficient force to protect the village, returned with the remainder of the expedition to Manhattan.

During the siege the loss of the Dutch was one man killed and five or six wounded. The Indians also succeeded, by means of burning arrows, in firing one dwelling house and several stacks of corn within the palisades. As the troops were re-embarking the governor witnessed an occurrence which he declares "he blushes to mention." As all the troops could not go on board at once, a portion waited until the first division had embarked. Some of the sentinels hearing a dog bark, fired one or two shots. This created a terrible panic. The citizens, whose ears had been pierced by the shrieks of their countrymen, whom the Indians had tortured at the stake, were so terror-stricken that they lost all self-possession. "Many of them threw themselves into the water before they had seen an enemy."

The most friendly relations existed between the Mohawks and the settlers in the vicinity of Albany. A very extensive trade, equally lucrative to both parties, was there in operation. The Indians, being treated justly, were as harmless as lambs. When they heard of the troubles at Esopus they declared that they would take no part in the war. They could not but feel that the Indians had been deeply outraged. But with unexpected intelligence they decided that they would not retaliate by wreaking vengeance upon their long-tried friends. To confirm their friendly alliance, the authorities at fort Orange sent an emba.s.sy of twenty-five of their princ.i.p.al inhabitants to the Indian settlement at Caughnawaga. This was about forty miles west of Albany on the north bank of the Mohawk river and near the site of the present shire town of Montgomery county.

A large number of chiefs, from all the neighboring villages, attended.

The council fire was lighted, and the calumet of peace was smoked. One of the Dutch delegation thus addressed the a.s.sembly!

"Brothers, sixteen years have now pa.s.sed away, since friendship and fraternity were first established between you and the Hollanders. Since then we have been bound to each other by an iron chain. That chain has never been broken by us or by you. We hope that the Mohawks will remain our brothers for all time.

"Our chiefs are very angry that the Dutch will sell brandy to your people. They have always forbidden them to do so.

Forbid your people also. Eighteen days ago you asked us not to sell any brandy to your people. Brothers, if your people do not come to buy brandy of us, we shall not sell any to them. Two days ago twenty or thirty kegs came to us, all to be filled with brandy. Are you willing that we should take from your people their brandy and their kegs. If so, say this before all here present."

With this speech there was presented to the chiefs several bundles of wampum, seventy pounds of powder, a hundred pounds of lead, fifteen axes two beavers worth of knives. The chiefs were highly pleased with the presents and eagerly gave their consent that the Dutch should seize the liquor kegs of the Indians.

The authorities at fort Orange, having secured the friendship of the Mohawks, endeavored to obtain an armistice with the Indians at Esopus, and a release of the captives they had taken. Several Mohawk and Mohegan chiefs, as mediators, visited Esopus, on this mission of mercy. They were partially successful. An armistice was reluctantly a.s.sented to, and two captives were liberated. The Indians, however, still retained a number of children, they having killed all the adults. Those who had agreed to the armistice were not the princ.i.p.al chiefs, and the spirit of the war remained unbroken.

Under these circ.u.mstances Stuyvesant wrote to Holland for aid. In his letter he said,

"If a farmer cannot plough, sow or reap, in a newly settled country, without being hara.s.sed; if the citizens and merchants cannot freely navigate the streams and rivers, they will doubtless leave the country and seek a residence in some place where they can find a government to protect them.'"

The Directors wrote back urging him to employ the Mohawks and other friendly tribes against the Esopus Indians. The governor replied,

"The Mohawks are, above all other savages, a vain-glorious, proud and bold tribe. If their aid be demanded and obtained, and success follow, they will only become the more inflated, and we the more contemptible in the eyes of the other tribes. If we did not then reward their services, in a manner satisfactory to their greedy appet.i.tes, they would incessantly revile us, and were this retorted, it might lead to collision. It is therefore safer to stand on our own feet as long as possible."

The governor had a long controversy with the Ma.s.sachusetts authorities in reference to its claim to the upper valley of the Hudson. In this he expressed very strongly the t.i.tle of Holland to the North river.

"Printed histories," he writes,

"archives, journals, and registers prove that the North river of New Netherland was discovered in the year 1609, by Hendrick Hudson, captain of the Half Moon, in the service and at the expense of the Dutch East India Company. Upon the report of the captain several merchants of Amsterdam sent another ship, in the following year, up the said river.

These merchants obtained from the States-General a charter to navigate the same. For their security they erected in 1614, a fort on Castle Island, near fort Orange New Netherland, including the North river, was afterwards offered to the West India Company, who, in the year 1624, two years before Charles I. ascended the throne of England, actually and effectually possessed and fortified the country and planted colonies therein. The a.s.sertion that the Hudson river is within the Ma.s.sachusetts patent granted but thirty-two years ago, therefore, scarcely deserves a serious answer."

Notwithstanding the undeniable strength of his argument, Governor Stuyvesant felt very uneasy. To his friends he said,

"The power of New England overbalances ours tenfold. To protest against their usurpations would be folly. They would only laugh at us."

As hostilities still continued with the Esopus Indians, Governor Stuyvesant again visited that post, hoping to obtain an interview with the chiefs, and to arrange a peace. Ensign Smith, with a very strong party of forty men, had utterly routed and put to flight two bands of Indians, one containing fifty warriors, the other one hundred. He took twelve warriors prisoners. They were sent to fort Amsterdam. In the mean time Stuyvesant had succeeded in renewing a treaty of alliance with the Indian tribes on Long Island, Staten Island, and at Hackensack, Haverstraw and Weckquaesgeek. The Long Island Indians consented to send some of their children to fort Amsterdam to be educated.

The Esopus Indians were now left in a very deplorable condition. Their brethren, on the upper Hudson, had refused to co-operate with them.

Their routed bands were being driven across the mountains and many of their warriors were captives. To use the contemptuous language of the times, "they did nothing now but bawl for peace, peace."

There had never been a more favorable opportunity to secure a lasting peace, and to win back the affections of the Indians. By universal admission the colonists were outrageously in the wrong in provoking the conflict. They had given the Indians brandy until they had become intoxicated. And then half a dozen drunken soldiers had discharged a volley of bullets upon them as they were revelling in noisy but harmless orgies.

Had the governor frankly acknowledged that the colonists were in the wrong; had he made full amends, according to the Indian custom, for the great injury inflicted upon them, they would have been more than satisfied. Even more friendly relations than had ever before existed might have been established.

But instead of this the governor a.s.sumed that the Indians were entirely in the wrong; that they had wantonly commenced a series of murders and burnings without any provocation. The Esopus chiefs were afraid to meet the angry governor with proposals for peace. They therefore employed three Mohegan chiefs as their mediators. They offered to cease all hostilities, to abandon the Esopus country entirely, and surrender it to the Dutch if the Indian captives, whom the Dutch held, might be restored to them. These very honorable proposals were rejected. The Mohegan chiefs were told that the governor could not enter into any treaty of peace with the Esopus Indians unless their own chiefs came to fort Amsterdam to hold a council. And immediately the Indian captives received the awful doom of consignment to life-long slavery with the negroes, upon a tropical island, which was but a glowing sandbank in the Caribbean sea.

"On the next day," writes Mr. O'Callaghan,

"an order was issued, banishing the Esopus savages, some fifteen or twenty, to the insalubrious climate of Curacoa, to be employed there or at Buenaire with the negroes in the Company's service. Two or three others were retained at fort Amsterdam to be punished as it should be thought proper. By this harsh policy Stuyvesant laid the foundations of another Esopus war, for the Indians never forgot their banished brethren."

It was ascertained that several miles up the Esopus creek the Indians were planting corn. It was the 20th of May, 1660. Ensign Smith took a party of seventy-five men and advanced upon them. The barking of dogs announced his approach just as his band arrived within sight of the wigwams. They all made good their retreat with the exception of one, the oldest and best of their chiefs. His name was Preumaker. We know not whether pride of character or infirmity prevented his escape. It is said, however, that he received the soldiers very haughtily, aiming his gun at them and saying, "What are you doing here, you dogs?"

The weapon was easily wrenched from his feeble hands. A consultation was held as to what should be done with the courageous but powerless old chief. "As it was a considerable distance to carry him," writes Ensign Smith, "we struck him down with his own axe."

At length the sufferings of the Esopus Indians became so great from the burning of the villages and the trampling down of their cornfields, the loss of their armies and the terrified flight of their starving women and children, that they were constrained to make another effort for peace.

On the 11th of July, Governor Stuyvesant left New Amsterdam for Esopus. Messengers were dispatched to summon the Esopus chiefs to his presence. Appalled by the fate of their brethren, who had been sent as slaves to the West Indies, they were afraid to come. After waiting several days the governor sent envoys to the chiefs of other tribes, urging them "to bring the Esopus savages to terms."

At length four Esopus chiefs appeared before the gate of the village.

Delegates from other tribes also appeared, and a grand council was held. It is very evident from this interview, that many of the more delicate feelings of the civilized man had full sway in the hearts of these poor Indians. Instead of imploring peace themselves, the Esopus Indians employed two chiefs, one of the Mohawk and the other of the Mingua tribe, to make the proposition in their behalf.