KIEFT'S WAR 1643-1645

The Dutch, like all Europeans that came to the New World, engaged in a series of conflicts with coastal Native Americans during the first half-century after settlement. However, it should be noted that after the British takeover in 1664 there were few serious Indian-European conflicts in the coastal areas of the former New Netherland because by that time Dutch policies had already led to European supremacy and to the moral defeat of nearly all of the coastal tribes.

During the period of Dutch rule Indian-European relations were confined primarily to the lower and upper Hudson River Valley. Initially, the Algonquian tribes of the lower Hudson provided the lion’s share of furs and pelts to the Dutch traders. But as these areas were depleted it became necessary to tap the seemingly endless supply from the interior, and that meant establishing a favorable relationship with the Mohawks and Mahicans of the upper Hudson Valley. Because of the importance of the fur trade, this relationship was maintained at all costs.

The first twenty years of Dutch settlement marked an era of fairly peaceful relations with Native Americans. There were few settlers and they were primarily interested in the fur trade. But in the 1640’s several circumstances led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Europeans. Chief among them was a change in the policies of the West India Company that afforded new incentives to prospective colonists that included relinquishing its monopoly on the fur trade and a promise of 200 acres of land for each head of household. The combination of an expanding European population and a lessening of dependence on Native Americans for furs and food, led to an escalation of tensions between the two groups.

Abuses arose from the trade of alcohol and armaments, but more often than not, land was the cause of the conflict. Both groups were agrarian so possession and use of it was fundamental to each of them. Unlike the English, the Dutch recognized the Indians prior ownership of the land and were careful to legally obtain it through treaty and purchase. But in the end there just was not enough land to go around for both societies. European livestock trampled Indian planting fields. Heavy deforestation for firewood and construction disrupted Indian hunting grounds. They retaliated by killing livestock and sometimes its owners.

When war broke out it was New Amsterdam’s Governor Willem Kieft who orchestrated the colonial response. It should be noted that the governor of New Amsterdam was also the director-general of the entire colony of New Netherland. Kieft had a very thorough understanding of the the local Native Americans and of what Europeans could expect in the event of an all out attack by them. However, he did not have a sympathetic view of their culture, he felt, in fact, that they should be removed and exterminated.

In the summer of 1939 Kieft decided to levy a tax on the Algonquian tribes under the pretext that it would serve to defray the cost of protecting them from their enemies. The Indians thought his reasoning insulting as well as outrageous. Kieft’s real reason for the tax may have been to simply increase the colony’s supply of wampum that was so important in the fur trade. He knew that the New Englanders had received substantial quantities of wampum after defeating the Pequots in the Pequot War of 1637 and certainly he may have wanted to counter their gain.

The Indians refused to pay. A series of unrelated incidents followed. The Dutch captain of a ship charged with the collection of pelts as tribute had his face slashed; a group of Raritans were accused of killing some swine on the Staten Island plantation of David de Vries; and an elderly wheelwright, Claes Swits, was seemingly randomly killed by a young Wiechquaesquck. It was in fact, possible to explain all of these events and in so doing partially justify the actions of the Indians. But Kieft wanted war. He decided to invite the heads of families in New Amsterdam to help him chose a council of twelve to decide what should be done to respond to these events. The council decided against all out war. Kieft dismissed them and had his war—a very brutal and barbarous affair.

On February 25, 1643 Kieft launched a cruel attack on several tribes at Pavonia, present day Jersey City, massacring scores of men, women and children. Sucklings were torn from their mother’s breast and hacked to pieces as their parents looked on. Hands and legs were cut off, entrails opened to the air. The carnage touched off a full-scale war and served to unite the eleven tribes of the lower Hudson Valley against the Dutch. That autumn a force of 1500 natives invaded New Netherlands and among the dead was Anne Hutchinson, the dissident preacher. Random attacks continued to occur over the next two years. Settlers were killed; their houses, farms and grain stores burned.

When it was over the power and will of the tribes of the lower Hudson Valley were broken. And it had been a very bloody affair considering that 1,600 natives were killed when the population of New Amsterdam was only around 250. Many Dutch settlers returned to the Netherlands frightened and convinced that the West India Company could not protect them. Kieft, whose brutal policies had been almost as hard on the colonists as the natives, was recalled to explain his actions to the States General, the Netherlands’ governing body. And a new governor, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed to run the colony. The war had united many in New Netherlands against Kieft and his dictatorial governing style provoking several of the leading citizens to send letters of remonstrance to the States General demanding his removal and the institution of a representative form of government at least as liberal as that in the Netherlands. Significant changes were on the way. New Amsterdam would soon get it own city charter and the right to government by representative council. It was a beginning.


Sources:

Burrows, Edwin G. , and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Shorto, Russell. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Trelease, Allen W. Spring 1962. “Indian-White Contacts in Eastern North America: The Dutch in New Netherland.” Ethnohistory, Vol. 9, No. 2 , pp.137-146. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/480673 > [30 September 2008] .

Wikipedia contributors, “ Kieft’s War,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieft (accessed September 30, 2008).